Do stingy people realise they are being stingy?

[Shinysal]

I work in an office with one other person we’ll call him Steve. We have a team of 4 staff we manage between us and then I have another team of 10 staff which aren’t under his management.

My team of staff always include Steve in annual leave treats (we buy lunch, cakes or coffee on our last day). I regularly buy coffees for the team on my way to work. Everyone takes turns at buying coffee, milk & teabags for use in the office.

Steve never buys coffee or milk but uses the stuff available. He comes in regularly with a Starbucks for himself in the morning. He always asks anyone else finishing what they are buying for the annual leave treats.

Today he finishes for annual leave and mentioned a few times yesterday he might buy cakes or coffees then went on to say that he doesn’t think anyone wants anything as a few on healthy eating. I replied to him that he should buy them and it’s down to the individual if they want to have them and pointed out that the team always buy. He’s arrived today with a pack of 4 cakes!! He’s sat them on his desk and told everyone he bought them for annual leave but no one has actually been offered one.

do you think he realises that he’s a tight arse?? He seems completely oblivious to it!

In your scenario it’s difficult to ascertain if he’s being stingy because your workplace sounds quite over the top in terms how often/how much people seem to be expected to contribute this stuff. Expensive coffees for everyone on the regular? Cakes and treats every time someone has annual leave? I suppose there is a certain type of pressure involved in this.
Also, maybe he is struggling financially. Or maybe he has poor social skills or some kind of neurodiversity. He might not be stingy but just oblivious to the reciprocal nature of this type of social behaviour .
As for whether they are aware they are being ‘stingy’, I’m not sure. Maybe on some level, but it’s more likely they will rationalise it in some way, like him saying everyone is on a diet. To be fair to him, my office is like that. It’s kind of expected that if someone gets a say a gift for a milestone birthday or has a baby or leaves for another department and has a leaving gift, they will bring in chocolates or cakes to share round. But it’s a bit of a nonsense because in my office every second person is on a diet or eating low UPF so it’s always the same couple of people (Me being one of them) who eat most of the treats ☺️ and the rest will sit around for weeks!

Kindly, it sounds like you just like eating for the sake of it - I wouldn't want to bring in cakes or biscuits just because its the day before I go on holiday.
But the contributing towards tea bags/coffee and milk is okay.

I agree with this.

You should just have a tea / coffee fund which anyone who wants to, contributes to.

The other stuff is daft.
There's no way I'd be buying cakes and coffees the day before going on holiday.

Both my parents resented spending a penny on us
My father is just tight,I've known him walk 6 miles (one way and 6 back) just because his beer was 10p cheaper at the other shop
He once asked me to repay the 5p I borrowed from him

My mother is exactly the same unless it's for herself
We had the cheapest shoes she could get her hands on (if they fitted that was a bonus)
We never had an ice cream from the ice cream van (but called me tight when I didn't have the money to treat my own children-she didn't dip her hand into her pocket)
Our clothes where hand me downs or whatever she found at the jumble sale
Food was the cheapest she could get,I can still taste that massive tub of cheap margarine and even cheaper squash
Shampoo and shower gel had to last (the really nasty cheap brands) and if they ran out tough
She refused to buyme anything from about 11 onwards-i had to find work to buy food,sanpro,shampoo,school uniform and books etc
If it came to herself though,if she wanted it,the money was there
Posh food and treats,new car every two years,takeaways every night,nice clothes and expensive hobbies-if she wanted it,she bought it

I'm the exact opposite
If I've got it you can have it

I wouldn't be buying everyone coffee how do you carry them all? Also instead of each buying tea/coffee why don't you have a kitty that everyone contributes to?

Its horrible knowing that every penny they are forced to spend is resented isnt it? Makes me wonder why she bothered having kid to be honest.....

I don't participate in this I genuinely couldn't afford to. So I decline I also don't drink tea or coffee. This puts me in a very awkward situation in offices, I look like a Steve. Like I'm not joining in. But I'm there to work I provide all my own food and drink I don't expect to indulge in anyone else treats or for them to make me drinks.
What's really hard is when I decline a cake or biscuit because I know I cant afford to repay the favour some people won't take no for a answer. I'm met with lots of go on have a treat, join in. Jesus the anxiety of It is awful.

So maybe your Steve is being unfair because he is tucking in. But Please spare a thought for those of us that just genuinely can't afford to start participating in these kind of workplace etiquette but feel really peer pressured by them.

People probably do know whether they are stingy or generous.

The problems arise when the stingy one takes advantage of everyone else. If you don't contribute yourself, you shouldn't be eating/drinking/enjoying the stuff the none stingy ones are buying.

Its awful that they did this to us. I mean why bother having kids if you resent what they cost?!

And the thing is, if you are fed and clothed then...what is there to say? You cant report to SS for stinginess can you?

Definitely abusive though.

Have reported that advert
Disgraceful using MN for such purposes

Tightarses know they are tightarses but will find some way to justify it to themselves, eg 'others get paid more' or if they are actually the highest paid person in the team 'they don't have the expenses I do' (of the totally self inflicted kind like buying a top of the range car'

Stinginess is a character trait unrelated to money I have found. Althogh I do have a relative with an extremely well paid job who is paranoid that people are trying to take advantage of him because of his wealth and always expecting him to pay for them, so he goes the opposite way.

The phrase 'if you shoved a lump of coal up his arse, a diamond would fall out a week later' is one I often think of.

Aside from the stingy discussion, this sounds so annoying! Buying treats before I go on AL each time, no thank you 🫣

I'm nc with them now but they made me laugh the other day

I got a message to say they are not in the best of health and it's 'my duty' to look after them (I live 200 miles away and I have 3 brothers,2 are married and one has a stream of girlfriends-one or more of them can stand up and do it-having a penis doesnt stop you from wiping an arse and if they are looking for a vagina to do it-theres 2 who married in)

After I'd stopped laughing,I told them they could use the money they'd saved by not spending it on the shit I actually needed as a child/young adult and spend that on the care they now need as I'm not doing it

I'm 'selfish' apparently

Yes, stingy people know they are stingy but usually consider it "thrifty". I don't usually go in for the work culture of excessive treats and unhealthy foods but for me that means not contributing much and also not partaking much.

It is definitely more of a male thing to take but not contribute (but obviously not exclusively male). Sometimes they think they're getting one-up on the system and being smart by saving. They don't realise that people are actively clocking their stinginess and negatively judging them for it.

Of course Steve should contribute his fair share to buying tea bags, coffee & milk for the office of he drinks tea & coffee.

But for the rest of it, I agree with him. I go to work to earn money, not spend it and constantly buying rounds of Starbucks for everyone and treats for the office around annual leave sounds bonkers, as well as unhealthy and expensive. I would certainly be opting out of that. Does that make me stingy? I think it makes me sensible.

Office collections, raffles, sponsorships, donations, treat days etc etc can get completely out of hand and end up costing significant sums of money. Not to mention the social pressure to eat junk food when I’m trying to eat sensibly on work days. It always seems to be the same self-appointed people organising them, too.

Bet if he stopped eating the treats, his co-workers would be asking him why he isn't eating them and offering him the treats.

I think op needs to start a kitty so the expectations are set at the beginning. And if people want to bring in treats with no expectations of them being reciprocated they can.

Classic Steve – brings four cakes for a team of fourteen and guards them like they’re the crown jewels. Tight arse levels: Olympic standard.

Blimey OP do you seriously spend £50+ on coffee for your team regularly? There's no way I'd do that, and I'm not tight at all. At my work people often bring stuff back from holiday - local sweets, biscuits etc - but no one is expected to lay on a spread before they go away. It sounds very strange to me, and I would hate that kind of expected financial outlay for people who were just colleagues.

I didn't say she did. The OP, however is saying that this guy does.

I'm another one wondering how the holiday drinks thing became a thing. When I'm going off on holiday and rushing around doing last minute prep and packing and checking I've booked a taxi to the airport etc the last thing I'd want to do is think "oh yeah, I need to go and sort cakes and coffee for everyone". It is really wierd!

I don't think some people DO realise they're being stingy. Some people are so far into a "save money" mindset that it becomes the automatic default and they will do it in any situation without having any empathy for other people.

Example: got invited out by someone who said they had a "buy one get one half price" voucher to use and would I and a mutual friend like to go out with her? So guess what happened when the bill came? She gave the waiter her voucher and just put her half price meal cost in, then expected us to pay full price for ours. I've been in that situation before and always used that type of voucher as a money off the total type of thing then split the bill 3 ways so it was reduced for ALL of us. I wouldn't have gone out if I'd known she was going to be stingy like that, she was just using us, I was skint at the time.

Same person when putting cash in at the end of a group meal used to take change back when they put a note in to cover their meal, but occasionally i noticed they would also take a bit extra back if they thought too much had been left on the table. But the extra was money that others had put in towards a tip! Honestly, so stingy.....

This person would never ever leave any tip for waiting staff and got quite irate once when I said I thought if you'd had good service it was mean not to leave a tip as they didn't earn much and it was unsociable hours and hard work on your feet all the time for hours. Their argument was that they worked hard too (at a computer) and they didn't get tips, "and anyway, waiting salaries aren't THAT bad."

It really turns you off a person...

Sounds very OTT, I don’t think I could be arsed with it and definitely would not be buying people coffees from Starbucks on my way to work. I don’t think he is being stingy, he sounds like the reasonable one.

Steve is either a CF or he is neurodiverse/falls somewhere on the spectrum and therefore needs clear instructions of what is expected of him.

Either way, someone needs to tell him to buy some tea/coffee, milk etc.

I don’t know about Steve but I have pondered this often. I have recently come across a whole heap of bizarrely stingy behaviour (see my thread on paying to attend an engagement party).

I have found myself recently agog at the level of miserliness of some people - for example my BIL who sold his old laptop to my in laws rather than just give it to them when he was buying a new one anyway. Or my friend who always always brings 4 kronenbergs for him to drink to an event hosted at someone else’s house…and always wants to drink more than that and ends up relying on the good grace of others.

I don’t know if people don’t realise, or they just don’t care. I find it hard tbh - people penny pinching or quibbling about the bill on the night out gives me the ick, I tend to just go to the toilet when it happens and return to find out how much it has been decided we will all pay. It also makes it hard when you are doing what I think are normal things and people make it out like you’re being flashy with your money, an example recently being on holiday with my in laws we ordered some packed lunches for the day, I happened to order them, they were only £7 each so I just bought them and then suddenly it’s a drama about how “it needs to be fair” and “they owe us money”. Painful.

Of course you are! Because now they have to spend some of their money instead of you doing it for free you selfish woman!

Clearly they are unfamiliar with the concept of consequences.

Ok, but you did say ‘you’, not ‘this guy’.

But I get you.