The "How Cheap Can You Get?" Thread

[vivalostwages]

Not that there's anything wrong with saving money, but I'm talkin' extremes here. See my contribution/starter below:

I once had a pen pal ("L") who always asked me to return her stamps to her after her letters arrived. I did so, not sure why she wanted them back. Eventually, she leveled with me: Before sending out mail to pen pals, she coated the stamp with a thin layer of Elmer's Glue, letting it dry completely before mailing. Then, when her pals would send the cancelled stamps back to her, she'd take a little cloth, warm water and soap, and dab at the ink marks. They would come off because they were on top the layer of dried glue on the stamp. She would then "recycle" the stamps for extended use.
I never thought it was worth all the effort, though it was rather amusing.

So, do you have any "extremes of cheapitude" you'd like to share with the group?

[alice_in_wonderland]

I always find people that whip out a calculator after a shared meal in a restaraunt rather amusing.

The best one that I can think of, which I chalk up to frugalness, rather than cheapness is my grandma - she washes out garbage bags and reuses them. (ie dumps the garbage out of the bag into the dumpster and then washes and reuses the bag in the kitchen)

[Tyklfe]

A man my dad works with took a woman on a date and during their evening they stoped at Wendys. While there the guy ordered a triple and a single burger. When he got back to the table he pulled one patty off of his burger and put it on hers. This was his first and last date with her....

[Sylkyn]

My ex-husband was the cheapest person I've ever had the misfortune to know. He would not eat ANYWHERE if he didn't have some kind of coupon for it. I have seen him leave Cap'n Dees, KFC, Popeye's, and countless other restaurants if his coupons were expired or if that particular location were not honoring them. Even if it was only for ten cents!

He would line his shoes with cardboard, if the soles wore out, like you see homeless people doing. He wore clothes that were at least then years out of date and threadbare because he would not spend the money on clothes until they literally fell apart.

He would steal toilet paper and paper towels from work to keep from having to buy it. He'd take napkins by the gross, straws by the dozens, and literally bags full of ketchup and other condiments from places he'd eat.

He made such a pig of himself at all-you-can-eat places that I refused to go with him. Not only that, but would insist the waitress leave a full tea jug on the table during the meal.

Now you know one of the reasons he's my EX. Believe it or not, this wasn't the worst trait of his.

Oh, and by the way, he came across as totally the opposite when we dated, in case anybody thinks I was insane for marrying him in the first place. Which I was, but that's beside the point.

[Bill H.]

I was on a business trip to Germany several years ago. While there, a relative back home in the States (whom I love very much so I won't name them here) asked me to bring back some hand creme that was made there. I don't recall the brand. I searched in at least 4 or 5 places before I finally found it. They wanted about a dozen tins of the stuff, and each tin was big and bulky. It was quite a chore finding the stuff, and carrying it back (it almost filled an entire suitcase, with several more business stops along the way. I just assumed you could only get the stuff in Germany or something and that this was some special thing for them.

WRONG! It was about a buck cheaper per tin in Germany, where it was made. Man, I would've gladly given them a $20 to have some lotion on me...

[Chas.E]

My dad, at the apex of his financial career, being a multimillionaire (soon to be an ex-millionaire after the S&L crisis) used to eat lunch at Wendys because he liked to swipe dozens of packets of saltine crackers. I once looked in his office desk drawer and there must have been a hundred packages in there. Yeah, he's a cheap bastard.

[OxyMoron]

But back to stamps. A former roommate, who otherwise was pretty cool in almost every respect, used to divide the bills to acknowledge the cost of a stamp - and would either make an adjustment or ensure that each month we flipped sending the damn bill.

Oh, and he didn't register his car in New York, maintaining the fiction that the car was from Massachusetts. That meant that the one time I drove it in Manhattan (at the end of the month, I might add), I got a ticket when I turned left as the light turned. And the reason I was driving was to pick his ass up from the hospital after he'd had knee surgery!

Apparently, after he moved out he simply stopped buying insurance at all. It wasn't a problem until he drove into a median.

(Luckily, he only damaged himself, his car, and some concrete.)

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

Oxy, one of my college friends was like that. She figured out the phone bill, and then kept track of who had provided the stamp the pervious month. If she'd put the stamp on in October, then her roommate Caroline had to provide it in November. I thought that was a little extreme, but everyone has their "thing" and fairness about billpaying was hers, I guess.

My other stories about people pale in comparison to what's been offered. I will add that my ex-brother-in-law used to always take the kids to a certain pizza parlor on his night to have them. It was a "kids eat free" night and he wouldn't let them order any drinks. I mean, jesus, you see your kids one fricking night a week (when you don't cancel, that is) and you won't even spot them a coke when their meal is otherwise free?!?! He wasn't cheap otherwise, unless you count cancelling the kids' insurance coverage so he could afford his new truck.

[Legomancer]

My sister's house burned down a few years ago, and they lost many of their cherished posessions. Once they rebuilt and moved in, my dad gave them a nice candle and holder for their mantle. As they thanked him for it, he remarked that he liked it, but when he saw it was $50, he felt that was too much. BUT, it turned out there was a sale, and he got it for half off!

"So," my brother-in-law mused to me and my sister, "we're worth somewhere between $25 and $50 to him."

It's true. My dad is incredibly cheap. And he THINKS he is getting bargains. He buys electronics from Radio Shack because they're cheaper, even though they break very soon afterwards. I have tried to tell him that getting something worth $50 for $50 is not a bargain, even if it's cheaper than somethign that costs more but is better. You can't convince him of that.

[TVeblen]

You want cheap? This one is a jaw-dropper.

One of my friend's parents were classic, frugal Depression Generation, especially the father. They were rather well-to-do but pinched every penny to the point it was ludicrous.

My friend was having dinner with them when the mom started having severe chest pains. My friend immediately called 911 and summoned an ambulance--and his father was FURIOUS. He actually tried to call the dispatcher and cancel the emergency crew, insisting it would be much cheaper to just drive her to the hospital himself.

He ranted all the way to the hospital, cussing out my friend and insisting he'd have to pay for the ambulance, since he was so fond of "wasting money".

It turned out the mother had suffered a severe heart attack and the paramedics' prompt intervention literally bought her the time that saved her life. The father was a bit sheepish later, once he realized how close a call it really was, but never apologized. And he complained so bitterly about about the medical expenses my friend ended up paying for the ambulance run anyway, just out of weariness and disgust.

On second thought that may be pathological rather than cheap.

Veb

[Eliahna]

I have mentioned my future mother-in-law's frugal ways on here before.

She reuses teabags. Keeps them piled on a plate in the kitchen, and uses them over and over again. Fair enough, she likes weak tea, but she makes tea for visitors out of second hand teabags regardless of how they like their tea.

She buys foods that her family don't really like, because they last longer. So, she'll buy a breakfast cereal the kids hate, and then the kids will only eat it when they're starving. Extend this to everything in the house.

My parents spent my entire childhood telling me off for reading in the semi-dark ("You'll ruin your eyes!"). My fMIL has turned the light off on me to save money and electricity. Even when it's too dark to see the book properly, she didn't approve of me having the light on to read if I was in a room by myself.

She kept buying lawn edgers from garage sales because they were cheap. The fact that they were broken didn't deter her - she bought a heap of the same type, and tried to get her son to raid them all for the parts to make one that worked. Unfortunately, all of them had exactly the same fault. So she keeps them in the shed in the hopes that one day, she will find a one that will have the part she needs to fix one of the other 6 she already has.

When we bought our house, the garden beds in front had bark - which I like - and the ones in back had those little red stones (Scorria?), which I hate. We were talking about the gardens and I said I wanted to get rid of the scorria because I hate it, and she got very angry and insistant that we don't get rid of it because it's expensive to buy. Now, to me, scorria is worthless because I dislike it but to her, because it costs so much to buy, liking it or disliking it is irrelevant and she thinks I should keep it. It's this thinking that leaves me totally confused.

My uncle used to have two televisions - one on top of the other. Both were ancient, and while the picture tube was gone in one, the speaker was gone in the other. So to watch TV, they'd turn both on, the top one provided the sound and the bottom one the picture. They were too cheap to go out and buy a new TV, and used this arrangement for years.

[Fear Itself]

A friend of mine was a barista at a coffee stand where the manager would buy rolls of Canadian quarters for $6.00, and use them to make change (Canadian coinage is very common in Alaska). He would also reclaim the little cup jackets from empty cups and use them again.

[voguevixen]

Originally posted by Legomancer
My sister's house burned down a few years ago, and they lost many of their cherished posessions. Once they rebuilt and moved in, my dad gave them a nice candle and holder for their mantle.

Forget his insensitive remark about the cost -- I find it appallingly crass that he'd consider a candle an appropriate gift for someone whose house just burned down! Did he give them some oily rags and old, sparky wiring too?

I actually think the thing with the two TVs is sorta clever.

[Kaitlyn]

My stepfather was so cheap, he expected me to skip school to help him retrieve road kill for our supper.

When I was in high school, on the way to school, I saw a large concrete truck hit and kill a deer (one with a pretty good set of antlers, too), leaving it in the middle of the road. Not wanting to leave it as a road hazard, I stopped, dragged it into a ditch, and went off to school. I shared the story with some friends, and one of them either skipped class or called home; I don't know what exactly. In any case, by the time school was out, a classmate's father had collected the deer and there was a big crowd in front of the school to look at it in the back of his pickup. He told me it was an "eleven point buck", which from his expression I assume must be a good thing (I still have no idea what this means, other than that the deer was male, which I already knew).

Later that night, my step-father, who was an avid deer hunter, was telling hunting stories with his friends. I wasn't paying much attention until the words "eight point buck" jumped out at me. Happy to have something to share with him for once (we didn't really connect, me being an egghead and him being a misanthropic troglodyte), I told him about what had happened. At worst, I thought I would be ignored; at best, I thought I might be complemented for my good citizenship at removing a road hazard (to me, that was the important part of the story). He was furious with me, and spent the next half hour yelling at me for not skipping first hour to come get him so he could have the deer. "That deer could have fed us for a week" is still seared in my brain. Hmm. Go to chemistry class, or tell stepfather about roadkill? I think I made the right choice.

[bup]

Originally posted by cazzle
My parents spent my entire childhood telling me off for reading in the semi-dark ("You'll ruin your eyes!"). My fMIL has turned the light off on me to save money and electricity. Even when it's too dark to see the book properly, she didn't approve of me having the light on to read if I was in a room by myself.

{Ann Landers Voice} Your fMIL needs to be told to mind her own beeswax, honey. Wake up and smell the coffee. {/Ann Landers Voice}

Sorry. But you shouldn't have to put up with that.

My stepfather, who grew up on a farm in the depression and
so has a pretty good excuse, re-uses charcoal. He scoops
the hot embers into an empty coffee can, and smothers the
fire with the metal lid he saved when he opened the coffee
can with a can opener.

[elbows]

I have seen Mr Elbows, with my own eyes, reach into a gutter to retrieve an aluminum coin. This in a third world country.

I chastised him as the cheapest man on three continents, so he was feeling a little sheepish. So he gives this coin to the next beggar that he sees. The beggar looks into his cup realizes he's been given a coin worth only a tiny fraction of a penny and promptly throws it back at Mr Elbows. I still laugh when I think about it.

And you know, Mr Elbows went and picked it up again and pocketed it!

I also once worked for an Eastern European restauranteur who, at the end of the evening, would take the ice left in the bin behind the bar and return it to the ice machine!

[Tit Whistle]

A notoriously penuristic friend once proudly admitted that while in college he lived for several months in his apartment with only one light bulb. At night, the cheap bastard would carry the bulb from room to room, screwing it into whatever light he needed to use at that time. No amount of ridicule has ever been able to get him to admit that maybe he was being a little too cheap.

[Zumba The Cat]

My favorite Sushi Bar is owned by an elderly Japanese couple. The wife is the hostess and the main waitress in the restaurant.

If you aren't familiar with Sushi Bars, they have paper sushi menus and little pencils. You mark what sushi you want on the menu and they give it to the chief.

The wife is so cheap that she erases the menus and reuses them countless times. All the menus are dirty, greasy, torn, bent and erased. If someone uses a pen then you get to watch her pull out the white-out.

I am tempted to steal a menu and make some fresh ones for her. You could probably fit 3 of them to a piece of paper. How much could it cost to get 500 copies?

[mikehardware]

While I've had a friend who would check every pay phone for coins left in the coin return, collect packets of condiments from the cafeteria, and check for coins under vending machines, I'd still have to give my dad the award for most cheap.

I've got lots of stories about dad, but this is a definite highlight. I needed braces as a kid. I needed some space for the new teeth to come in, so dad (who lived through the Great Depression) decided to pull a tooth to make some room. Why pay the dentist for something he could do, right? He'd handled pulling my baby teeth with small pliers with no problem, but this was a permanent tooth. (On the upper right, the one right behind the canine, with two points on it.) He promised to stop if it hurt, so I let him try. He started pulling, I started yelling as best I could with pliers in my mouth, and surprise, surprise, he didn't stop. At least until the tooth broke. I've now got a tooth with only one point, and a great story to tell every dentist I see. Don't worry, it quit hurting after a couple of hours, and dad wasn't allowed to do further dental work on me after that.

[pestie]

Wow, this post is chock full of reply-worthy goodness!

Originally posted by cazzle
She reuses teabags. Keeps them piled on a plate in the kitchen, and uses them over and over again. Fair enough, she likes weak tea, but she makes tea for visitors out of second hand teabags regardless of how they like their tea.

This reminds me of my girlfriend. She saves old dryer sheets (the ones that act as fabric softener and anti-static agent). She insists they're reusable and just throws in a buttload of used ones rather than a single new sheet. Actually, I think I may have broken her of that habit by complaining loudly enough and offering to buy all the dryer sheets she needs.

My father saves used paper towels. He got this habit from his father, who grew up in the Depression and who kept a bag of them handy at all times. Of course, he used to keep a spray-bottle full of gasoline in his workshop which he used to clean his hands, too. Yikes. He lived to be almost 90, though...

My parents spent my entire childhood telling me off for reading in the semi-dark ("You'll ruin your eyes!"). My fMIL has turned the light off on me to save money and electricity. Even when it's too dark to see the book properly, she didn't approve of me having the light on to read if I was in a room by myself.

First of all, what the hell's an fMIL?

Again, reminds me of my girlfriend. She's spent her whole life being obsessed with turning off lights. When I met her, she used to do just about everything in complete darkness. When she did use lights, she had 40-watt bulbs at most. My eyes always hurt when I was in her apartment at night. They'd constantly be trying and failing to properly focus in the insufficient lighting. Now that we live together, I leave lights on constantly, even at night. She's gotten used to it, but if I leave for a few days for any reason, she's right back to her old habits.

My uncle used to have two televisions - one on top of the other. Both were ancient, and while the picture tube was gone in one, the speaker was gone in the other. So to watch TV, they'd turn both on, the top one provided the sound and the bottom one the picture. They were too cheap to go out and buy a new TV, and used this arrangement for years.

I used to hear about people doing something like this back in the old days of C-band ("big dish") satellite TV. The scrambled video was easy to fix, but the audio was much more securely encrypted. Often, though, cable TV offered the same channels with scrambled video and clear audio. So, the trick was to watch the video from the satellite and the audio from cable. The only problem was that the audio frequently lagged behind the video by a second or so due to the slight delay introduced by the cable system receving, descrambling, rescrambling and retransmitting the signal from the satellite. Seems to me it'd be a lot less hassle to just buy the channel from the cable company, but hey...

[Lamia]

Originally posted by Number Six
He told me it was an "eleven point buck", which from his expression I assume must be a good thing (I still have no idea what this means, other than that the deer was male, which I already knew).

I think it refers to the size of the antlers. I am unsure why this matters to hunters, except for the obvious Freudian reason.

Anyway, I think your story takes the prize!

[TheRob]

AH MY DAD! I'm 16 so I still live with my parents.

I can't tell my dad how much I spend on anything , I bought my girlfriend a $150 dollar ning for her birthday, I told my dad it cost $50 and he was not happy.
Of course he didn't buy my mom ANYTHING for her birthday and no he didn't forget he just didn't buy her anything.
He does all his own house work and appliance, and automotive repairs, luckily he's good at it , most of the time anyway.
He'll pick lot's of things out of other people's garbages but you'll never catch him at a garage sale where people sell their useless crap rather than just throw it out.
He brings popcorn, soda ,and candy to the movies all under his old worn-out tight fitting jacket. Have you ever seen someone with two or three bags of micro-waved popcorn under a tight fitting jacket? Needless to say I don't goto the movies with him EVER, no matter what. I'll go to the movies with my girlfriend and spend 40 to 50 dollars, (60 if we play in the arcade if we have to wait), I could care less how much it costs!
We just bought a , $10.99 30-inch bow-saw for camping, (cutting firewood and whatnot) he told my mom to bring it back and get the 24-inch for $8.99, I threw 2 dollars at him and told him if it means that much to him he can have the 2 bucks or use it to buy gas to go to the mall to return it.

Whew. that's all for now if something funny comes up I'll be sure to post it.

[TheRob]

That should say ring, Goddamn NEYBOARD!

[vivalostwages]

[quote]Originally posted by pestie
[b]Wow, this post is chock full of reply-worthy goodness!

[quote][First of all, what the hell's an fMIL?
[quote][b]

{lots of snips and I've probably messed up the quotes)

An fMIL.....Hmmmm.....Former mother-in-law ????

[xizor]

I think I've posted this before but it is worth repeating for this thread. In high school I worked at a restaurant with a very cheap boss. One day he started digging through the garbage collecting unopened coffee cream thingies. It took him an hour or so, but he found 100 of them. Now if these things cost $0.02 each, that is a whole $2.00 he saved! But here's the problem, they came out of the trash so they are nasty. No problem, he runs them through the dishwasher. The 500(?) degree dishwasher that sterilizes everything and spoils cream instantly. So the next 50 people who come in end up putting spoiled cream in their coffee thereby making him spend more replacing coffee than he saved digging creamers out of the trash. HA!

[Munch]

I knew someone who was subletting an apartment over the summer, and wanted to save money. He unplugged nearly every appliance - to the extent that he didn't use his refrigerator. He only bought food that didn't need to be kept cold. And things that are just convenient to keep cold (soda, butter, jelly, etc.) he just kept room temperature.

He turned off the water heater, and just took cold showers all summer. In fact, he was worried about the amount of money he was losing to keep the pilot-light going, so he completely shut off the gas to the water heater.

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by xizor
I think I've posted this before but it is worth repeating for this thread. In high school I worked at a restaurant with a very cheap boss. One day he started digging through the garbage collecting unopened coffee cream thingies. It took him an hour or so, but he found 100 of them. Now if these things cost $0.02 each, that is a whole $2.00 he saved! But here's the problem, they came out of the trash so they are nasty. No problem, he runs them through the dishwasher. The 500(?) degree dishwasher that sterilizes everything and spoils cream instantly. So the next 50 people who come in end up putting spoiled cream in their coffee thereby making him spend more replacing coffee than he saved digging creamers out of the trash. HA!

It varies depending on state regualations, but food service dishwashers are usually set at 160-180 degrees.

[Annie-Xmas]

I once worked for a guy who noticed that I had mailed a company letter to someone who lived on my block. He got very upset that I hadn't taken it there on my way home, thus saving the company 25 cents.

[Vestal Blue]

Brandnew Stafford Suit, pinstriped grey, up to date styling.
from the Idaho Youth Ranch store. Cost me $12.50, and fits perfect. I saved $90, and helped a worthy cause.
The downside of doing this sort of thing is I get sticker shock when looking at clothes prices at retail stores.

I do like the one about the lawn edgers though; They're all broken the same way for a reason! LOL!

[Cat Whisperer]

Being frugal by nature and more so by necessity, it does my heart good to see that I'm nowhere near the level of cheapness of anyone mentioned in this thread. I shop in thrift stores, mostly because the women's garment industry is one of the biggest rip-offs around; if I eat out, I eat with a coupon if possible. Why not? They come to my door for free, and I never mind saving a quarter or two. I spend money when I have to, and I save when I can. Works for me.

[TheRob]

Sure featherlou, I'll use a coupon too if I can, but to actually leave and go somewhere else because I can't save a few bucks, it's not worth it to me. I agree save when you can spend when you have to, just don't make spending money a thing you HATE to do, like some people I know.

[Lionors]

My ex. Oh, god, the stories I could tell.

But the cheapskate thing he used to do that not only annoyed me to death but just downright humiliated me had to be his habit of finding something -- *anything* -- to complain about when we dined out or stayed in hotels on vacation. Being a rather obnoxious sort, he realized he could often get something for free if he did this.

I have no problem about complaining if something is actually WRONG, but you would not believe the lengths he would go to in order to get something for nothing, be it for free or an upgrade of what he paid for initially. The incident that sticks out is something that happened one time when we went to a reasonably fancy restaurant. Midway through the entree, he excuses himself and goes to the men's room. Shortly after he returns, he waves over the waiter and proceeds to show him a dead fly lodged beneath a fold of meat, then starts throwing a fit. Well, the waiter checks with whomever he has to check with and they write off his entire meal. Not only that, he got another entree.

Come to find out, he'd picked up the fly in the restroom and slipped it there himself. Had he not told me in the car going home, I swear I would have gone in and told them the whole story and gotten them to charge the bill.

Fortunately, this was very close to the end of our marriage. I'm sure no one questions WHY this marriage was ill-fated...

[Louie]

Everyday at work, I usually find 4 or 5 pennies and nickels on the floor while I'm sweeping the floor. I pocket them all, even if they're found next to the blind camp donation box. I use all the pennies at the post office stamp machine to get one stamp, and send a letter to my buddy who lives cross-country. And yes, I only send a letter if I have 34 cents in coins. Nevermind the fact that I usually have at least $40 in my wallet.

[Dijon Warlock]

Originally posted by Lamia

I think it refers to the size of the antlers. I am unsure why this matters to hunters, except for the obvious Freudian reason.

Not exactly the size, but the number of points (eh? eh?) on the rack of antlers...points being the sharp pointy things, of course. The reason this matters to hunters is that higher point racks are rarer than lower point racks (and take longer to develop), and are thus a better trophy. "Obviously Freudian reasons"? I'm not even going to ask...

[City Gent]

My dad had a mole on the side of his head that started growing and changing color. Anyone who's read one of those pamphlets with pictures of moles knows what that means.

Rather than go to the doctor (mind you, he's fully insured), he burned off the mole with a cigarette. Needless to say, the mole didn't go away, and he ended up having it surgically removed (it was a carcinoma; he's OK now).

That, my fine friends, is cheap. Actually it was motivated by a combination of cheapness and disdain for doctors.

[1kBR Kid]

Wow. The restaurant thing. And I didn't think I'd be able to contribute.

When I was in high school I worked as a dish washer in a steak restaurant. The owner would have me soak pots and pans in cold water with detergent rather than plain hot water. Why? Because hot water costs more than detergent. (really????)

The salad bar had peach and cherry cobbler. The customers weren't very neat about their portions, so the pans would have crust and fruit inside when they were changed out. The owner would scrape that crap out and add it to the pan when baking the next cobbler.

Salad bar again. The Kale (sp?) leaves that surround all the bowls was re-used several days in a row. The owner had his wife dig out the bits of food and CHEWED BUBBLE GUM!!!


I never ate there again. I worked in a lot of restaurants and don't eat out much at all, actually.

[Creaky]

Cheapo Antics of My Family:

Washing out Ziploc Baggies and using them again. And again.

Driving Fords.

Coupons for everything.

"Early Bird" dinner specials.

Matinee movies.

Shopping for clothing pretty much exclusively at Walmart,Target and (when we really get fancy) Sears, Roebuck. Then we keep that clothing for all time. My dad still has shorts he wore during the Bicentennial.

Using a toothpaste tube clip to squeeze the most out of each tube.

Putting bars of (Ivory, what else?) soap on the water heater to harden them up so they last longer.

Eating lots of leftovers.

Wearing hand-me-downs from anybody as long as they mostly fit.

Buying cheap beer and liquor.

Buying day-old bakery products.

Putting the nozzle end of the leaky garden hose in a bucket; my mother uses what collects to water the plants.

Getting our shoes re-soled and re-heeled.

[Sultan Kinkari]

You wanna hear cheap?

I had a friend who when mailing a letter would put her address as the adressee and the return address as the person she was trying to send it to. She would then drop it in a blue mail box without a stamp. The PO would do a "RETURN TO SENDER" to the person she was trying to send the letter to.

[Creaky]

wishbone, I've heard of that one, and I actually thought about doing it, but then I read somewhere (I honestly don't remember where) that if the Post Office somehow caught you, you could go to prison.

Man, if that's true, what an embarrassing thing to go to the pokey for!

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by Creaky
wishbone, I've heard of that one, and I actually thought about doing it, but then I read somewhere (I honestly don't remember where) that if the Post Office somehow caught you, you could go to prison.

Man, if that's true, what an embarrassing thing to go to the pokey for!

Yep, it's a federal crime, a form of mail fraud. So is the example in the OP of reusing stamps. It is a federal crime to reuse stamps, even if they haven't been canceled.

[Turbo Dog]

I was never cheap until I had kids. I remember being in the store and looking at something that was about 10 bucks. Then it hit me that my $10 meal could instead by a can of formula and the baby could eat for a week. Suddenly, I was a miser. I have expensive tastes, but rarely allow myself the luxury.

I'll insist that my wife buy a $100 outfit cuz she looks great in it, but will not buy socks for myself unless they are in clearance.

I'll make a bandaid for myself out of duct tape and TP (my kids might need one and I'd hate to have used the one bandaid that could have made him feel better).

I too will reuse tea bags for myself, to the point where I'll need 5 bags in a cup to get a decent strength.

I'll starve rather than eat the leftover dinner in the fridge (someone else might really have plans for it later). But if it was left out overnight, I know that they might get sick from it, so I'll eat it.

When we lived in the desert, if it was just myself in the car, I would not use the AC to save the half pint of gas.

I did splurge on the gold mesh coffee filter, knowing it would save cash in the long run over paper filters.

I use the same razor until it literally starts pulling hairs out, rather than cutting them. And I haven't used shaving cream in 10 years. Water does a decent job. And I don't use after shave, I use rubbing alcohol (same thing but without the aroma).

There's lots more, but you get the idea.

[DocCathode]

This week my home town, Philadelphia, has been having a heat wave. With the humidity, most days felt over a hundred degrees. An elderly woman actually died rather than use her air conditioner. She felt that she could not afford it. It would be comical if it wasn't so sad.

I'm a cheapskate myself. Being resistant to the cold, I leave my apartment around 55 or so in the winter. The real problem with this is that my hands tend to chap rather badly. I walk the 20 blocks from my shrink to the comic book store rather than give SEPTA the $1.90 for a 2 minute ride. I do dumpster dive for some things. I've saved a fortune by harvesting electrical components from discarded TV's and such instead of buying resistors, capacitors and the like from stores. I'm writing this on 133 MHZ with 32 megs of ram. I'll upgrade when one of my friends uprgades their system and gives me the old parts. I have no long distance provider. When I moved in, I realised that I make so few long doistance calls that using 1010321, 1010220 and the others is actually cheaper than paying a monthly long distance fee.Of course, I can get away with most of this as I'm living on SSI.

[Guinastasia]

Originally posted by Chas.E
My dad, at the apex of his financial career, being a multimillionaire (soon to be an ex-millionaire after the S&L crisis) used to eat lunch at Wendys because he liked to swipe dozens of packets of saltine crackers. I once looked in his office desk drawer and there must have been a hundred packages in there. Yeah, he's a cheap bastard.

They'd probably go STALE after awhile-so what was the point?

Some people...

Silky-just have to ask-was he a lousy tipper, too?

Hey, I always check coin returns on phones when I use them...once found a buck. (I don't do it obsessively, but just for the hell of it).


Let's see, Mike-your DAD tried to pull a tooth on you? Um...isn't that, shall we say, abusive? I don't want to start something, but that strikes me as downright cruel.

And hey, who DOESN'T bring their own food to the movies...a small popcorn is five bucks. It's seriously seriously overpriced...why bother?

A guy in our school district-the School lunch program director-resells the milk that isn't drunk. What the little kids are supposed to do is put it up on a table-where normally it would be thrown out, or taken home by cafeteria staff. No, this asshole takes it, refreezes it and resells it. Which is ILLEGAL. Not only that, he cheats on all the expenses. I'm thinking that he's not cheap, though, but simply pocketing the difference. I hope he gets caught, the bastard.

Let's see....I don't know if being cheap is the reason, but my grandfather washes his hair (what little is left, that is) with regular bar soap...even when he HAD a full head of hair. Ick.

[Sylkyn]

Originally posted by Guinastasia
Silky-just have to ask-was he a lousy tipper, too?

Oh yeah. Horrible. In fact, rarely even left a tip. If he did deign to tip, it was always a dollar.

One time he left two dollars because he knew the waitress from school.

Mostly he avoided places where he had to tip. Fast food places and the like were where he preferred to go.

Also, if we DID happen to go somewhere decent, and he left nothing or his usual crappy buck, I always left more money out of my own purse. But I had to do it after he'd walked away, or he'd pick it up and put it in his wallet.

This is no lie.

[Fear Itself]

Originally posted by Number Six
My stepfather was so cheap, he expected me to skip school to help him retrieve road kill for our supper.

Now wait just a minute; I might agree with you if the roadkill in question was a possum or a tortoise sqaushed on the interstate. But a full grown deer? Abandoning that is just wasteful! Here in Alaska, moose/auto interaction is common, and a freshly killed moose can yield 500-100 pounds of very good meat. Read this to see how this meat is put to a good use.

[buddy1]

I would like to turn this thread a bit, and make a comment-what IS WRONG about using an asset for the whole of its useful design life? I am an engineer by trade, and I am constantly amazed by how well most products are made today-yet people only use them for a small fraction of their designed lifetime. For example, a good quaity medium-priced car will last for 20 years (if given good care). The average TV set should last 11-12 years, radios at least 30 years. Your house, if maintained, should last indefinitely! So why do people waste so much money, by throwing away products that are still good? Here's a sample of my inventory of goods:
-wristwatch (Waltham, 1928)-works great!
-vaccuum cleaner-ca 1965, works great (I had to replace the cord)
-dining room set-ca 1920's
-TV-1976 model (color is beginning to fade)
-my forks and spoons and kniives-1930's
I say this because it seems that Americans love to discard products that have many years of service remaining-why??

[Cat Whisperer]

I agree, buddy1. I think people either don't realize that something old still can be very useful, or they don't care because they like getting new stuff (North Americans are uber-consumers, you know). There's also the factor that stuff made recently was never built with the idea of lasting.

[Guinastasia]

I think because some things shouldn't be used that long-such as old cribs (some of them have lead paint on them), and old microwaves. Not everything is exactly safe.

Still, I LIKE old things, like old furniture and jewelry and old clothes. But it should be stuff that is BUILT to last, not falling apart!

[Morgyn]

Originally posted by Guinastasia
Let's see....I don't know if being cheap is the reason, but my grandfather washes his hair (what little is left, that is) with regular bar soap...even when he HAD a full head of hair. Ick.

I've got a friend who doesn't buy bar soap and uses shampoo for everything in the shower . . .

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by Fear Itself

Now wait just a minute; I might agree with you if the roadkill in question was a possum or a tortoise sqaushed on the interstate. But a full grown deer? Abandoning that is just wasteful! Here in Alaska, moose/auto interaction is common, and a freshly killed moose can yield 500-100 pounds of very good meat. Read this to see how this meat is put to a good use.

First, it wasn't a moose. Second, I didn't abandon it; it wasn't mine to abandon. Third, we had enough to eat, so it would have been wasteful for us to have taken the deer when we didn't need it. Fourth, it didn't go to waste, it was picked up within a few hours. Fifth, my stepfather seemed most upset about it being an "eleven point buck", not a food source for the family.

But most important, and I thought I made this clear, I would have had to skip school (Chemistry first hour, and probably second hour Calculus) to go find my stepfather and show him where the deer was. He considered his trophy, a trophy he did nothing to earn, more imortant than my education. I maintain that this is cheap.

By the way, the farmer who did retrieve the deer butchered it himself, and offered my mom half the meat as a reward for having found the deer. My mom thanked him for his generous offer, then suggested that he give the meat to a family that needed it, which he did.