I can deal with misers and greedy people generally, especially by avoiding them. And I don’t have any relatives to die and have problems with that, when my parents do die (and I prefer not to think about this) they’ve already worked out giving most of the things that matter out fairly, and my sibs are generally ok people. Besides, my parents supported each of their kids until they were educated and able to work enough to support themselves, and so that’s good enough IMO.
But what really bugs me are people who get annoyed when you’re not suitably impressed with their money. Yeah, I can’t afford all that cool stuff you can. Yes, your house is beautiful. Yes, your kids are making a bundle. So what? The worst was one of my ex-roommates, she seemed to think that people who didn’t wear brand name clothing were doing something horrible or something. Well, it’s nice that you’re being put through college and given large quantities of money to do with as you like without needing to work at all, but most of the people here aren’t able to do that, you idiot. And I have a lot more respect for most of them than for you. Thanks for letting me rant 
I’m with DrDec on this one. I’m thrifty, but not cheap or greedy to the point of taking it out on others. For example, I make ice tea at home and send it in my husband’s lunch in reused Snapple bottles so he doesn’t have to spend $2 to get one out of the machine at work. After the cost of the tea is subtracted, I figure this saves me like $500 a year (he works 6 days a week,) but I don’t hoard this money in an old sock like a miser. I do this so that I can afford to do “non-thrifty” things like go out and have drinks with friends without putting it on my credit card and wondering how it’s gonna get paid for.
Now for TRULY cheap bastardliness, I have to tell you about the insurance agent I worked for. Once a day he would send myself or his other assistant downstairs and across the street to buy his Cafe au Lait with exact change and for god’s sake don’t you dare forget the punch card for his free one! One day I went down and the price had gone up a nickel, so I shrugged and bought a medium and brought it back with the change. I told him the price on the large had gone up and he said “That’s impossible, it went up a couple weeks ago.” I said “Be that as it may, it said $XX on the sign.” He snatched his change and coffee and called down to the coffee shop to verify that I wasn’t trying to pocket his hard earned nickel. Then, apparently thinking the employee answering the phone was somehow in cahoots with me (perhaps I would be giving him a hefty cut of the nickel take :rolleyes: ), he put on his coat and went to the shop to see the sign for himself. I thought that was the end of that, but he started sending me 2 blocks away to some coffee shop that didn’t usually SERVE Cafe au Lait, so you had to waste time waiting for them to steam some milk and add it to regular coffee. After about a week of this the genius actually pulled out his calculator, figured out how much time it took me to walk four blocks and get his coffee and decided “Gee, it’s not really cost effective for me to save a dime on coffee when it’s costing me $4 of your hourly wage!” No shit? DUH! This was just the tip of the iceburg. He also wouldn’t use the Insurance Courier Service because he thought it was a wastful expense, so he’d send one of us on foot to deliver something 10 blocks away (believe me, we always made sure we ran a few errands of our own during this time.) The one that really took the cake was one day when we were sitting in his office and he took a speakerphone call from his wife. We listened to her ask “Were you able to set up dinner with Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So for Thanksgiving?” and he replied “No, I guess we’ll have to have it with the kids.” and she (his partner in cheapbastidness) said “Oh, too bad. You can’t write that off, can you?” and he said “Why not? The kids are policyholders.” BOINGGGG! The other assistant and I just slowly turned our heads to each other and stared like we couldn’t believe it. Oh yeah, and he did the yearly bonus with taxes taken out too. That guy was a psycho, glad to not work there anymore. Sheesh!
OMG, Tater, we must have the same mother-in-law!! :eek:
When MY son was born, I had some serious complications, also (premature, c-section, hemorraging, you get the idea), and yes, we both were very serious for a while.
She and my FIL came to visit and she said nearly the same thing. And I think she could get her ticket stamped (since she was visiting in OB), to only pay $1.50, versus the normal $1.00 per hour. And this was their FIRST grandchild!!! Bitch…
Me, too. I am thrifty…okay, I’m cheap…but only to a point. I wash and re-use Ziploc bags, (but not if I had originally put raw meat in them), I shop for sales, I buy in bulk at the warehouse club, I refill my Aquafina water bottle from my kitchen tap, stuff like that.
Then I have the money to spend on other things.
Isn’t that a normal procedure?
Everything else you said about your boss qualifies him as a bona-fide tightwad, but I had to wonder about the bonus thing/withholding comment.
I don’t think that’s normal…every other place I’ve ever worked the bonus was cash, like a gift, not part of your taxable salary. Speaking of gifts…for Christmas we were stunned to see that he gave us rather nice normal gifts. What surprised us was when he called us into the office the next day to tell us what he expected us to buy HIM and how much we should spend. YIKES!
The company I work for awards bonuses based on EBIT, so you can work your ass off and then get very little. And then they take taxes and other withholding out of it. Since it’s a bonus and not part of your normal salary, the deductions are about 40%. I guess that’s why they call it a bone-us