# The "How Cheap Can You Get?" Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 2, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334 "2010-09-02T00:53:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/1 "2010-09-02T00:53:47Z")
Cheapo story #1: My friend B. wrote to me back in the days before email and always asked me to send the stamps back to her. Later, she revealed that she had been putting a thin layer of Elmer’s glue on every stamp she used for pen pals, and when she got the stamps back, she could clean off the cancellation ink marks with a bit of water and soap since the dried glue created a surface that would allow her to do this. Cheapo story #2: My colleague M., for whom I’ve been editing a novel, just sent my first check with…not a stamp, but the larger area from a book of stamps that shows a large image of whatever is on the stamp and has the bar code (for the postal employee to scan) as well. Somehow, this made it through the mail without being cancelled or even noticed, apparently. Okay, my stories were postal-related. I’m sure you folks can come up with more tales of cheapitude. Please share. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/2 "2010-09-02T05:22:18Z")
My ex. If he didn’t use as much toilet paper as he had broken off, he’d tear off the part he didn’t use and lay it back onto the roll. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/3 "2010-09-02T05:32:28Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > My ex. If he didn’t use as much toilet paper as he had broken off, he’d tear off the part he didn’t use and lay it back onto the roll. I think you might win the thread with that one. I was raised by a cheap mom, but I’ve thrown off a lot of her thrifty ways. I was mending my white athletic socks one day, and it occurred to me that they cost about a buck a pair - I tossed them in the garbage and have bought new ones when my old ones wore out ever since. Sometimes I throw them out when they just get all stretched out and funky! ---
**Author:** ![toofs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@toofs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toofs)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/4 "2010-09-02T05:34:32Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > My ex. If he didn’t use as much toilet paper as he had broken off, he’d tear off the part he didn’t use and lay it back onto the roll. You just won the thread. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/5 "2010-09-02T12:30:29Z")
My grandmother used to buy canned food at garage sales. The best one was when she bought a box of unlabelled food, which we took a week to eat. Fortunately, she knew enough to throw out the _obvious_ dog/cat foods. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/6 "2010-09-02T12:40:10Z")
vivalostwages… stamps have “invisible” ink on them too that reacts to black light. It seems like this would eventually get cleaned off. Did she ever have a failure due to this? (okay, maybe stamps only had this around the time of my fifth grade field trip to the postal sorting factility. but they did then.) ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/7 "2010-09-02T12:41:27Z")
My mother’s aunt used to sign their Christmas cards A. Gen and U. Clyde — for Aunt Genevieve and Uncle Clyde. My dad joked she did it to save on ink. My grandfather wore all his old dress work shirts, pants and wing-tip loafers to garden in until the day he died in 2003. He’d retired sometime in the mid-1970s. One pair of shoes we found had been duct-taped together. I’m not sure that’s cheap or just Depression-thrifty, but it amuses me in a fond way. (A. Gen was my grandfather’s sister, BTW.) ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/8 "2010-09-02T17:59:17Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > vivalostwages… stamps have “invisible” ink on them too that reacts to black light. It seems like this would eventually get cleaned off. Did she ever have a failure due to this? > > (okay, maybe stamps only had this around the time of my fifth grade field trip to the postal sorting factility. but they did then.) Not that I ever heard. I should ask! My uncle was a big spender at the craps table…but he would park a mile from the hotel/casino to avoid paying the valet, then lug all his bags up to his room on his own rather than let the bellhop do it. ---
**Author:** ![filling\_pages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9bd4f/32.png) [@filling\_pages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filling_pages)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/9 "2010-09-02T18:02:56Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > Cheapo story #1: My friend B. wrote to me back in the days before email and always asked me to send the stamps back to her. Later, she revealed that she had been putting a thin layer of Elmer’s glue on every stamp she used for pen pals, and when she got the stamps back, she could clean off the cancellation ink marks with a bit of water and soap since the dried glue created a surface that would allow her to do this. That was a really, really common scam in zinester circles for a long time. Don’t know if people are still doing it, I haven’t hung out in the larger zine scene for years now. But there used to be whole zines and web sites listing this and other ways to get cheap/free postage. (All illegal and sketchy, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![Minnie\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Minnie\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Minnie_Luna)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/10 "2010-09-02T18:04:56Z")
I know a guy who buys his shoes from thrift stores. He is getting to the age where things are starting to go wonky on him. I told him that he needs to buy new shoes because the used ones are fit to the last person who wore them. I also suggested buying new insoles, but I think spending $10 for a pair of insoles is too much for him. He is not poor, but any stretch of the imagination. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/11 "2010-09-02T18:09:27Z")
My dad once bought a pair of size 14 gym shoes because they were on sale but out of his size. He normally wears an 11. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/12 "2010-09-02T18:14:23Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > My ex. If he didn’t use as much toilet paper as he had broken off, he’d tear off the part he didn’t use and lay it back onto the roll. I don’t see what’s so unusual about that. It’s not like he put USED toilet paper back. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/13 "2010-09-02T18:18:21Z")
> [@filling\_pages](#): > > That was a really, really common scam in zinester circles for a long time. Don’t know if people are still doing it, I haven’t hung out in the larger zine scene for years now. But there used to be whole zines and web sites listing this and other ways to get cheap/free postage. (All illegal and sketchy, of course.) When I was a little kid at summer camp, a few of my colleagues got the bright idea to mail a letter home by putting the camp’s address as the destination, and their home as the return address, with no stamp. The local PO would get it and assume the hometown post office had accidentally sent along a letter with no postage, and mark it return-to-sender, where it would get dutifully “returned” to the home address. The summer camp was located in a tiny town, and the post office quickly wised up to this scam after a couple weeks. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/14 "2010-09-02T18:22:39Z")
I buy clothes and shoes in thrift stores. I also take good stuff from the curb on garbage pickup days and bring it home. What’s wrong with recycling? The City laws state that once the garbage is curbside, it’s considered abandoned and anyone can take it. ---
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/15 "2010-09-02T18:24:19Z")
This is from back in the “gyde olde” days. A way to let the family know you arrived back to college safely was to place a person to person collect call to yourself at your parent’s house. They would refuse the call. It saved on a long distance call, especially during full cost times. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/16 "2010-09-02T18:25:45Z")
I’m a skinflint, but I’m an honest skinflint. I wouldn’t do the illegal mail stuff, or steal anything. Last weekend I backed my car out of the garage to wash it. I put it in neutral, opened the car door, put my foot on my garage floor and gave a good push back so I didn’t have to start the engine. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/17 "2010-09-02T18:30:21Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > My ex. If he didn’t use as much toilet paper as he had broken off, he’d tear off the part he didn’t use and lay it back onto the roll. The worst part was that if it was two ply he’d separate the top and the bottom layers, because he only used the top on his bottom… Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/18 "2010-09-02T18:41:24Z")
> [@jali](#): > > A way to let the family know you arrived back to college safely was to place a person to person collect call to yourself at your parent’s house. > > They would refuse the call. > > It saved on a long distance call, especially during full cost times. Another way to do this was to let the phone ring twice and then to hang up. I’ve known people who wash out paper coffee cups for reuse. ---
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/19 "2010-09-02T18:44:05Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I’ve known people who wash out paper coffee cups for reuse. I’ve seen people save plastic picnic cutlery to wash and reuse. No this wasn’t being green - this was cheap. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/20 "2010-09-02T18:55:17Z")
When I took my lunch to work, I re-used the same paper bag for months. I also save the plastic bags that bread comes in and use it for wrapping food. My wife is appalled that I bring home clothes that I find on the road and wash and wear them, but the modern trend towards baggy clothing means that most stuff fits me. I have some very nice workout shorts, and a rather expensive insulated golf shirt that I found. I have a whole persona - Leroy Washington - that I use to send away from free stuff. Leroy has several dozen t-shirts from various places, and a free jacket from the Marines. I got the cheapskate habit in college, when I was dirt poor. Now it is kind of fun. I feel like I am getting away with something. Regards, Shodan [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334.md?page=2)