# 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:** 2
**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, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/21 "2010-09-02T19:04:24Z")
Yeah, college is great for learning that stuff. On Sundays we’re hoard hardboiled eggs and donuts so that we could have dinner. For some reason, on Sundays dinner was from noon to 2pm in the dorms, so we’d have nothing at all that night. My first apartment roommates were cheap. They’d volunteer one of us to go to the college with an empty guitar case to fill with stolen toilet paper. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/22 "2010-09-02T19:07:33Z")
My Uncle Chuck had 6 kids. It really drove him bonkers with the amount of toilet paper his five boys and one girl went through. He was also an engineer ( therefore, wired differently.) he decided that three squares of tp was enough to wipe for a BM and declared it so in his house. How he came to this number was anyone’s guess, but it probably had to do with the fact that you couldn’t do the job with two squares. This went over as you can imagine. Everyone was using more than their 3 squares and going through more toilet paper than ever before. I, being a neice and so full of cheek, would come out of the bathroom saying, " I just used six squares…" Everyone taunted him about it. He took it in stride, but underneath, you could tell he was getting twitchy. He’s been gone for 9 years and what do people remember about this kind, generous patient man? 3 Squares of Toilet Paper. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/23 "2010-09-02T19:46:27Z")
I am not exactly “cheap”; I will spend a lot of money, happily, on all kinds of various things. But I _abhor_ waste. I actually do the toilet paper thing mentioned above (but only if I accidentally get way too much; I am really careful and that rarely happens) and I do that with paper towels too. I am pretty bad with paper towels; I use the select-a-size kind, and I will even break those up into thirds in order to get the correct amount without wastefulness. The worst thing I ever did, however, was save dryer lint as a child. I had some idea about using it for stuffed animal filling or something, I think. I saved it for a little while, but, uh… it always had weird hairs in it. I tried picking them out, but eventually I realized it was too gross, and I didn’t want an animal stuffed with that crap anyway, and I threw it all out. That is probably my nadir; I still shudder to waste anything, but I have gotten better at recognizing actual garbage as such. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/24 "2010-09-02T19:58:21Z")
My folks grew up during the Depression. When I was growing up, they were middle class, but never spent a dollar they didn’t have to, until the kids were all raised. I can remember my Mom cutting little squares out of Christmas cards she had received and saving them to use as tags for presents next year. She also saved the bows to re-use… not sure she ever saved the actual wrapping paper, though. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/25 "2010-09-02T20:04:49Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > My folks grew up during the Depression. When I was growing up, they were middle class, but never spent a dollar they didn’t have to, until the kids were all raised. I can remember my Mom cutting little squares out of Christmas cards she had received and saving them to use as tags for presents next year. She also saved the bows to re-use… not sure she ever saved the actual wrapping paper, though. My mom was the wrapping paper saver. Trimmed off any ragged edges and put away. Some pieces started out full size and ended up years later barely big enough for a matchbook. That and using the Sunday comics for wrapping paper. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/26 "2010-09-02T20:05:53Z")
> [@Ponch8](#): > > > [@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. You must understand, once the toilet paper leaves the roll it is forever impure. It may not be returned to the sanctity of the unblemished roll. Ever. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/27 "2010-09-02T20:14:03Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > I can remember my Mom cutting little squares out of Christmas cards she had received and saving them to use as tags for presents next year. _sheepishly raises hand_ Oh. I do that. Mostly because I have an agonizing time throwing out cards (“they’re gifts someone spent up to $5 on! Seriously!”) but I also don’t want or need 10 years worth of cards hanging around. So I save only one year’s worth and use them for something Useful the next year, allowing me to recycle the scraps and not feel I’ve snubbed the person who gave 'em to me in the first place. Plus, y’know, they’re pretty! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/28 "2010-09-02T20:29:37Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > 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! **Wasteful!** Throwing them out? You save them to use for dustrags, polishing shoes, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/29 "2010-09-02T20:43:57Z")
> [@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.) I don’t think they do. I pretty much live and work in blacklight. I have stamps from the USPS and from [stamps.com](http://stamps.com), and none of them have an ink that reacts under the black light. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/30 "2010-09-02T20:50:45Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > He’s been gone for 9 years and what do people remember about this kind, generous patient man? 3 Squares of Toilet Paper. He will be in the minds of hundreds of people over the next 24 hours, as readers of this thread go to take their next dump… or is that just going to be me? As for wrapping paper, one year at work when they were decorating the building for Christmas, they took down the generic non-representational framed “art” from the walls, wrapped it in seasonal paper and hung it back up. When they took it down after the holidays, I was right there with a cardboard tube to roll up that nice smooth paper and take it home. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/31 "2010-09-02T20:52:40Z")
When I was a teenager, I used to go skiing a lot with my best friend and his brothers. They were from an incredibly … frugal, shall we say … family. Here was the drill. I would get picked up by the trio in their volkswagen, we’d drive the ten miles to the slope, ski all day, and on the way back we’d stop at the closest gas station to my house to top off the tank. Then I would be responsible for 1/4 of the total. This was 30 years ago. They’d pull in and pump in $.75 of gas and ask me for 19 cents to cover my end. ---
**Author:** ![FrancisCastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b4bc9f/32.png) [@FrancisCastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrancisCastle)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/32 "2010-09-02T20:55:29Z")
My aunt was a giftwrap saver. I know a few people who wash and reuse plastic cutlery. The best? I have a friend who will take a popcorn bucket out of the garbage at a movie theater and go to the concession counter for her “free” refill. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/33 "2010-09-02T21:28:41Z")
> [@FrancisCastle](#): > > The best? I have a friend who will take a popcorn bucket out of the garbage at a movie theater and go to the concession counter for her “free” refill. That’s not frugality, it’s dishonesty (if you don’t want to pay for the popcorn, don’t eat it; or bringing your own might be against the rules but at least is not nakedly fraudulent). But I think that’s been raised in other threads. I have plastic cutlery that I’ve had for years. Mostly I use it at work for things like stirring my tea or eating a fruit salad. But saving this is more about convenience than expense. I suppose I could buy a box of plastic sporks and be adequately supplied for a long time, but it’s too much trouble. My parents also grew up in the depression, and they thought of themselves as frugal, but I don’t remember anything extreme; certainly they never went into debt except when they bought their house. When my father was remodeling a room he wanted to put down hardwood floors but couldn’t afford it, so he bought a bunch of short scrap pieces for next to nothing, and very laboriously made a floor out of them (and a very nice job, too; I didn’t realize until he told me years later that there was anything unusual about that floor). If they didn’t have the money or the ingenuity to make do, they went without. Roddy ---
**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, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/34 "2010-09-02T21:41:40Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > They’d pull in and pump in $.75 of gas and ask me for 19 cents to cover my end. I have a friend that I haven’t seen in years, and he was a great guy, but sheesh! He’d call up a friend and say “Hey, (some artist) is going to be in town next month, want to go see his show?” On a yes answer, he’d say “OK, your ticket is going to be $22, your part of the service fee will be 2.66, It'll cost me .75 to take the train to pick up the tickets, so you’ll owe me $.19 for that, I’ll spend $2.79 in gas money getting us to the show…” Most people said nevermind. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/35 "2010-09-02T21:58:13Z")
I had a roommate who kept folded sheets of newspaper under the bathroom sink. When I asked her about them, she said she used them to wrap used sanitary pads in “because toilet paper is so expensive.” She also washed and reused sandwich baggies. (Yuck.) I wash and reuse plasticware (plates and cutlery), but only the really nice/solid stuff, not the cheap lightweight white ones. I think my prize goes to my grandma, for going to the five-and-dime for craft paint and painting her plastic kitchen curtains when they had faded in the sun. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/36 "2010-09-02T22:07:31Z")
I knew a guy that used his old bathroom rugs as floor mats in his truck before he threw them out. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/37 "2010-09-02T22:13:31Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > > [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > > > He’s been gone for 9 years and what do people remember about this kind, generous patient man? 3 Squares of Toilet Paper. > > He will be in the minds of hundreds of people over the next 24 hours, as readers of this thread go to take their next dump… or is that just going to be me? > > As for wrapping paper, one year at work when they were decorating the building for Christmas, they took down the generic non-representational framed “art” from the walls, wrapped it in seasonal paper and hung it back up. When they took it down after the holidays, I was right there with a cardboard tube to roll up that nice smooth paper and take it home. 🙂 I never really noticed before this very moment that because the toilet paper here at work is that big roll stuff, it is not perforated and therefore I do not know how many sheets I just used. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/38 "2010-09-02T22:14:57Z")
I occasionally find myself doing something insane to save a nickel. Sometimes I can laugh and stop myself, and sometimes I keep doing it. I wash and reuse zip-top bags, but I tell myself it’s to reduce the amount of throw-away plastic rather than the need to save a bag that costs eleven cents. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/39 "2010-09-02T22:25:38Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > She also washed and reused sandwich baggies. (Yuck.) How is washing and re-using a Ziplock baggie different from washing and re-using Tupperware? You wouldn’t throw out your Tupperware after a single use. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/40 "2010-09-02T22:29:19Z")
Long ago I worked at small shop where the owner’s wife would open every roll of dimes from the bank and count them because dimes are so thin that sometimes there would be an extra one in the roll. I also know someone who seperates toilet paper plies to save the money his wife wastes on two ply paper. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334.md?page=3)