# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/141 "2010-09-07T19:54:10Z")
> [@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. > > 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. Story 1 is bizarre. Basically she wanted you to spend a stamp of your own, to send a stamp back to her??? Nothing in that realm story-wise, but we once requested a refund from a payphone company when the payphone malfunctioned. We got… postage stamps in the amount of the refund. ---
**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 7, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/142 "2010-09-07T20:01:46Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > [Story 1 is bizarre. Basically she wanted you to spend a stamp of your own, to send a stamp back to her??? They were pen pals; she would have been writing back anyway. > [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Nothing in that realm story-wise, but we once requested a refund from a payphone company when the payphone malfunctioned. We got… postage stamps in the amount of the refund. This was standard phone company practice. Much easier than mailing coins thru the mail, and cheaper than cutting a check. ---
**Author:** ![maladroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f475e1/32.png) [@maladroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maladroit)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/143 "2010-09-07T21:02:02Z")
I cut my dryer sheets in half and use either 1/2 or 2 halves depending on what I’m drying. I re-use produce bags( the kind that come on a roll in the produce section) and bread bags. I used to wash out baggies but they never looked very clean so I gave that up years ago. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/144 "2010-09-08T07:50:02Z")
> [@maladroit](#): > > I cut my dryer sheets in half and use either 1/2 or 2 halves depending on what I’m drying. I cut them into thirds. I’ve never found a need for a full sheet. Actually, now I use liquid fabric softener because the waxiness off the sheets plug up the dryer filter, and I use maybe a tablespoon per load. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/145 "2010-09-08T15:45:38Z")
But you know you don’t need softener at all - it makes your towels suck and just coats everything with gunk. If you were a cheapskate you wouldn’t waste money on it at all! ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/146 "2010-09-08T16:16:14Z")
I line dry almost everything from March thru November. And Dec to Mar I use drying racks in the house for pretty much everything except blankets and the like. Do I win? 😉 ---
**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 8, 2010, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/147 "2010-09-08T16:26:59Z")
Oprah did a show on freegans and yes, they do get food from Supermarket dumpsters. I see nothing wrong with taking boxed and canned goods. The laws of my city (and I think most if not all of the USA) state that anything in the garbage is considered abandoned and okay for the taking. This Sunday I noticed a full dumpster and, with very little effort, got two skirts, a sweater, a turtleneck, a jacket, a brand new umbrella and a wooden box full of note pads and pens freebies. A while back I got a ggarbage bag full of clothes in my size, colors, and styles. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/148 "2010-09-08T18:28:55Z")
> [@Mr.Accident](#): > > Heh. I find it funny that the magazine considers it a new trend. Us poor folks have been doing it for decades. I think the difference is the amount and number of people doing it. One poor or homeless person doing dumpster diving occasionally = what you would expect. Many people from mid-level backgrounds doing it regularly = trend. I see it with the food banks or with the homeless: back in the 80s, homeless were vagrants, romantic like in Huck Finn, people who had opted out of society or were drunk and broken, and very very few. In the 90s, everybody could become homeless: loose your job, become depressed = lose your apt. Death of a spouse, become depressed, lose job, lose apt. Etc. And the invisible homelessness of women who flee their husbands, and sleep at friends or make male aquaintances to have a roof. Back in the 90s when the food banks started, it was to use food better that would otherwise be thrown away, but could still be used, for homeless and a few poor people that had slipped through the cracks of the system. But in the 2000s, a handful of people going to food banks in a few major cities had exploded to several hundred people in many big cities every day, a lot of them former middle-class out of work who can’t live on Hartz IV, or pensioneers who can’t live on their pension alone. (This had lead to the professional charity org. like Caritas criticzing the Food Banks for their long-term effect on politics: the danger of politicans being inclined to further cut social services because “people can get by with the help of food banks, so the state doesn’t need to pay as much”). ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/149 "2010-09-08T18:35:22Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Dumpster diving for food – especially perishables – is disgusting. I’m sorry, but it is. I don’t see that . We are talking about wrapped or canned food, not open stuff like salad or bread rolls. A joghurt doesn’t turn spoiled on 8 pm of the date, you can still it eat 11 pm the same day. And if you wipe off the surface of the plastic container it comes in, it’s as safe and hygienic inside as the normal store-bought (which can also have dirt or bacteria from transport on the outside, too). And some of the hard-shelled veggies can similarly be wiped off, or like bananas, be peeled. Who cares it was in contact with trash? Or do you mean the dumpsters themselves are so ugly that you don’t want to dive into them? I guess that, too, depends on how big, how often emptied and what else is inside. If it’s too sqicky, you can start wearing rubber gloves. I am glad that I’m not yet int the position to depend on that, but I can see the surprise aspect of not knowing what you will eat this evening be a fun thing. ---
**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 8, 2010, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/150 "2010-09-08T18:48:50Z")
One of my sister’s boyfriends was of the opinion that he never wanted anything that had fallen on the floor badly enough to eat it; I am of the opinion that if I wash it off, who cares if it was just on the floor? Different strokes for different folks. ---
**Author:** ![rostfrei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7bcc69/32.png) [@rostfrei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rostfrei)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/151 "2010-09-08T19:39:28Z")
I had a friend who used to cheat the postal service by writing the address of the indended recipent in the “return address” field, and her address in the “to” field. then, she’d mail it without a stamp. and it always was returned to the “sender”. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/152 "2010-09-09T05:05:17Z")
There’s a difference between doing it if you have to, and doing so because you’re cheap. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/153 "2010-09-09T08:58:22Z")
> [@Ellen\_Cherry](#): > > 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.) Perhaps he did it because he felt he needed to be properly dressed. My grandfather would not have been caught dead mowing the lawn in a t-shirt - he wore his suit instead. In fact I never ever saw him wearing casual clothes. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/154 "2010-09-09T14:12:50Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > > [@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. I work with a guy that reuses a Styrofoam cup for coffee. He doesn’t wash it out; and I don’t know that you could. Regarding the phone ring thing… I don’t think the rings are timed the same. IOW when you hear a ring as the caller, it doesn’t mean its ringing the same time as the receiver. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/155 "2010-09-09T14:29:39Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > Regarding the phone ring thing… I don’t think the rings are timed the same. IOW when you hear a ring as the caller, it doesn’t mean its ringing the same time as the receiver. Oh, you know, nowadays, you might be right. Worked for us for decades when I was young, though. Our signal to Grandma was to let the phone ring twice and hang up, and she’d call us right back so the call went on her phone bill. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/156 "2010-09-09T14:30:43Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > 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. Scarily familiar. When I was a younger adult than I am now; we all decided to go the strip joint for a free lunch. I’m of the opinion that to enjoy yourself at a strip joint, it’s best not to be too cheap. On the way down to The Cheetah (People in Atlanta will recognize that name), we go through the toll booth. There’s 4 of us in the car, and the toll is 50 cents. The driver actually says: The two of us in front will pay 25 cents each now, and you two pay 25 cents each on the way back! :eek: This is the kind of guy that scoots his chair closer to your when you get a table dance. I’d like to talk to him now that this thread is here; because I’ll bet he’d have some great suggestions. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/157 "2010-09-09T14:35:34Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > > [@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. Oh wow, the memories just keep rushing back… The guy I mentioned above won a free lunch at a team trivia, that several of us were part of. We went to collect on our free lunch. I was expecting to throw the free lunch into the pot, and we’d all save a couple of bucks on our lunch. Nope. In his mind he talked all of into going to lunch there so he could use it for himself. Cheap bastard. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/158 "2010-09-09T15:19:09Z")
Ha, ha, I’m loving this thread. I do some of these things myself, without giving it a thought, really. I reuse ziplock bags (unless used for meat or something icky), I reuse socks as cleaning rags, save margarine containers, (for leftovers that might not get eaten, then, when they go off, I toss the whole thing, no disgusting dish to clean, yeah!). My husband and I buy almost all our clothing second hand, once we started it just saved us so much money we never looked back. Fancy clothes, not so much, but the day to day, definitely. My husband is a cheap guy by nature, truth be told. Once, when we were traveling in Indonesia (when the Rupiah was something like 1700 to the dollar), he picked up a small aluminum coin,(I can’t even remember the denomination, but since they had 100 Rupiah notes it had to be some minuscule amount), from the gutter! Seriously how cheap are you? A few steps down the road he tried to give it to a beggar, who promptly threw it back at him! Why yes, you are the cheapest man on earth. I worked in a bar owned by an Eastern European man, very frugal. At the end of the night, he’d return unused ice, from the bar well, to the ice machine. We tried to explain that he wasn’t saving anything, but he never quite got it. Cheap bastard! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2010, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/159 "2010-09-09T17:21:11Z")
I pick up coins because it’s supposed to be good luck. 😃 (Yes, I know, it’s a superstition. Who cares?) And of course I’ll pick up cash, even if it’s just a buck – it’s still money. ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2010, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334/160 "2010-09-10T02:36:29Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > I line dry almost everything from March thru November. And Dec to Mar I use drying racks in the house for pretty much everything except blankets and the like. > > Do I win? 😉 Not if you live in places like Australia or New Zealand. We line dry year round. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-how-cheap-can-you-get-thread/552334.md?page=9)