Ok, I think we need a new thread with the weirdest thing about him.
For those who hate to pitch out pretty cards: make your own holiday ornament!
My mother also taught my sister and me to use newspaper to wrap our sanitary napkins in, if the napkins didn’t come with a little dedicated plastic bag for disposal. When I started using tampons, I used newspaper for them, too.
Occasionally, I get one of those candles in a jar as a gift. When the candle burns down, there’s usually quite a lot of scented wax left over. I stick a regular unscented white candle or votive in the hole, and light it. It warms the scented wax which scents the room again. Of course I choose the candle diameter to match the hole in the wax.
I do save and re-use food containers such as margarine tubs. Often, those things survive the dishwasher better than containers which are meant to be re-used. I don’t re-use paper bags, but this is because we’ve got the somewhat insulated lunch sacks.
I pick up coins on the street and even check to change returns in payphones and coinstars.
Weighing is faster than counting
Ex Father-in-Law:
Never buys trash bags or trash cans, but this is not about someone reusing shopping bags. It’s so much more…
Although his town requires you to place trash in a plastic curbside container/bin, or in garbage bags curbside, he will have none of that. Inside each indoor trash can is a paper bag. You are to make sure the trash lands in the smaller-than-trashcan paper bag that is sitting inside the various indoor trash cans. When full, he takes the bags, puts them into his trunk and dumps them in various dumpsters on his way to work, or dinner (YES, he does this). He never has trash at the curb, although the pickup is done by the township. There is no way this man is going to buy Rubbermaid trash cans or green garbage bags.
He took his wife to dinner one night… but before eating, they swung around back, dumped the trash (that he had in the trunk) into the restaurant’s Dumpster and then had dinner, where he paid with a gift certificate.
A few days pass and he gets a letter from a lawyer representing the restaurant, explaining that it’s considered theft to dump his trash like that, and noted they got his name from the gift certificate.
Au contraire, I think this is the thread winner. You had hot running water, and he made you shower in public?
I pick up all money that I find, even pennies. But it is because of a silly superstition I have: I am afraid that if I leave money lay the universe will assume I have enough money and stop sending me some…
As an aside: I found a 50 dollar bill a few weeks back. I was out on the rail trail at a time in which it could only barely have been called light out, and even then you were probably being generous. No one else was out and I immediately came across a 50. I let it lay, hoping that the person who lost it was ahead of me and would be coming back soon. But a mile out and back and it was still there. I felt kind of sick to my stomach because I could just imagine how the person that lost it was going to feel. But I also figured that the person who lost it was very very unlikely to be the next to find it and so I decided I might as well be the person whose fortunes increased that day.
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That’s going to be my next holiday project for the kiddo. Replace one of the panels with a picture of her, and the Grandmas will *love *it as a gift from her! (She’s 5, so we can still get away with handmade kid gifts.) Thanks for the link!
When I was in high school in the early 90’s, I’d send letters without any postage at all to friends by putting their address as the return address and mine as the main recipient. The post office would “return” it to them due to no postage. I don’t know if this would work today but it worked everytime for me back in the day. I don’t remember if I tried sending to people in other parts of the state or just people who lived in my same area - but it saved me a few bucks over time for sure.
My mom is one of the ‘wash and reuse plastic cutlery’ types.
I on the other hand am a ‘never use disposable dinnerware’ type. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to put metal utensils in a sack lunch and then put them in in your purse to take home. Not that I do this frequently.
I used to carry a very large bag, and I would take wads of napkins from dispensers at cafés. I spent a summer studying in Spain and after several experiences with public toilets that had no toilet paper, felt completely justified in this habit. (The plumbing in that city was also such that most of these places requested you throw out toilet paper anyway, so there was always a receptacle to put it in so I wouldn’t clog the toilet.)
Once I was missing a curtain ring, so I looked around until I saw a pair of tights with a huge run in them that I had just thrown out. I cut a piece off the tights and tied it in a ring to hang the curtain.
Did he do it out of cheapness, though? We live in an apartment with pre-WWII plumbing. If we use an extra square the toilet clogs.
As for cheapness, ages ago I worked briefly at a Hardee’s. One All-You-Can-Eat fried chicken night a group of 4 came in. An oldercouple and a youger couple. The men each ordered a chicken dinner and a coffee (free refills). When they were finished they got refills and served them to the women. And I said ages ago, but it was the 1990s, not the 1860s.
When I got married and the girls in the office insisted on giving me a little shower, I made a list of ‘little stuff’. Wooden spoons, spatulas, pretty paper plates/napkins/plastic cutlery/coordinating paper tablecloth, salt and pepper shakers, garment bag, shoe rack, baskets, flashlights, coffee and tea, nice room sprays…I already had two households worth of ‘big stuff’. We all had a lovely party after work, I was a cheap date for a blushing bride, everybody won. SO?
I wash and reuse baggies if they’re relatively clean, too. I also found out they can be recycled in with the plastic grocery bags that I drop off in the bin at the grocery store (they say any plastic you can stick your finger through, bread bags, newspaper bags) can be included with the plastic grocery bags.
I save the clear plastic deli containers with lids, the kind tuna salad, olives, or salad-bar salad comes in, from the grocery, to use to store leftovers. (I have Tupperware containers for big quantities.)
My most scrooge-like behavior is, of course, toilet paper. The slobs around here leave an empty roll, except for maybe a foot of paper still on it. So I tear that paper off and rewind it on an empty roll under the sink, adding shortish pieces as available, until there’s a good size roll of t.p. made of short ends. Hey, it’s my ‘emergency’ roll, and it comes in mighty handy when no one bothers to replace the t.p.
Same thing with coffee. Every time I open a can, I dump 4 spoonfuls into a can I keep in the freezer, adding to it. The day DOES come when no one has bothered to buy a new can, and instead of immediately haring off to the nearest store, I can bring out the freezer can. No, it’s not as good as freshly ground beans from Costa Rica, made with spring water in a french press, but the caffeine insures that a new can of coffee will be bought later that day.
You must be my sibling. This is my mother exactly. She’ll spend thousands on Christmas presents but refuses to throw out the containers that frozen dinners come in, won’t put her AC below 80 and hasn’t bought a pair of shoes that cost over 20 dollars in her life. Coupons?..oh yeah…senior days?..sure, why go on any other day? Early bird specials? She’s there. But Notchimine’s refrigerator is on the fritz? New one shows up within the week.
Holy crap some of these things are giving me the hoarder heebie jeebies.
A friend of mine in high school was a legendary skinflint (one of the things we used to say about him was that he would ask for change back from a mugger). One of the stories going around about him:
E (15), going to see a movie that was “under 16 not allowed”.
Lady at the movie theater: Are you 16?
E: No, I’m 15. Do I get a discount?
This is one of my favorite topics to discuss. Thank you for starting a thread! My dad started me on observing the behavior of what he and I call “grapeskins.” I don’t know if others use this term, but it is derived from the phrase “he’s tighter than a grapeskin” - meaning he is tight with his money. Some of my favorite grapeskin moments:
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Some friends of ours really like the all you can eat pasta at Olive Garden, but won’t splurge for the extra charge for meat with each serving so they bring their own cooked chicken and add it to the dish after it is brought by the server.
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A friend of ours “Dale” - the original grapeskin enjoys riding dirt bikes. To get to most riding destinations for dirt biking, you must haul the bikes - usually in the back of a pickup. Most riders load their bikes into the truck by pushing the bike up a 2" by 10" board. This is too rich for his taste, so he has a 2" x 4". The makeshift ramp is not even as wide as the back tire, and quite often, the bike slips off in the process of loading. This same guy also buys napkins in bulk at costco, and cuts them in half, as he perceives they are unnecessarily large. His softball mitt is a naugahide children’s size Franklin T ball mitt purchased in the 70’s. I might add, he is one of the wealthiest people I know.
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Salad bars typically bring the grapeskins out of the wood work. At Wendy’s I have seen the same guy on several occasions order a one trip salad bar, then proceed to load up the entire salad dish, as well as the brown rectangle serving tray with salad.
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The athletic club I worked at a while ago, had many offenders. People would shower, and then dry themselves off with paper towels because they are free - real towels were 50 cents. The free shampoo and conditioner dispensers meant a certain population has been refilling their supply, and haven’t had to pay for such items for decades.
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One time I got a coupon from an aunt and uncle as a Christmas present.
One of my friends would eat left-overs at Starbucks. Especially cakes that have only been slightly nibbled at.
One of the shopping malls has a water dispenser, hidden in a corner but for public to use. I use it to fill up my water bottle all the time. Since my school has it too, I solely just drink from there.
My mum is guilty of the 'I bought it despite it being the wrong size but it was on a sale!" refrain too.
I have to admit, the food waste in restaurants does bother me. Sure, there might be the odd person who puts a booger in their pasta, but most food that comes back into the kitchen is perfectly fine for someone else to eat - it’s just had a few bites out of it. Working as a dishwasher way back when, I couldn’t believe what people threw away - the number of plates that came back in with half or more of the food still on it blew my mind.
ETA: All you other thrifty people out there, the best microwave veggie steamer I’ve ever had is the plastic steamer from a Healthy Choice frozen meal - I bought one ages ago, and am still using the plastic steamer that came with the dinner. It’s the perfect size for steaming one or two servings of veggies, and has a perforated level and a solid level.
The friend I mentioned upthread doesn’t realize that she’d be better off just getting one bottle each of any desired condiment rather than taking packets of them, which just spill all over the fridge and eventually get hard or stale or else the packet cracks open.
She also takes as many hotel toiletries as she can when she travels, even going so far as to yank them from the maids’ carts when they’re not looking.
Here’s the real kicker: she has a great job, benefits, inherited her parents’ home, has no kids or pets to provide for, etc. She has a huge pile of money in the bank but talks like a pauper and acts like one too.