My Mother-in-Law used to save the cards, and just CROSS OFF “Christmas,” and write in “Birthday.” I have at least two “Merry Birthday” cards. Seriously.
Not just cheap, but also C-R-A-Z-Y. I once got (Hahahahah, I’m laughing again now!) a bag of Cheetos and a cookie tin with about $4.50 in loose change rattling around in it, as a Christmas present, wrapped up just as nice as can be.
Joe
And what’s wrong with that?? Should he have thrown out a perfectly good light fixture and then gone and paid $50 or more for a special garage light?
I save lightly used paper towels in a coffee can under the sink to clean up spills on the floor, clean gunk out of the drain in the sink, and of course to clean up cat barf. Not a day goes by without The Daily Puke, hopefully not on a rug.
Some guy got there first and had claimed four frozen turkeys, and he asked me if i wanted one. THe packaging was sealed, and never had time to thaw before i got home, so i washed the package off a little and popped it back in the freezer. I only took sealed packages, and rarely got meat, if only because someone else had gotten it first.
One of our special students edition from a magazine (maybe the Spiegel?) had an article on the new trend of “Dumpster diving” a while back. Students take backpacks and flashlights and go out in the dark to check the dumpsters of supermarkets for expired, but not yet spoiled food. (Some supermarkets donate this stuff to the Food banks, but not all do). The students doing this when asked why said it’s a mixture of reason: the political aspect of demonstrating how expensive life as a student is with tuition, and that they can’t live normally on; the exciting aspect of trying to get to the dumpsters despite security*; and the surprise of not knowing what you will eat tonight, because it depends on what you find, yoghurt or packaged bread or meat or canned fish…
Heh. I find it funny that the magazine considers it a new trend. Us poor folks have been doing it for decades.
Dumpster diving for food – especially perishables – is disgusting. I’m sorry, but it is.
/shrug. Beats starving. Or roadkill. Been a time or two I’ve had road kill stew.
This kind of mentality drives me nuts. When my brother was having a house built he paid extra to have a fireplace, but then never used it because he said a dirty fireplace would lower the resale value of the house. What?
We put new carpet in the house after Hurricane Katrina and there were a few big sections of leftover carpet that were put in high-traffic areas. I took one of the pieces and cut it up and those pieces are still used as the floormats in my van.
I’m not going to buy the cheap AutoZone floormats that come apart after a few months, and I’m sure as hell not going to the Ford dealership to pay $100+ for factory floormats.
There’s always this thread, where the OP, who has been looking for an album for a decade, finally finds it, and is too cheap to actually pay real money for it. Instead, he gets outbid because he’s trying to save a few bucks.
Yes, but now it’s a whole philosophy practiced by people who aren’t necessarily poor. Laugh if you must, but also read the Wikipedia article on freeganism or this New York Times piece on some people doing it in Buffalo.
Oh, and while I never considered myself especially cheap, I do save those quart-size yogurt containers, as well as the plastic ones that take-out food comes in.
I forgot about the freegans. Saww a National Geographic show on them about a year back. Didn’t know there were any in the states so far though, thought they were limited to Australia.
I’ve always secretly wanted to look in a dumpster behind a grocery store. Would the store care if someone showed up and helped himself? I would think as long as he didn’t leave a big mess it would be all right, but I think one would feel funny if the manager came out and said, hey what do you think you’re doing? Well, duh, looking for free food. Some famous foodie wrote a memoir, Alice Waters (or Ruth Reichl), who went dumpster diving with her roommates before she got famous. One of them conveniently found a turkey for Thanksgiving, but no one questioned him very closely as to the circumstances.
It’s quite possible. Before Thanksgiving is when stores stock up on turkeys, and unsold ones that are expired have to be disposed of right around then.
In sort of the same vein, you can go around and check out the garbage of any places that you’ve noted have had a garage sale this weekend. Anything that isn’t sold, into the garbage it goes. Apartment complexes also have great dumpsters - just after the first of the month, they’re full of stuff that the apartment manager has cleaned out of vacated apartments. I never actually hopped in or anything, but I’m not above hauling away a nice table that someone has propped up next to the dumpster.
Especially if the gym was small enough that it would be obvious that you only stayed long enough to shower.
Although I just had a flashback about my grandma teaching the kids at her house to reuse kleenexes. Use it once, wait till it dries, peel it open, and use the non crusty spots again. I know that little kids can go through them pretty quickly, and waste them, but really, how much is a box of tissues?
Oh god, if you look in their fridge, they have mayo in there! Lord knows how old it is, or where they got it!
I’m in pain, so have not read all of this.
Pain allows me to ignore common courtesy… 
Phone games:
AIUI, truckers were masters of communicating info over the phone free. They would place a person-person collect to a non-existent person at HQ - each first name had a meaning, and the last name was also a code.
Asking for "“Jake Bachman” meant stuck in Libertyville, down 12 hours.
I worked with a fellow who, each month, would collect every phone bill )and payment therefor) from something like a dozen relatives (yes, he was Asian) and hand-carry them 5 blocks to the phone co. HQ and pay each bill in person - an hour of his time saved approx $3 in postage
We actually do save dryer lint (and hair from brushes, for that matter) but not out of cheapness. We save it all fall and winter long and then place bits in trees at the beginning of spring, along with seeds, for the returning birds. They use the lint and hair for nest building.
I’d do this, as in the spirit of the thread I don’t have hot water at home. But only for a treat, and it costs $5 to get in.
My dad had one that amused me. We used to play golf together, however his skills were limited, notably being unable to hit the ball very far. I’d say play off the shorter tees, he’d say he got more shots for price of the round off the long tees. He also used to take unnecessary detours simply to look for lost balls.