The "How Cheap Can You Get?" Thread

In My Humble Opinion
1

Not that there’s anything wrong with saving money, but I’m talkin’ extremes here. See my contribution/starter below:

I once had a pen pal (“L”) who always asked me to return her stamps to her after her letters arrived. I did so, not sure why she wanted them back. Eventually, she leveled with me: Before sending out mail to pen pals, she coated the stamp with a thin layer of Elmer’s Glue, letting it dry completely before mailing. Then, when her pals would send the cancelled stamps back to her, she’d take a little cloth, warm water and soap, and dab at the ink marks. They would come off because they were on top the layer of dried glue on the stamp. She would then “recycle” the stamps for extended use.
I never thought it was worth all the effort, though it was rather amusing.

So, do you have any “extremes of cheapitude” you’d like to share with the group?

2

I always find people that whip out a calculator after a shared meal in a restaraunt rather amusing.

The best one that I can think of, which I chalk up to frugalness, rather than cheapness is my grandma - she washes out garbage bags and reuses them. (ie dumps the garbage out of the bag into the dumpster and then washes and reuses the bag in the kitchen)

3

A man my dad works with took a woman on a date and during their evening they stoped at Wendys. While there the guy ordered a triple and a single burger. When he got back to the table he pulled one patty off of his burger and put it on hers. This was his first and last date with her…

4

My ex-husband was the cheapest person I’ve ever had the misfortune to know. He would not eat ANYWHERE if he didn’t have some kind of coupon for it. I have seen him leave Cap’n Dees, KFC, Popeye’s, and countless other restaurants if his coupons were expired or if that particular location were not honoring them. Even if it was only for ten cents!

He would line his shoes with cardboard, if the soles wore out, like you see homeless people doing. He wore clothes that were at least then years out of date and threadbare because he would not spend the money on clothes until they literally fell apart.

He would steal toilet paper and paper towels from work to keep from having to buy it. He’d take napkins by the gross, straws by the dozens, and literally bags full of ketchup and other condiments from places he’d eat.

He made such a pig of himself at all-you-can-eat places that I refused to go with him. Not only that, but would insist the waitress leave a full tea jug on the table during the meal.

Now you know one of the reasons he’s my EX. Believe it or not, this wasn’t the worst trait of his.

Oh, and by the way, he came across as totally the opposite when we dated, in case anybody thinks I was insane for marrying him in the first place. Which I was, but that’s beside the point.

5

I was on a business trip to Germany several years ago. While there, a relative back home in the States (whom I love very much so I won’t name them here) asked me to bring back some hand creme that was made there. I don’t recall the brand. I searched in at least 4 or 5 places before I finally found it. They wanted about a dozen tins of the stuff, and each tin was big and bulky. It was quite a chore finding the stuff, and carrying it back (it almost filled an entire suitcase, with several more business stops along the way. I just assumed you could only get the stuff in Germany or something and that this was some special thing for them.

WRONG! It was about a buck cheaper per tin in Germany, where it was made. Man, I would’ve gladly given them a $20 to have some lotion on me…

6

My dad, at the apex of his financial career, being a multimillionaire (soon to be an ex-millionaire after the S&L crisis) used to eat lunch at Wendys because he liked to swipe dozens of packets of saltine crackers. I once looked in his office desk drawer and there must have been a hundred packages in there. Yeah, he’s a cheap bastard.

7

But back to stamps. A former roommate, who otherwise was pretty cool in almost every respect, used to divide the bills to acknowledge the cost of a stamp - and would either make an adjustment or ensure that each month we flipped sending the damn bill.

Oh, and he didn’t register his car in New York, maintaining the fiction that the car was from Massachusetts. That meant that the one time I drove it in Manhattan (at the end of the month, I might add), I got a ticket when I turned left as the light turned. And the reason I was driving was to pick his ass up from the hospital after he’d had knee surgery!

Apparently, after he moved out he simply stopped buying insurance at all. It wasn’t a problem until he drove into a median.

(Luckily, he only damaged himself, his car, and some concrete.)

8

Oxy, one of my college friends was like that. She figured out the phone bill, and then kept track of who had provided the stamp the pervious month. If she’d put the stamp on in October, then her roommate Caroline had to provide it in November. I thought that was a little extreme, but everyone has their “thing” and fairness about billpaying was hers, I guess.

My other stories about people pale in comparison to what’s been offered. I will add that my ex-brother-in-law used to always take the kids to a certain pizza parlor on his night to have them. It was a “kids eat free” night and he wouldn’t let them order any drinks. I mean, jesus, you see your kids one fricking night a week (when you don’t cancel, that is) and you won’t even spot them a coke when their meal is otherwise free?!?! He wasn’t cheap otherwise, unless you count cancelling the kids’ insurance coverage so he could afford his new truck.

9

My sister’s house burned down a few years ago, and they lost many of their cherished posessions. Once they rebuilt and moved in, my dad gave them a nice candle and holder for their mantle. As they thanked him for it, he remarked that he liked it, but when he saw it was $50, he felt that was too much. BUT, it turned out there was a sale, and he got it for half off!

“So,” my brother-in-law mused to me and my sister, “we’re worth somewhere between $25 and $50 to him.”

It’s true. My dad is incredibly cheap. And he THINKS he is getting bargains. He buys electronics from Radio Shack because they’re cheaper, even though they break very soon afterwards. I have tried to tell him that getting something worth $50 for $50 is not a bargain, even if it’s cheaper than somethign that costs more but is better. You can’t convince him of that.

10

You want cheap? This one is a jaw-dropper.

One of my friend’s parents were classic, frugal Depression Generation, especially the father. They were rather well-to-do but pinched every penny to the point it was ludicrous.

My friend was having dinner with them when the mom started having severe chest pains. My friend immediately called 911 and summoned an ambulance–and his father was FURIOUS. He actually tried to call the dispatcher and cancel the emergency crew, insisting it would be much cheaper to just drive her to the hospital himself.

He ranted all the way to the hospital, cussing out my friend and insisting he’d have to pay for the ambulance, since he was so fond of “wasting money”.

It turned out the mother had suffered a severe heart attack and the paramedics’ prompt intervention literally bought her the time that saved her life. The father was a bit sheepish later, once he realized how close a call it really was, but never apologized. And he complained so bitterly about about the medical expenses my friend ended up paying for the ambulance run anyway, just out of weariness and disgust.

On second thought that may be pathological rather than cheap.

Veb

11

I have mentioned my future mother-in-law’s frugal ways on here before.

She reuses teabags. Keeps them piled on a plate in the kitchen, and uses them over and over again. Fair enough, she likes weak tea, but she makes tea for visitors out of second hand teabags regardless of how they like their tea.

She buys foods that her family don’t really like, because they last longer. So, she’ll buy a breakfast cereal the kids hate, and then the kids will only eat it when they’re starving. Extend this to everything in the house.

My parents spent my entire childhood telling me off for reading in the semi-dark (“You’ll ruin your eyes!”). My fMIL has turned the light off on me to save money and electricity. Even when it’s too dark to see the book properly, she didn’t approve of me having the light on to read if I was in a room by myself.

She kept buying lawn edgers from garage sales because they were cheap. The fact that they were broken didn’t deter her - she bought a heap of the same type, and tried to get her son to raid them all for the parts to make one that worked. Unfortunately, all of them had exactly the same fault. So she keeps them in the shed in the hopes that one day, she will find a one that will have the part she needs to fix one of the other 6 she already has.

When we bought our house, the garden beds in front had bark - which I like - and the ones in back had those little red stones (Scorria?), which I hate. We were talking about the gardens and I said I wanted to get rid of the scorria because I hate it, and she got very angry and insistant that we don’t get rid of it because it’s expensive to buy. Now, to me, scorria is worthless because I dislike it but to her, because it costs so much to buy, liking it or disliking it is irrelevant and she thinks I should keep it. It’s this thinking that leaves me totally confused.

My uncle used to have two televisions - one on top of the other. Both were ancient, and while the picture tube was gone in one, the speaker was gone in the other. So to watch TV, they’d turn both on, the top one provided the sound and the bottom one the picture. They were too cheap to go out and buy a new TV, and used this arrangement for years.

12

A friend of mine was a barista at a coffee stand where the manager would buy rolls of Canadian quarters for $6.00, and use them to make change (Canadian coinage is very common in Alaska). He would also reclaim the little cup jackets from empty cups and use them again.

13

Forget his insensitive remark about the cost – I find it appallingly crass that he’d consider a candle an appropriate gift for someone whose house just burned down! Did he give them some oily rags and old, sparky wiring too?

I actually think the thing with the two TVs is sorta clever.

14

My stepfather was so cheap, he expected me to skip school to help him retrieve road kill for our supper.

When I was in high school, on the way to school, I saw a large concrete truck hit and kill a deer (one with a pretty good set of antlers, too), leaving it in the middle of the road. Not wanting to leave it as a road hazard, I stopped, dragged it into a ditch, and went off to school. I shared the story with some friends, and one of them either skipped class or called home; I don’t know what exactly. In any case, by the time school was out, a classmate’s father had collected the deer and there was a big crowd in front of the school to look at it in the back of his pickup. He told me it was an “eleven point buck”, which from his expression I assume must be a good thing (I still have no idea what this means, other than that the deer was male, which I already knew).

Later that night, my step-father, who was an avid deer hunter, was telling hunting stories with his friends. I wasn’t paying much attention until the words “eight point buck” jumped out at me. Happy to have something to share with him for once (we didn’t really connect, me being an egghead and him being a misanthropic troglodyte), I told him about what had happened. At worst, I thought I would be ignored; at best, I thought I might be complemented for my good citizenship at removing a road hazard (to me, that was the important part of the story). He was furious with me, and spent the next half hour yelling at me for not skipping first hour to come get him so he could have the deer. “That deer could have fed us for a week” is still seared in my brain. Hmm. Go to chemistry class, or tell stepfather about roadkill? I think I made the right choice.

15

{Ann Landers Voice} Your fMIL needs to be told to mind her own beeswax, honey. Wake up and smell the coffee. {/Ann Landers Voice}

Sorry. But you shouldn’t have to put up with that.

My stepfather, who grew up on a farm in the depression and
so has a pretty good excuse, re-uses charcoal. He scoops
the hot embers into an empty coffee can, and smothers the
fire with the metal lid he saved when he opened the coffee
can with a can opener.

16

I have seen Mr Elbows, with my own eyes, reach into a gutter to retrieve an aluminum coin. This in a third world country.

I chastised him as the cheapest man on three continents, so he was feeling a little sheepish. So he gives this coin to the next beggar that he sees. The beggar looks into his cup realizes he’s been given a coin worth only a tiny fraction of a penny and promptly throws it back at Mr Elbows. I still laugh when I think about it.

And you know, Mr Elbows went and picked it up again and pocketed it!

I also once worked for an Eastern European restauranteur who, at the end of the evening, would take the ice left in the bin behind the bar and return it to the ice machine!

17

A notoriously penuristic friend once proudly admitted that while in college he lived for several months in his apartment with only one light bulb. At night, the cheap bastard would carry the bulb from room to room, screwing it into whatever light he needed to use at that time. No amount of ridicule has ever been able to get him to admit that maybe he was being a little too cheap.

18

My favorite Sushi Bar is owned by an elderly Japanese couple. The wife is the hostess and the main waitress in the restaurant.

If you aren’t familiar with Sushi Bars, they have paper sushi menus and little pencils. You mark what sushi you want on the menu and they give it to the chief.

The wife is so cheap that she erases the menus and reuses them countless times. All the menus are dirty, greasy, torn, bent and erased. If someone uses a pen then you get to watch her pull out the white-out.

I am tempted to steal a menu and make some fresh ones for her. You could probably fit 3 of them to a piece of paper. How much could it cost to get 500 copies?

19

While I’ve had a friend who would check every pay phone for coins left in the coin return, collect packets of condiments from the cafeteria, and check for coins under vending machines, I’d still have to give my dad the award for most cheap.

I’ve got lots of stories about dad, but this is a definite highlight. I needed braces as a kid. I needed some space for the new teeth to come in, so dad (who lived through the Great Depression) decided to pull a tooth to make some room. Why pay the dentist for something he could do, right? He’d handled pulling my baby teeth with small pliers with no problem, but this was a permanent tooth. (On the upper right, the one right behind the canine, with two points on it.) He promised to stop if it hurt, so I let him try. He started pulling, I started yelling as best I could with pliers in my mouth, and surprise, surprise, he didn’t stop. At least until the tooth broke. I’ve now got a tooth with only one point, and a great story to tell every dentist I see. Don’t worry, it quit hurting after a couple of hours, and dad wasn’t allowed to do further dental work on me after that.

20

Wow, this post is chock full of reply-worthy goodness!

This reminds me of my girlfriend. She saves old dryer sheets (the ones that act as fabric softener and anti-static agent). She insists they’re reusable and just throws in a buttload of used ones rather than a single new sheet. Actually, I think I may have broken her of that habit by complaining loudly enough and offering to buy all the dryer sheets she needs.

My father saves used paper towels. He got this habit from his father, who grew up in the Depression and who kept a bag of them handy at all times. Of course, he used to keep a spray-bottle full of gasoline in his workshop which he used to clean his hands, too. Yikes. He lived to be almost 90, though…

First of all, what the hell’s an fMIL?

Again, reminds me of my girlfriend. She’s spent her whole life being obsessed with turning off lights. When I met her, she used to do just about everything in complete darkness. When she did use lights, she had 40-watt bulbs at most. My eyes always hurt when I was in her apartment at night. They’d constantly be trying and failing to properly focus in the insufficient lighting. Now that we live together, I leave lights on constantly, even at night. She’s gotten used to it, but if I leave for a few days for any reason, she’s right back to her old habits.

I used to hear about people doing something like this back in the old days of C-band (“big dish”) satellite TV. The scrambled video was easy to fix, but the audio was much more securely encrypted. Often, though, cable TV offered the same channels with scrambled video and clear audio. So, the trick was to watch the video from the satellite and the audio from cable. The only problem was that the audio frequently lagged behind the video by a second or so due to the slight delay introduced by the cable system receving, descrambling, rescrambling and retransmitting the signal from the satellite. Seems to me it’d be a lot less hassle to just buy the channel from the cable company, but hey…