Cheapskate stories

[siamesecat2965]

When a bar of soap is too small to use, I wet both the old and the new soaps and stick them together to avoid throwing away the sliver of soap. I grew up thinking everyone did this. Please let me know if you think this is cheap?

I've seen this tip on several frugal living sites.  I don't think it's cheap at all - you're not stealing, you're not affecting quality of life, you're just not wasting usable soap.

Not at all.  I do something similar with my favorite hand cream. it's pricy, $12 for 2.5 oz tube. I will buy with coupons, promos, and always have a stash of 8-10. But when it gets down to where its hard to squeeze anymore out, i cut the top of the tube off, and use my finger to scoop out what's left. then put it in a jar.  However, only I use it, since my fingers have been all over it. Any guest who wants/needs lotion gets a full tube to use.

[Virg]

CharlieBraun wrote:

"He converted his auto to run on oil.  Vegetable oil.  He used to buy the fryer oil from various restaurants in his town, sequentially.  If you drove behind his car, depending on the day, you might be treated to the odor of egg rolls/dim sum, french fries, or cannoli."

I don't think this particular suggestion belongs in the cheapskate thread.  If he's buying the oil instead of begging or stealing it, then more power to him (pun intended) if he can run his car on an alternative fuel.  The fact that he uses "scented gasoline" isn't enough of a problem to push it over the edge for me.  In fact, I think it's pretty ingenious.

Virg

[hermanne]

When they retired, both my parents and Mr. ThipRTu's parents thought that they could make do with
one tea bag for two people.  Both sets of parents soon decided that wasn't the best of ideas.     

We do that.  It's fine.

We do, too.  My husband just dips he bag in and out of his hot water.  He likes tea so weak that it hardly has a flavor.  If I don't use the bag he'll save it for next timetime.  He hangs it up on a cup hook and dries it out.

And a "scecond run" of tea is decaf.

[Bijou]

At work we were collecting for a food drive at Christmas and someone donated swollen, rusted cans of food.  I was shocked.  Who does stuff like this? 

[RingTailedLemur]

When they retired, both my parents and Mr. Thipu's parents thought that they could make do with
one tea bag for two people.  Both sets of parents soon decided that wasn't the best of ideas.     

We do that.  It's fine.

We do, too.  My husband just dips he bag in and out of his hot water.  He likes tea so weak that it hardly has a flavor.  If I don't use the bag he'll save it for next time.  He hangs it up on a cup hook and dries it out.

I get the tea bag first because I like tea quite strong.  Mr Lemur likes his quite weak - he describes it as "just wave the tea bag in the direction of the cup".  We don't save any/dry them out though.

[reflection5]

When a bar of soap is too small to use, I wet both the old and the new soaps and stick them together to avoid throwing away the sliver of soap. I grew up thinking everyone did this. Please let me know if you think this is cheap?

I've known of people who do this; even did it myself a few times if it doesn't break first.  Not cheap.  (The slivers of soap I referred to (exBFF's DH) were not large enough to attach to another bar of soap.)

When I was little I remember my grandma used to save soap slivers, put them in a jar with water, soaked it till it got really gooey, and made kind of a detergent to use.  I used to know of people who did this a long time ago, but haven't seen it recently.

[darling]

When a bar of soap is too small to use, I wet both the old and the new soaps and stick them together to avoid throwing away the sliver of soap. I grew up thinking everyone did this. Please let me know if you think this is cheap?

I've seen this tip on several frugal living sites.  I don't think it's cheap at all - you're not stealing, you're not affecting quality of life, you're just not wasting usable soap.

Not at all.  I do something similar with my favorite hand cream. it's pricy, $12 for 2.5 oz tube. I will buy with coupons, promos, and always have a stash of 8-10. But when it gets down to where its hard to squeeze anymore out, i cut the top of the tube off, and use my finger to scoop out what's left. then put it in a jar.  However, only I use it, since my fingers have been all over it. Any guest who wants/needs lotion gets a full tube to use.

Thank you for the lotion tip! I forgot my new tube of hand lotion at home, and was really regretting it. Then I saw your post, grabbed the old tube, cut it open, and YAY, DRY HAND RELIEF!!!! 

[lady_disdain]

Washing your own car instead of taking it someplace - frugal
running out in a rainstorm with a bucket and a bar of soap to wash the car - cheap.

As long as the soap is the right kind (which also applies to washing on your own), I don't see a problem. You are not harming anyone by standing out in the rain and, excepting extreme weather, won't harm you either. So what's the problem?

Now, if the person were pushing for all of us to do the same...

[Twik]

When a bar of soap is too small to use, I wet both the old and the new soaps and stick them together to avoid throwing away the sliver of soap. I grew up thinking everyone did this. Please let me know if you think this is cheap?

"Cheap" is doing something that is overly time-consuming, complicated, or that results in a vastly degraded experience that isn't worth the few pennies saved. Your example is fine - it's thrifty, not cheap.

[heartmug]

My in-laws.  We don't exchange anniversary gifts, though we have thrown them 2 anniversary parties.  After one of those parties they gave us an anniversary card with $20 in it.  They owed us $30 from a month before, but DH didn't want to make an issue out of it.

Last time we went on vacation with them (in which they will do NOTHING unless it is free) we had gone to a museum and they skipped it.  We met them for lunch.  When the check came FIL excused himself to go to the bathroom and MIL looked away.  Seriously.  DH waited for a few minutes to see if she would reach for the check.  So he picked it up, read it over, asked me if I had $15 to leave the tip in cash, and she offered nothing the whole time.  FIL took his leftover pasta back to the hotel.  I didn't think it was enough for a meal but whatever.The next morning we met up for brunch and asked them what they did for dinner.  They split the cold pasta (no microwave).

They gave us a painting for Christmas one year that was rescused from their neighbor's "who were just going to throw it away."  Yes, that was our "gift."

My birthday card is a smaller card that comes inside of DH's birthday card each year, even though my birthday is before his.  If we are visiting them near my birthday, then I get handed a full size card.

Almost forgot:  my DH's favorite one to tell.  It was our 25th anniversary.  Usually we just get a card from them, so here in our mail is a card and a gift card!  Wow.  But on closer inspection, it looked like a gift card but the large "$20" at the top had fine print under it that it was $20 off a purchase of $50 or more.  And it expired in 3 months.  So it really was a coupon.  But it was to our favorite store.  MIL called and asked if we got the gift card.  DH said she didn't sound happy when he corrected her and told her it was a coupon.

[rose red]

A story above reminded me of one. 

I used to know a guy who, when he was little, his parents sent him out to neighbors to ask for their used cooking oil/grease to make soap with.  It was really gross because his parents didn't strain the oil and the soaps would still have bits of bacon and such. 

I've heard of saving your own to make soap, but it wasn't common to ask neighbors where he lived and he was very embarrassed begging for grease.  Looking back, he realised the neighbors must have felt sorry for him but was kind enough to save the used oil/grease for when he came around.

The parents are those who can spend a lot on some unnecessary things, but will bend over backwards to find basic necessities for free if they can.  There were other stories about their cheapness, but that one stuck with me.

[EmmaJ.]

At work we were collecting for a food drive at Christmas and someone donated swollen, rusted cans of food.  I was shocked.  Who does stuff like this?

My church has a bin in the narthex for food donations which is passed on to the local homeless shelter.  Every few months, Pastor has to make an announcement "Please, no expired items!"

The last time he made the announcement, I heard someone behind me muttering, "Since when are homeless people picky?"

    

[reflection5]

When the check came FIL excused himself to go to the bathroom and MIL looked away.  Seriously. 

ooohh boy, that brought back a memory.

This crosses the line from cheapskate to scammer, imo.  I worked for an organization and for functional reasons our small section was located in a different part of town than the main office.  There were 8 of us, and we fell into a habit of going to lunch together every Friday.  The check plus tip was always split 8 ways (or 6 or however many people came).  One young woman (relatively new hire) had a habit of getting up to go to the rest room as soon as the check came.  She would watch for just the right time when several people were engaged in lively conversation and laughing, etc.  I noticed it, as did a co-worker. (She/cheapskate was not a kid - about 28 yrs old)  The boss would just go ahead and collect from everyone then toss in some extra.

Errant co-worker would stay in the rest room until we were ready to leave, and I never saw her give money to anyone.  It was hard to decide what, if anything, to do.  So, after several weeks of this, a co-worker said to boss “I’ll pay X’s share and she can pay me back when she comes out of the rest room.”  Well, when X came out of the rest room, co-worker said “They already collected and paid.  Since you weren’t here, I paid your share.”  X looked at coworker like she had two heads and did nothing.  Next day, co-worker asked X for the money and X said “Oh, I have to go to the bank”.  She gave several excuses over several days and actually started treating co-worker rather cool and avoiding her.   I don’t know if X ever paid up, but I continued to notice that X did her disappearing act when it was time to pay.  So, two of us started asking for separate checks and just paid for our own lunches.  If boss wanted to pay for X’s lunches, fine, but I didn’t want to.

[EmmaJ.]

Oh, and I wanted to chime in on the stuffed animals.  I used to go to Goodwill and buy stuffies by the barrel.  My dog's quirk was to destroy - no, anniliate - them down to little inch square pieces of fabric. 

I would wash and dry everything I purchased but honestly didn't care what it looked like.  Pooch was just so happy with a new toy every couple days.

[Thipu1]

When a bar of soap is too small to use, I wet both the old and the new soaps and stick them together to avoid throwing away the sliver of soap. I grew up thinking everyone did this. Please let me know if you think this is cheap?

 Back in the 1980s, catalogues such as Lilian Vernon offered a 'soap press'.  The idea was that you would save slivers of soap, pack them into a mold and make them into a new bar of soap.  It didn't often work well but the idea wasn't bad. I would consider that thrifty rather than cheap. 

In a similar vein, I buy large bottles of shampoo, pour half out into another bottle and fill up the bottle with water.  This gives me plenty of good shampoo and, since I wash my hair every day, I really don't need the concentrated stuff.  I consider that thrifty.