Cheapskate stories

[heartmug]

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.

I think this is the crux of what bothers me about cheapskates' behavior: Treating me as if I am too stupid to recognize what they are doing.  Yes, I notice that you aren't reaching for the check.  Yes, I notice that you re-gifted me a bottle of lotion so old that it has crusted over the top and formed a sort of lotion-wax.   Yes, I notice that you served me expired food when I was a guest in your home. To pretend that I don't notice these things implies a pretty low opinion of my intelligence.

Well said.

[reflection5]

Sometimes I think cheapskates DO know that others are aware of what they're doing, but they just don't care.

To me it's often a case of "You are not worthy of me going to the dollar store to buy you a (new) $5/$10 gift, so here, take this (used thing that I don't want)".

Cheapskates, by their very nature, are usually selfish and lazy unless the situation benefits them in some way.

[artk2002]

I recently stayed in a hotel that promptly went on my "Didn't care for, won't revisit" list. (Didn't care for the level of cleanliness, food and service lacking etc.)

One quirk I did notice was that the hotel did offer complimentary shampoo and soap - but in large dispensers fastened to the wall of the shower. Perfectly hygienic and all, and no doubt cheaper than providing individually wrapped items, but I did find it a bit off putting in a stingy sort of way.
But I may be biased because by this time I was already less than impressed with the place.

Now, I'd prefer this (although I like to collect the little amenity bottles.) It's far more environmentally sound do do it this way. The little bottles create a very large amount of waste.

[reflection5]

Am I the only one who has gotten very little done today because of this addictive thread?    The stories are so good. I've created a monster! 

[VorFemme]

I like the dispenser bottles - I hate running out of either conditioner or body wash in the shower!  But I don't like the scent of the stuff in the gym shower - so I take my own body wash that doubles as hair shampoo.

I use the thin slivers of soap to mark fabrics that I am sewing - the soap washes out quickly when I run the garment through a rinse cycle or dab it with a very wet washcloth (depends on the size of the marks and the color of the fabric).

[rose red]

Diswashing liquid reminds me of a guy who use it as shampoo.  It works pretty well, so for the cost of one bottle (about $1), it does two jobs.

[Paper Roses]

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 grew up thinking everyone did this too.  I was shocked that my husband would throw away the small slivers.  I promptly broke him of that habit.

[ladyknight1]

My other aunt thinks dish detergent is too expensive (and not hygienic because she lets her dogs eat off the plates) so she washes her dishes with bleach. Unfortunately the bleach water that splashes onto her shirt ends up eating the shirts, so she has many, many shirts with holes worn in the lower abdomen area. She still wears them though, and won't let my mom toss them because they're "fine." She also reuses paper towels until they disintegrate.

Wasn't there a story here about a woman whose mother refused to put detergent in the dishwasher, so the plates just got "rinsed."  The first time the poster's husband ate at the in-laws house, he got sick as a dog from the leftover residue/germs on the plates?

My husband's great grandparents never washed a dish or pot. When he would go to visit, he would pre-wash everything he used.

[SiotehCat]

No, no. Never, Wolfie.

I meant that running out to wash the car in the rain is not taking advantage of good manners but of nature. Taking advantage of the rain to wash the car.

Oh thank god I misunderstood you! I think I misread the quote tree.

I am wondering though - is there dirt and stuff in rain? So would you need to clean the car again afterwards? I hardly ever wash mine as it is.

If you wash your car in the rain 1) the continued rain will keep the finish wet, so that when it stops, the finish will spot - thereby negating the washing you did and 2) if you do it in a rainstorm, you are adding surfactants (the stuff that breaks the surface tension of water, making it soak into your clothes/dirt/etc. better) to the ground at a time that there's a lot of water being added, making it more likely that the rain will soak down into the earth around you, making mud worse. It's not just cheap, but can be foolish (and you'd go through an awful lot of soap, since your rags would be constantly being rinsed out).

Now, if you want to go DANCE in the rain, that's a whole other thing. Nothing cheap about that - just good, free fun!

I haven't washed my car in over 6 years. I just don't see the point.

So,if I went out and washed my car in the rain, even with water spots, it would still look so much better than it does now.

[Luci]

Am I the only one who has gotten very little done today because of this addictive thread?    The stories are so good. I've created a monster! 

My rule: Never post without reading the thread to the end!

Broken: you are not alone

(now must go back!)

[magicdomino]

I thought she meant going out into the rain to wash the car.  I agree with her.  Well, as long as there's no lightning!   

Washing the car in the pouring rain -- frugal, if not reliably efficient

Taking off your clothes to wash the car and yourself at the same time -- cheapskate, especially if the neighbors aren't happy with the view.   

[Lynn2000]

My friend's dad, though a really nice guy, was very frugal and occasionally veered into being a cheapskate. The funniest story was when he reused the envelope that his electricity bill had come in, to send a check to his ex (friend's mom). He had re-addressed it to his ex, but it ended up going back to the electric company (return address or barcode or whatever). Fortunately it was a small town and they were able to figure it out, and got a big chuckle out of it.

My co-worker Grace is also very cheap about certain things. She is always getting after people for throwing something away at work that she would have reused, and has been known to pick containers and even food out of the garbage. :X She scrapes the mold off her bread and eats it anyway--I almost lost my lunch when I saw her doing that (at work!). She'll save small amounts of the leftover coffee in a jar in the fridge--this is either "fresh" coffee that was just in the pot, or coffee from her own mug that she just didn't get around to drinking--then heat it up in the microwave days later and drink it. She is also a champion of scraping every last molecule of food out of a container and then reusing the container--she has one plastic butter tub she brings to work that she says is twenty years old. She rinses/washes plastic spoons and uses them again--fortunately she puts them in a little cup off to the side in the break room for her own use, not in the main cup of utensils, so the rest of us can avoid them if we want. Note that some of those things don't affect other people, at least.

[Shalamar]

When ordering Chinese food, I'm disappointed if it comes in paper or styrofoam containers because then I don't get the plastic resusable ones.  I haven't brought lunch containers in years.

Not to mention that styrofoam isn't recyclable (at least, not where I live).  I love those plastic containers from Chinese restaurants, too - I use those until they fall apart, and it's amazing how many dishwasher cycles they'll stand up to until that happens.

[magicdomino]

My friend's dad, though a really nice guy, was very frugal and occasionally veered into being a cheapskate. The funniest story was when he reused the envelope that his electricity bill had come in, to send a check to his ex (friend's mom). He had re-addressed it to his ex, but it ended up going back to the electric company (return address or barcode or whatever). Fortunately it was a small town and they were able to figure it out, and got a big chuckle out of it.

My co-worker Grace is also very cheap about certain things. She is always getting after people for throwing something away at work that she would have reused, and has been known to pick containers and even food out of the garbage. :X She scrapes the mold off her bread and eats it anyway--I almost lost my lunch when I saw her doing that (at work!). She'll save small amounts of the leftover coffee in a jar in the fridge--this is either "fresh" coffee that was just in the pot, or coffee from her own mug that she just didn't get around to drinking--then heat it up in the microwave days later and drink it. She is also a champion of scraping every last molecule of food out of a container and then reusing the container--she has one plastic butter tub she brings to work that she says is twenty years old. She rinses/washes plastic spoons and uses them again--fortunately she puts them in a little cup off to the side in the break room for her own use, not in the main cup of utensils, so the rest of us can avoid them if we want. Note that some of those things don't affect other people, at least.

Okay, I hereby confess to washing plastic spoons and forks, at least the ones that I personally use.  I run them through the dishwasher, and reserve them for eating lunches and snacks at work.  Like the plastic Chinese containers, they go through the dishwasher remarkably well, and if they get lost, grungy, or damaged, there's plenty more where they came from.

[Lynn2000]

Oh, AND... my friend's husband is kind of cheap. A great guy overall, but he doesn't always see the value in spending more upfront to get something that lasts longer, and he can "get by" with less stuff/more inconvenience than my friend, so sometimes they clash about stuff. I remember when he was single and could survive on just 2-liters of soda and loaves of white bread from the cheapest grocery store. Also he would take cold showers, with something in the pipe leaking and spraying him at a weird spot, rather than pay to have the plumbing fixed. And when he worked the night shift, he would rather sleep on a cot in his closet, than pay for curtains to put over his bedroom windows to block out the daylight.

More recently, his wife was discussing buying a new carseat for their child, who had outgrown his first one. The model she wanted was a bit expensive and she wanted to get two, one for each of their cars. At first he suggested only having one, in her car; and she said that would be really inconvenient, because that meant she would always have to be the one to pick up the child, or they would have to do an awkward vehicle swap. Then he suggested getting the expensive one for her car, and a "cheap" carseat for his car. Oh, boy. That works for so many things, but not carseats.