I organized a bachelor party for a friend. The night started at a nice steak house. We arrived early and sat at the bar blasting through a bunch of very expensive drinks. The bill from that was added to our table bill. We then sat for dinner and ordered a bunch of appetizers, more drinks and some steaks. The service was outstanding. The bill is huge and deservedly so. I'm collecting money from the guys and one of them hands me $40. I say "this isn't even close to half of what you owe". He then goes to the waiter area to retrieve a menu and show me. The steak he ordered was $39.50. He was set on not paying a dime more because he literally didn't think he owed anything more than that. If you ignore the 10 expensive vodka drinks he had + rounds of shots + $200 in appetizers we shared + we were all pitching in to cover the grooms meal..... did he not think he had to cover tax and tip on his $40 steak? For some reason that irked me the most.

I'm really amazed that people have the balls to be this stingy around other people. In some ways, I'm kinda jealous since I'm probably a little too far on the Henry17 side of things.

One thing that I think is really nice about my relationship with almost everyone I'm friendly with is that we almost always bargain backwards. I.e. "Please let me pay for this because you paid for $x", or in poker "I think it'd be fair for me to give you 1.3x markup" "I think I'm only worth like 1.2, so let's setltle on 1.25." Obviously we occasionally argue our own side, but I could never imagine getting in a heated argument about <$10 with a friend.

When I was in high school I had a friend who brought lunch to school everyday (which his mom packed for him) and typically it would be something like a couple boiled potatoes and nothing else. He wasn't poor--the family lived in a >$1 million house.

In class he would write an entire semester's worth of notes on a single sheet of paper by writing so small it was almost illegible to even young eyes. I think his parents probably pushed him hard to save paper.

Once watched one of my GF relatives give his grandson a piggy bank with 2$ in quarters for the kids birthday, and then when no one was looking he stole the quarters he had given his own grandson.

Dude owns like 12 properties in west coast florida ( easy multi-millionaire)

We all called him on it though, and made him give them back.

idk sometimes the cali kush is frosted but latley its been dark looking and kind of meh the canadian kush is always fire.

Stealing quarters from own grandson whilst ebign a millionaire. What is wrong with some people?

One thing I think about stingy people, what do they think money is for?

foar burning obv

I once was standing in front of a hotel and I saw a cab driver say some angry words and throw a few coins on the ground after receiving some money from a passenger and then drive off. I assume the passenger didn't tip enough. Well the passenger who was with a woman then went and picked up the coins.

Okay, I'm having some difficulty believing some of these.

It's slightly less ridiculous to think a poster might be making something like this up to "win the thread" (as stupid as that is) than it is to think some rich guy would steal the $2 he had just given his grandson as a present.

it's been said that all the people who stock up on ketchup packages, or drive across the street for 1cent cheaper gas, etc. always make horrible big purchases or investments. i feel like people who use tipping as their moment to not be nitty are always huge nits in other areas of life.

i lived with two roommates who were waiters and all of their friends worked in the same industry. they really do get overpaid for what they do. most of them get the job through a friend not past work experience or schooling so you're not paying for that. also at the end of the day they all talk about how much they made as if they scammed people for the money. and if they don't get what society has deemed as the socially correct tip they bitch and moan. if everything goes fast and smooth they feel the customer is obligated to leave a big tip and if it doesn't they feel they still deserve it because the reason it didn't go fast was either a fluke or completely out of their hands.

my vote for winner of the thread was the guy's grandfather who filled the orange juice cartons with water to fill up the freezer so it costs less to run.

While the potatoes are weird, this isn't really stingy at all. Bringing lunch = smart.

I was going to a gig with some friends, and I was the one who ordered the tickets.

My friends gave me the money about a week after I got them, but one of them still hasn't. He knew he hadn't paid me on the night of the gig, and we walked past multiple cash machines. He also knew it was unlikely that we'd see each other again for a couple of months.

Kinda stingy imo. I don't particularly care, I just think it's pretty likely I'll never see the money.

In fairness though it really wasn't. He used to give me lifts to the same destination we were going to (as opposed to me getting a train there). I never paid him any money for gas (although offered twice). Ticket can be considered as covering the gas I guess.

Maybe he was a picky eater ?

this isnt really stingy, its just being a scumbag hoping you would forget

I figure that most people have a "friend" like this that they don't stay friends with very long. They think they're outsmarting everyone when in fact they're losing all of their friends. Until they meet each other, I guess.

I get it. A lot of nits don't tip well.

Not exactly stingy i guess, but one of my fave "wtf is wrong with you?" stories.

So, im out in Manchester and its late, easily gone midnight, and it is myself, my friend Dan and his friend Dave who im basically friends with but not close.

We are walking through Picaddily Gardens which is in the very centre of the town to go to Dave's place to spend the night and after going to a cash point in a small alley just off the main path there is sat a small 6-7" pizza (from dominos iirc), it is in the box which was open to the elements and it was cold.

So we are well beyond the 5 second rule, which probably doesnt count for eating other people's food off the street. An alleyway off the busiest part of the Manchester and likely pissed on by drunks many times a night. It probably wasnt pissed on and it was whole, but still, the person who dropped it and left it likely did so for a good reason in the first place, lol.

So the three of us notice it, and me and Dan are like "well, thats kinda odd", then Dave proceeds to pick up the pizza, sniff it to "test" for piss i guess, and then proceeds to eat the thing.

Now to give context, within literally 2 minutes walk is a McDonalds, a Subway, one of the best chippies in Manc and i assume a Dominos not much further (lol) and we were travelling to his own home within half an hour where he can access food he has already bought.

Again, not sure if it is stingy as such because i dont even think he was that hungry, he just refused to leave what is i guess edible food go to "waste", but it certainly qualifies as ****ed up and i could never bring myself to respect someone who would do that unless they were literally homeless and it was either that or nothing.

Jesus, enough w/ the weedtarding already

When I was going to college, I worked 3rd shift at a convenience store in my small town (60K) to get paid to study and sit around. This cop - who was the brother of a friend of mine but still - used to come in and fill his belly on popcorn and fountain soda every night. If I had a few day-old donuts for him, he'd love me even more.

It was worth it to have the obnoxious drunkies come into the lot but not the store.

There is a saying "penny wise/pound foolish"

The owner of my company is like this. He once told us all that we could no longer order anymore post-its and that we should only use them if absolutely necessary. WTF?

But he spent like $5K on some BS telecom get-up that we never use. He's all about status and symbolism and stuff like that. He's gotta have all the current gadgets and whatnot. Walks around the office with his hands-free phone sticking out of his ear. Also, instead of typing he speaks the commands into the computer and it types for him.

But WATCH THOSE POST-ITS!!! They'll bring us down!

I actually asked him that day about it, because I couldn't remember if he'd squared me for it or not. He'd paid me for something else a while back and I wasn't sure if he'd included the ticket money in it.

"Hey, when you paid me for [item] did you give me the money for this ticket too? I can't remember."

"Hmm... yeah, I don't think I did."

*Silence ensues and we walk past a set of ATMs and towards the gig*

What's the etiquette on something like this? Do I just not mention it and if he doesn't pay it for ages eventually remind him? Although I have no problem with giving it to him as a gift for giving me so many lifts.

Went through something similar.

When i was a teen i worked in a company that was a private business that would take long term unemployed and helped them get back to work. As part of our contract we would help them write and send letters, including covering the cost of postage so they didnt have to.

So our branch is doing pretty crappy for various reasons and so the regional manager comes in to find ways to cut costs. We were told two things, one of which was close to fraud and meant the government clawed back a ****load of funds from us at the end of the quarterly anyway (it relates to learndirect which is a different gov scheme, pretty simple to assume what we were doing with that contract by basically putting people on ****ty courses they never wanted and very rarely completed anyway).

But the best was we were meant to "conserve stamps". So the branch is, i would assume, losing 4 figures a week, but as part of my job as general administrator was to count up all the stamps we used that day and then ring to the other office round the corner with that figure so they would combine it with their figures and i assume kick those figures up to the regional office.

So basically instead of doing other productive work i was recording something we arent meant to limit in any way and the trainers were encouraged to ensure they werent wasting postage with crap job applications; which you can do here and there but you are looking at £5 a week saving per office requiring at least three man hours between myself and the two trainers checking applications so it was a clear net loss anyway.

(btw as a trainee not even making min wage i saved 10 man hours a week across three employees and the ****ers still never took me on full time despite my manager and the trainers i worked with going to bat for me, they got a much less competent series of trainees to do the same position which led to the training agencies stopping sending them trainees, lol)

So yeah, when i was there we had two small offices within a few minutes walk running three or four contracts, i left to go to uni and my office got folded into the other when they lost a contract, then within three years (probably less) they lost all contracts and now have no foothold in the area.

Prime candidate for a culling, imo.

had a "friend" who was more of a friend of friends who would NEVER buy a round of drinks
he would come out drinks when other people bought rounds and leave after 2 or 3 drinks
nobody else ever said or did anything but after the second time (figured fiurst time something may have come up etc) i stopped getting him drinks when i bought a round

the same idiot would try and pull a constanza if you were taking a cab anywhere (can you drop me off on the way youre going there anyway)

one time we were in lower manhattan and he asked me if i was taking a cab home (to the bronx-probably 30 bucks at the time) and when i said yes- hold on ill go get my coat (his cab ride would be maybe 8 bucks and actually a little out of my way)
he came back out and i was already in a can on the way home and he calls me
"hey whered you go?"

i refused to ever let him in a cab with me

why even bother embarrassing yourself with that ******ed statement in front of your friends? if you're going to cheat on your taxes, then just do it, there's no reason to lie to yourself and friends just to make you sleep better at night about your little scam.

i give that story like 5% likelihood of being true