Jesus....

Yeah, that and two of my roommates had just moved out at the end of the last month. So my water comsumption was probably 1% of what it was the month before (EACH of them did laundry >4x weekly).

Thats ****ed up.



One of my biggest pet peeves growing up was when my mother and father would refuse to get gas at say $2.65 for instance because they saw it for $2.63 an hour before. It comes out to like 30 cents tops!!

How do they each do laundry more than 4x a week? Were they both changing their clothes 4x a day or something?

Each owned 1 shirt. 1 pair of pants. 1 pair of tighty whities.

Aside from Eurotard tipping rants and the like, this has been one of the most entertaining threads in awhile.

No. He did other things like this. For example, he would charge other kids 50 cents to take a drink out of a 2 liter bottle of coke, etc.

He also tended to pull the "oh, I forgot my wallet trick" or charge you for gas when he gave us a ride to get food, or whatever.

what pisses me off more then people "forgetting" to pay you back, is when they go, "Ah, I'll get your McDonald's, you picked up the steak and lobster last night."

pro stingy tip: an easier and more delicious way to extract the last few drops of syrup is to fill the bottle about halfway with milk, shake well, and pour into a glass. depending on the size of the syrup bottle, this makes apprxoimately one strong, one medium-strength, and 1-2 weak cups of chocolate milk.

not that i've ever done that.

Connecticut. I forgot to add that I worked there during holiday season, and we got a bunch of gift baskets sent to the office from customers and vendors. They took every single one, didn't even open one to share. The sales guy asked us (the 3 women in the office) if we liked the basket he sent us.

We told him we didn't get it, and he said he sent it specifically to the three of us with our names on it because he knew they took the others. So, the receptionist looked in the sons office which still had a bunch of baskets in it, and sure enough, there was "our" basket opened up and picked through. Apparently, they opened the ones they liked for themselves, and we were pretty sure they regifted the others.

The receptionist did the old "Jim, did you see that basket was for us". His reply actually surprised the hell out of me. Instead of denying seeing the tag, he actually owned it. He said anything sent to the office was theirs, whether it was sent attention to us or not. He actually gave the example of "if you order supplies, and the box comes addressed to you, are the supplies yours?"

Not making this stuff up, either. I am being completely serious here, and I can't believe I forgot to include this in my initial post.

AIM? How lame! True stingies go with dollar-store toothpaste.

He was told he would be fired if he did not work off the clock, and then he was fired for this reason. That's completely legal?

I didn't realize I could hire someone and have them put in full time hours and then browbeat and threaten them to clock part time hours. I guess Wal-Mart gets away with it.

Did you grow up 3 years ago? Gas was never this high until recently.

But yeah people who drive around looking for cheaper gas need to die a slow painful death.

honestly, who under 20 hasn't done this

The owner of the house I'm renting a room in for the summer -- in Indianapolis where it's above 90 pretty often -- instead of having A/C, has a cheap box fan in every room of the house. They aren't even his fans either; he borrowed them all from the elementary school where he teaches. Probably would've stayed somewhere else if I'd known about this!

No central air in Indianapolis??? Is it a really old farmhouse or something?

No, the house has A/C but it's broken. Instead of paying a repairman he decided to go with the box fans.

My fiancee once did the 'don't stop here for gas, it's cheaper 1000 miles away' bit. She quickly recanted after I math'd her, and remarked that she'd always thought that way because her (British) parents thought that way.

Easiest way to avoid the credit card tip scam is for everyone to leave their cash tip on the table. Why do people feel the need to put the whole tip on the card? The waiters take home more on cash tips, anyway.

Something I do that I consider to be smart alcoholism rather than stinginess is to buy the largest bottle at the highest proof. Obviously the larger bottle is always a better deal, but when I buy Wild Turkey, I always get the 101 proof version because there are more grams of alcohol per dollar in the bottle.

Ya, I and everyone else I know has done this at least once. Doing it once or twice here and there, standard.

Doing it every time = stingy & cheap

I almost never have enough 1s or combo of a 5 and 1s to leave any cash tip. I almost always add it to my card. I'm guessing this is similar for like 99% of people who don't live in a strip club.

In Montreal (don't know about the rest of Canada), you can now usually pay debit/credit right at your table with a handy machine that your server brings, and it often has a hotkey for 15% tip. So when I feel like the service has been of acceptable+ quality/I don't want to do math, I just pay with a card and click that magic button to fast fwd through that segment. Makes life super easy.

if he's playing poker at the casino, thank god for him, what a great man. appreciate him not spending all of our money on frivolous things like lighting and toothpaste.

if he's playing any other casino game: GODDAMMIT SO F TILTING JESUS WHAT A MORON

If you're the kind of person carrying enough cash around to cover meal tabs where the tip is significant to whine about in this thread, why not have the waiter make change? Eliminate risk of tip scamming while still being able to look like a balla flashing the $80 cash stash.

honest people who don't steal that were raised by good parents, for starters.

Worked in a grocery store in my teens, one woman used to bring scissors and cut the stems off of asparagus and the stalks off of broccoli.

When I was a kid we had a local flea market a friend used to go to. I was a wrestling fan and they sold buttons of wrestlers there. He told me and asked if I wanted him to pick up any for me. I said yes and asked for 2. He came back and told me I owed him $2. I later found out the buttons cost 50 cents each, and that he would do this to earn some money.

His parents also bought him an arcade version of asteriods which he had in a game room in his basement. He asked me if I wanted to play and when I said yes, told me to bring quarters. I saw that it didn't need quarters, and asked him about it. He said he was going to charge his friends the same rate as if they played at an arcade, and was just going to keep the money.

At work now people often bring in things to share, cookies, brownies, etc. There is a woman who will go as soon as she sees someone putting out the plate, and take several and wrap them in a napkin. She will even take 4 or 5 cookies if there were only 7 or 8 to begin with, having no thought of leaving some for others.

Entertaining thread. My contributions:

When I was a teen-ager, a friend's parents would wash and re-use lambskin condoms. Of course, I didn't actually observe it and have no idea how he knew, but he knew.

My mother-in-law, who grew up very poor, until very recently would water her yard by hauling her used bathwater out of the house even though she has a couple of garden hoses hooked up outside. It was not an environmental issue with her--just a question of saving money in a region where water is very cheap and plentiful. She has some other quirks in this area, but that is the most egregious.

BTW, I'm in king_of_NYC's corner on the rehearsal dinner. I was recently involved in a wedding where the groom's family threw the rehearsal dinner of hamburgers and deer sausage cooked and served in their backyard and tried to exclude ancillary members of the wedding party as well as spouses/SOs of members of the wedding party. I did my best to encourage everyone who showed up for the rehearsal to attend the rehearsal dinner.