Sunday fun: what's the cringiest money saving you've witnessed??

sclare

If you buy a white coffee, it's often extremely milky (with hot milk) and rather weak. I don't want what most places call a 'white coffee',. It'sa lottery as to what one will get, and more often than not, it's nowhere near the drink i want. I want a strong Americano with a splash of cold milk.
It's nothing to do with being a skinflint, it's about getting the drink I like. Wherever I go, I ask for an Americano with cold milk on the side. It has never occurred to me that anyone would consider that I was penny pinching, and no server has ever seemed confused, put out, or surprised by my order.

Whatever, it's not in the league of washing one's clingfilm!

Pixie5740

Why not just ask for a white coffee with just a splash of milk in it then or a macchiato even?

Angry_Bear

Pixie5740 wrote: »

Why not just ask for a white coffee with just a splash of milk in it then or a macchiato even?

A macchiato is a short coffee with frothy milk, so not the same. But even if you specify "just a splash" and even "just the tiniest drop", it often comes far too milky. No idea why.

Growurown

Muhren wrote: »

There was a thread on here a while back about someone who gave a whole list of ways to live more frugally. I can remember there were some belters on there but can't think what they were or what the thread was called. The only one I can remeber was about watering down milk or it may have even been having water on your cereal!

Yes I remember that! They washed up in cold water.....

A friend of mine went with her children to stay with family, and one of the children left a pair of trainers behind. The poor child got them back at Christmas time wrapped up as a present!

Pixie5740

Angry_Bear wrote: »

A macchiato is a short coffee with frothy milk, so not the same. But even if you specify "just a splash" and even "just the tiniest drop", it often comes far too milky. No idea why.

Yes, I know what a macchiato is, I was just throwing it out there as another suggestion of a coffee with a splash/stain. An Americano with milk is up there with using a spoon when eating spaghetti. In terms of money pinching it doesn't matter so much in somewhere like Starbucks who leave jugs of milk out for its patrons to add as much or as little as they like but in a smaller, independent cafe that clearly states coffees with milk cost more that is cringy penny pinching as you're stealing from a small local business. 10p or 20p might not sound a lot but it if everyone does it then it all adds up.

Reusing clingfilm does seem like more hassle than it's worth. A friend of mine used to spend her weekends washing out used sandwich bags because her now-ex-husband was a penny pinching miser.

Pixie5740

Growurown wrote: »

A friend of mine went with her children to stay with family, and one of the children left a pair of trainers behind. The poor child got them back at Christmas time wrapped up as a present!

That is bad. :rotfl:

Ebenezer_Screwj

HOW TO SEND CHRISTMAS CARDS FOR NOTHING
1. Obtain large supply of complimentary cards advertising a large corporate organisation
2. Collect all the postage stamps which escape franking from large corporate organisation
3. Remove by soaking and paste onto new mail (glue stick from large corporate organisation)
4. Write your greeting with pen from large corporate organisation
5. Prepare mailing labels (obtained from large corporate organisation) and print out at work to save ink
6. Save shoe leather when walking to mail box by wearing safety shoes provided by employer
TOTAL COST : ZERO

Ebenezer_Screwj

Pixie5740 wrote: »

When my school friends I were about 25 the first one of us got married. One of our friends gave an IOU as a wedding present which he still hasn't made good on almost 10 years later. Another of our friends got married earlier this year and instead of a wedding card he bought a retirement card that was on sale and just crossed out retirement and wrote wedding in.

Love the wedding card idea, but why BUY any sort of card? Just make one out of an old cereal packet or odd bit of cardboard from a neighbours bin and write your own greeting.

trinity_enigma

When I lived with my ex we went through a really skint patch when we would buy our weekly shop for about a tenner and while at the supermarket would carefully count out 5 fruit and veg bags for him to take him sandwiches in for his packed lunch. Not sure if that's frugal or stealing?

Reya

trinity_enigma wrote: »

When I lived with my ex we went through a really skint patch when we would buy our weekly shop for about a tenner and while at the supermarket would carefully count out 5 fruit and veg bags for him to take him sandwiches in for his packed lunch. Not sure if that's frugal or stealing?

It's only truly frugal if you then washed them, hung them on the line to dry, and re-used them for several weeks thereafter.

(I'm that person who re-uses sandwich bags - the already ultra-cheapy ones - all week. Well, as long as the food inside them doesn't change from savoury to sweet or vice-versa anyway! I don't wash them, mind you; I just shake out any crumbs.)