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

eastcott5

I was a science teacher and once worked in a school where the staff all had wooden clothes pegs to hang their tea bags up on a line in the prep room so they could be reused. One person made his last a week.

Ebenezer_Screwj

I also like the idea of serving up cat food tuna in sandwiches ("it tastes just the same") especially in kids' lunch boxes. I don't like kids so what's good enough for cats is good enough for them.

macpumpkin

We went on a uni trip walking after uni in a big group and two of the boys very kindly went to the village to pick up fresh bread rolls for people's breakfasts every morning. I think they were about 20p each and at the end of the two weeks we all paid the boys apart from one girl who swore that she only ate one bread roll one day and so wanted to pay 20p.

macpumpkin

I think the most shocking example of meanness was one of my friends, R. We were having a farewell BBQ and one of my friend's hosted it, another friend brought an enormous salad to share. We brought lots of food and drink and R brought his trousers in case he got cold!

Gettingtherequickly

welshbookworm wrote: »

A friend I have regularly pops into McDonalds and helps herself to sugars.
Her logic is as she doesn't take sugar, its only for visitors !

I do that, generally because I forget to buy sugar. One of my friends gets the sachets for me also

Kim_kim

sclare wrote: »

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!

I do the same in Starbucks - large americano & I put a splash of cold skimmed milk in it myself.

Sharon87

My friend moved to London and was a bit skint, but at work tea bags came individually wrapped, so usually, when no one was looking she would take a few a day home, instead of buying tea bags! They also had fruit teas - I also took a few home to try when I worked for that company!

She would also take more sauce/sugar/any other sachet when she was out and take it home. She never bought ketchup or sugar.

Last winter, my current housemates always turned the heating off when it was freezing. The house isn't that well insulated so it often got really cold. I always switched it back on, it's not like the thermostat was set really high either, and it was on a timer, but they'd take it off the timer at night, so in the morning I'd wake up and it was too cold for me to want to leave my bed! Heating wars!

My uncle was known for stealing toilet rolls whenever he went round to people's houses. He traveled from my mums house to my uni in a van to help me move - which we gave him some money for, and he stole 2 toilet rolls from my mums and 1 from mine!

ansbro81

Well on payday every month I treat myself to a costa coffee on way to work. While I'm there I always pinch enough sugar to last me the rest of the month for when at work.
(I do buy it properly for home though)

Pixie5740

garfield33 wrote: »

I had a housemate at university who bought a lightbulb for a communal area for 55p, then demanded 11p from me and the other three housemates. He has gone down in legend amongst us.

The lightbulb went in the bathroom of my brother's university flat. I'm not sure if it was penny pinching or laziness but neither him nor his flat mates would buy a new lightbulb. It was one of those bathrooms without a window so you had to wear this camping head torch whenever you wanted to use the loo.

alibean121

I had to talk my mum out of taking something back for a refund in a charity shop. It had cost about 50p.

An old boss was the worst though. She had some spare kids stuff after her boys had grown out of things and she was going to sell them to her mum to use with other grandchildren. I thought that was appalling!