Extreme cheapskates!! What's the most extreme thing you have done to save money?

BEAT_THE_DEBT

Hi I have been watching extreme cheapskates. What's the most extreme thing you have done to save money?

If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply!
[purplesignup][/purplesignup]

VfM4meplse

Why don't you give us some examples from the show to kick the thread off with? I think most of us are interested in moneysaving so we can do more with what little we have.

To me, a cheapskate is a miser - ie someone who will save money at another person's expense without any regard for their feelings, or awareness that what they have done is offensive. That's nothing to be proud of.

monnagran

I think that the most extreme thing I have done was not to save money but because I didn't have any money.

It was in my student days and I was going for an interview for a holiday job. There was a hole in my only pair of white shoes - just where my little toe was. I repainted the shoes and then painted my little toe so that it wouldn't show pink and draw attention to the hole.

50 years later my father told me that it broke his heart to see me do that but there was no spare money in our house and there was nothing he could do about it.

.

camelot1001

One of my work colleagues buys christmas presents (usually clothes) for her Dad and DD, gives them to them then takes them back, returns them to the shop and re-buys the same things when they are in the sale!

NewShadow

We cater events and large meetings with externals.

I generally take a few spare tubs with me and pack-up leftovers.

I'll have some for dinner or lunch the next day, but have been known to come away with so much (delegates not turning up for one reason or another) I've happily fed all the kids at the local church group for the day.

At my first event 4 bin bags of food was thrown away - I can't take it all, but it seems a crime not to take any. Not sure if that's me being a cheapskate?

VfM4meplse

NewShadow wrote: »

At my first event 4 bin bags of food was thrown away - I can't take it all, but it seems a crime not to take any. Not sure if that's me being a cheapskate?

It certainly isn't, you're just reducing waste which is a sensible thing to do at all levels. The only thing being deprived of benefit is the bin, and you fed a crowd in the process.

Cheapskate fail, go to the back of the queue.

thriftwizard

I've been known to pick up, cook & eat roadkilled pheasants; we live semi-rurally, and if I see one lying by the road that wasn't there when I went the other way a few moments ago, not too mangled, and near somewhere safe to stop, it'll go into my car boot. I'd never deliberately harm one, or pick one up that I myself had hit, which is illegal. (Not that I ever have hit one, I'm not usually travelling that fast.) But otherwise - it's good food that'll otherwise go to waste! Not to mention delicious.

Sadly male pheasants WILL throw themselves in front of cars, to try to draw them away from their nests. So they're behaving completely naturally when they get killed. But I'd never pick up a rabbit that had strayed onto the road in daylight, though; normally they'd stay well away from the tarmac. But not when they're blinded by myxomatosis...

I've also picked up an enormous potato out of the gutter & brought it home to cook. As it happens, I didn't eat it myself, but I would have done if I hadn't just bought a sack of them; it wasn't very damaged & had clearly just fallen out of someone's shopping bag. My chickens enjoyed it with their regular Monday breakfast of peelings, all cooked up overnight in my Wonderbag...

These things don't seem that extreme to me, but I'd hesitate to mention them in front most members of my very status-conscious, high-acheiving family...

Anne_Marie_2

I'm with VfM4meplse on this, as I look on a cheapskate as someone who takes advantage of others. Moneysaving is another thing entirely, and not done at someone else's expense.

lisa110rry

thriftwizard wrote: »

I've also picked up an enormous potato out of the gutter & brought it home to cook. As it happens, I didn't eat it myself, but I would have done if I hadn't just bought a sack of them; it wasn't very damaged & had clearly just fallen out of someone's shopping bag. My chickens enjoyed it with their regular Monday breakfast of peelings, all cooked up overnight in my Wonderbag...

Where we live, potatoes and root veg are grown extensively, and in my younger days I always knew that I would be able to rustle up a veg casserole from roadside 'debris' if worst came to worst. Never did it, but would not be too proud to do so. Often there are caulis to be found too.

Caterina

Now that we have a water meter I reuse as much water as I can. I empty the cold water from the hot water bottle in the morning into a bowl that I keep in the toilet. Ater using the toilet I wash my hands on top of the bowl and then have enough water to flush the toilet. Obviously sometimes I need to pull the chain too.

DH pees in a 4 pint milk bottle as he uses it to activate the compost at the allotment, that saves water too as he does not need to flush.

System

Reuse tea bags.:o

I only like very weak tea and it seems such a waste to throw the bag away when ive just dipped the bag in boiling water. It seems such a waste when your having another drink straight afterwards.