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Most people know they should be puttin aside a slice of their income even if they don't. Saving is an important habit to get into for a number of reasons — it helps you cover unexpected expenses, manage financial stress, and plan for vacations, just to name a few.
However, on the other end of the spectrum, there are folks who are calculating every penny and can't loosen up. Interested in the way they see the world, Reddit user Jray1126 made a post on the platform, asking everyone, "What is something the cheapest person you know does?"
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Some of the cheapest people I've known have been incredibly rich. One of them used to be a client of my dad's. He had a huge company that outfitted retailers and large businesses with equipment such as shelves, registers, various logistics equipment etc. Basically if you're wondering where supermarkets get their "furniture" from, he's selling it.
At some point he bought himself a yacht, at a cool price of 5,500,000 euros. It was a huge boat, and he'd hired a Malaysian skipper to captain it and no one else, because he didn't want to spend a lot of money on crewing the boat despite it being huge and needing more than one crew member. Also of course he got the Malaysian dude because he was cheaper than hiring locally. One day he's out at sea, just him and the captain, when the weather takes a turn for the worst. Nothing the huge boat can't handle but the wind blew off a cushion from the open aft deck. The sea was rough, and wind was blowing, but for whatever reason this man was so determined to not lose the cushion that he had the poor captain jump in the water and try to retrieve it, all the while he was circling the area with the gigantic yacht and making the water even rougher than it already was. He was at it for close to an hour, and at some point the poor skipper had trouble staying afloat himself and begged to be let on the boat, all the while the owner was screaming at him to get the cushion. Ultimately he relented and got the poor guy onboard again and abandoned the cushion, which he obviously had the money to easily replace. That poor skipper nearly drowned because his boss was such a cheapskate he was willing to risk someone else's life than buy a new cushion. I know it was probably an overpriced cushion but definitely not something that would put a dent in that guy's wallet.
That was years ago. I'm not entirely sure what he's doing now or if he still has the boat but I hope he hasn't pulled more stunts like this.
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#2
At the bar we drink in rounds. If there are five of us, one of us buys five drinks, and then the next person buys five, etc. In theory, if everyone buys one drink each, no-one loses money.
There's a guy I know who ALWAYS waits until the final round and leaves before he can buy one.
Occasionally he will buy his round but only, seemingly, when he knows people are having more drinks afterwards. Then when the round comes back to him a second time, he will leave.
I totally understand if you're hard up of cash. But it's simple to say, 'I'm only having one or two drinks today so I don't need to be in a round.' You don't have to divulge anything else.
It's a really weird and cringey way of conning your own friends out of money. It's so cheap.
#3
My procuring staff always buy us the cheapest protective equipment available in market. We work in a biohazard lab. So using s**t quality PE may kill us someday. The best part is she doesn't even enter lab. F**k her
"it's not i'm the one getting endangered"
I don't get it. It's not her money getting used. It's company money. She don't have a reason to be cheap. I'm sure she's embezzling it
Vasana Phong 1 year ago
Sometimes certain managers or whoever in charge on ordering supplies, get a bonus when it’s below the allowable budget for the month
#4
ask me for a cigarette every time he is around and if I say I don't have any, he pulls out his own pack and lights one of his own.
#5
On more than one occasion, he would take a road trip. Get within 200 km of his destination. (Max tow limit of his CAA plan) Pull his fuel pump relay.... then call a tow truck to take him the rest of the way and save gas.
#6
When he gives to a homeless person, he takes change.
This isn't a joke, my uncle actually did this. His wife told him to give the guy some money, he only had a $5 note, so he took change back.
#7
My sister invited me over to dinner and didn’t put any sauce on the pasta she served me. When I asked if I could have some sauce she said she thought it was a waste of money to use sauce on pasta.
She owns a condo that she rents out as an Airbnb, and advertised free Hulu and Netflix. She didn’t want to shell out the extra $7 a month to share her streaming service account, and when one of her renters mentioned that every time they went to watch Hulu it said that she was watching, called them a pain in the a*s. I had to explain to her that people don’t like being told they get a thing and then having that thing not available, so she reluctantly huffed and puffed and upgraded her Hulu account.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
Yup. Imagine, adding sauce to pasta. Some people are just so entitled!
#8
Not someone I know, and not something I've witnessed myself, but...
A friend who used to work in a supermarket told me about an elderly man who used to *peel bananas* and put them in a plastic bag before weighing them and paying.
#9
A bunch of us girls from work started meeting once a month to go out to dinner together. No place super expensive, just a treat of a night out. We always split the bill evenly and because we know we're doing that, we all order appropriately (no one drinks tons of booze, etc) so it all works out even.
Chintzo would only pay her part of the meal as it was on the menu, not including tax or tip.
I realized it once after we'd walked out and I wanted to die of embarrassment because we wanted to leave a good tip but when someone doesn't leave their share of the tip it made us all look cheap.
We stopped going out together shortly after that. It was just so tacky.
#10
If my mom wants a coffee, she drives to her bank and gets a free (although pretty terrible, essentially brown water) cup of coffee
Mila Preradović 1 year ago
Drives? It would cost me more for gas and parking than the coffee itself...
#11
Rarely uses auto air conditioning, for the sake of gas mileage. In Phoenix.
#12
This happened years ago but one guy in our group after going for dinner or drinks would hang back and take the rest of the group's tips and leave next to nothing
#13
Only flushes the toilet once a day, boils his hot dogs in hot water, then uses the hot water for his instant coffee.
#14
When I was a kid, the local newspaper had a contest that asked this question. The winner was someone who knew a guy that used the bathroom at other people's houses to save money on toilet paper.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
If it's 3 am, and the doorbell buzzes, it better not be the neighbor wanting to pee!
#15
It's me. I'm the cheapest person I know.
I still wear the same swimming trunks that my mom bought me when i was 15. I'm 40 now.
I ride my bike most places around town instead of driving (i live in California, gas is really expensive here)
I won't buy clothes or shoes unless they are on sale. (Starting to do this with food too)
I only subscribe to one streaming service per month (i rotate through them)
I drive a 2012 beater nissan because it's paid off.
About 1000 other things in my daily life. I try to save money literally everywhere I can.... I am not poor, far from it. But i grew up poor.
Edited to add - my grandparents on Christmas, would open gifts with a pocket knife to cut the tape at the seems, so as not to rip the paper, my grandmother would then iron the wrapping paper to flatten it back out for reuse.
#16
I knew someone who'd "buy" a pack of batteries or light bulbs, take out the new ones and replace them with the dead ones. The next time he'd go back to the store he'd take the dead ones back and return them saying they didn't work and got his money back. That man had not legitimately bought light bulbs or batteries in years
#17
My mother. She’s almost 90 and grew up on the back end of the Depression, raised by a single immigrant mother. She will rinse and reuse aluminum wrap and paper towels. Yes, paper towels! So that’s fine if you’re living on a fixed income, but she and my dad are very comfortable. Very. Old habits die hard, I guess.
#18
My Sister in law received private tuition for her two children from TWO different relatives by complaining she needed the money.
She is worth many millions…
#19
My cousins once got me a $5.00 Starbucks gift card for Christmas that had only $.10 on it.
#20
A woman I used to work with years ago told me that her very elderly uncle only had one light bulb left in his house, so whenever he went into a different room he would unscrew the light bulb from the lamp in the current room and bring it into the new room and screw into the lamp in there. He refused to buy new ones because he thought they’d outlive him.
#21
My buddy from college was generally extremely cheap to the point of absurdity. He lived with his girlfriend and her 3 roommates who were on the lease and he wasn’t. His girlfriend’s parents paid her rent and didn’t want her living with him, so he didn’t split it with her. But he also didn’t pay the roommates to offset their share of rent. They two of them didn’t pay for wifi, and instead would access a network that allowed 30 minute “trial access” if you put in an email. So every 30 minutes they’d get booted off and have to make up a new email.
#22
A friend allways runs the car on almost empty gas tank. He has run out several times. He has money, but seems to hate to part with them.
He also borrows $5-10 every now and then if we are in a shop or restaurant, even if he has thousands in the bank.
If we go to a restaurant and have separate bills, he is very careful of what he orders. If we divide the bill equally among us he orders a lot of expensive items.
#23
He has calculated how much money he saves by going to the restroom at work instead of at home. He tries to never do it during his lunch break, because then he will also get paid while he is in there.
#24
Haggles the price of already dirt cheap clothing at garage sales.
Like $0.25 for a pair of mildly used socks. "Can I get 3 pairs for $0.30?"
Two_rolling_black_eyes 1 year ago
Psychologists have found there are two mindsets to gathering resources. Type 1 tries to minimize cost. Type 2 tries to maximize savings. Type 1 will buy a bottle of mustard smaller than they actually need because the smaller bottle is $.30 cheaper. Type 2 will buy a larger bottle than they need because it has a $.30 coupon. The person who haggles at the garage sale is all about the savings, not the cost.
#25
Very wealthy exBF would buy clothes, wear them and return them anytime he went out or had an event.
#26
Back in college we would go to a fastfood restaurant to eat. This one guy would get a burger or something that's it. Pick at other people's fries Towards the end of the meal he would grab someone's cup, even if they weren't and say you are done with that. Go get himself a free refill of soda.
Paul C. 1 year ago
Company I worked at put a table of fruit out for the staff once a week. Probably enough for everyone to have two or three pieces each. Whilst covering reception I caught one of the many consultants, who were being paid waaay more than normal staff, busily stuffing a shopping bag full to the brim with apples, bananas, pears, oranges and many more. Told him to take just a couple, to which he said butt out. Wrong answer. Moved towards him and said he had three options 1.He put them back or 2. I spoke to HR or best of all 3. I would do my best to, how shall I say, persuade him. He put them back.
#27
A friend of mine used to use a plastic sandwich bag as his wallet.
General Anaesthesia 1 year ago
A plastic sandwich bag fits more bills than most, if not all, wallets. So he's not cheap, just rich. :)
#28
Separating 2 ply TP into single ply.
Replacing brake pads with blocks of wood found at construction sites.
Turning water heater off during the day to save electricity.
I could go on. . .
Mrs. Ginger McSarcasm 1 year ago
Replaces brake pads with blocks of wood??? Isn't that extremely dangerous?
#29
Anytime there's a cheap greasy spoon style restaurant where you go to the counter to pay he'll first take every napkin at the table in those dispensers then at the counter take every single toothpick and piece of candy. It's even more of a bonus for him if it's a Denny's type of restaurant and they put a basket of individual packs of jams and peanut butter. Eyes light up like it's Christmas.
#30
My grandmother lived during the Great Depression and imparted some odd quirks on my father. The food choices were the strangest. He used to make me and himself sandwiches with tomato, peanut better and mayonnaise.
What do you think ?
Two_rolling_black_eyes 1 year ago
Most of these aren't cheapskates. A cheapskate by definition avoids paying their FAIR share. No one is harmed if you re-use containers as tupperware. Using everyone else's tips to cover your dinner is a cheapskate.
Mabelbabel 1 year ago
The cheapest people I met were the couple I bought a house from (two house moves ago). They accepted my offer, then sent through a list via the estate agent listing everything in the house-they wanted me to pay extra for the fireplace and mantelpiece, extra for the door plates on the internal doors, thousands extra for the kitchen, extra for the shower cubicle in the en suite tc. Anything that they'd spent money on in renovating and refitting the house while they lived there, they expected me to pay them back for it. My lawyer and estate agent reminded them what "fixtures and fittings" meant, and warned them that legally they had to make good any damage if they removed light fittings or curtain poles. In the end, they removed every light bulb, every plug, and changed the internal door handles from the modern stainless steel ones that had been in the house to horribly tacky plastic ones.
John Harrison 1 year ago (edited)
Haven't read the article yet, just coming down here to make a prediction: Many of these are going to go way beyond "cheap", and are going to be people excusing themselves for actual theft. Edit: Okay, I misunderstood. I thought this was going to be a thread about "accidentally missing a few items at the Walmart self-checkout". But this also wasn't much of a thread about being cheap. A whooole lot of these were just about being thrifty.
Two_rolling_black_eyes 1 year ago
Most of these aren't cheapskates. A cheapskate by definition avoids paying their FAIR share. No one is harmed if you re-use containers as tupperware. Using everyone else's tips to cover your dinner is a cheapskate.
Mabelbabel 1 year ago
The cheapest people I met were the couple I bought a house from (two house moves ago). They accepted my offer, then sent through a list via the estate agent listing everything in the house-they wanted me to pay extra for the fireplace and mantelpiece, extra for the door plates on the internal doors, thousands extra for the kitchen, extra for the shower cubicle in the en suite tc. Anything that they'd spent money on in renovating and refitting the house while they lived there, they expected me to pay them back for it. My lawyer and estate agent reminded them what "fixtures and fittings" meant, and warned them that legally they had to make good any damage if they removed light fittings or curtain poles. In the end, they removed every light bulb, every plug, and changed the internal door handles from the modern stainless steel ones that had been in the house to horribly tacky plastic ones.
John Harrison 1 year ago (edited)
Haven't read the article yet, just coming down here to make a prediction: Many of these are going to go way beyond "cheap", and are going to be people excusing themselves for actual theft. Edit: Okay, I misunderstood. I thought this was going to be a thread about "accidentally missing a few items at the Walmart self-checkout". But this also wasn't much of a thread about being cheap. A whooole lot of these were just about being thrifty.
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