Meanest/ thriftiest thing you’ve ever heard of

I was a private carer about 10 years ago, and the man used to keep all receipts (even if he bought a postage stamp, he had a receipt), then add them all up at the end of each day, write down all his expenditures, put it all in a filing cabinet - daily- then do the same at the end of each week, so that he knew where every single penny went. He paid me £6 an hour at the time, and made sure I earned it. I did the personal care of his wife, all the washing, ironing, cleaning (whole house), shopping and lunches. I also used to take her out in the afternoon. I worked 6 hours a day for 5 days.

My Granny was extremely thrifty. Probably a hangover from the war. However, she could be very generous indeed for big things. I'd like to think I'm like her by looking after any money I have but also being able to help out family as required.

I dislike freeloading friends :

I have one of thirty years standing and though she can be open ,fun and friendly I'm increasingly tired of her tricks .
She used to be very careful with money now it's become an absolute obsession .
Virtually every time she's got a bit of shopping for me I get billed twice.
If I get shopping or she "borrows food ' she forgets .
If we go out she expects me to pay for her or we go Dutch .
If we go to Costa's and she'll orchestrate a visit there and I 'll pay and she gets points on her card .
A couple of years ago she found someone who wanted a reliable and regular babysitter . She applied and spent so much time working for her that she's lost two full time jobs and sued the companies for wrongful dismissal .
Everytime I see her it's another list of refunds she's getting .
I know that some of her other friends are fed up with her .
The lady who gave her the babysitting work is wealthy (the source of the wealth sounds dubious to me) and now she's almost working for her full time as a sort of domestic /personal assistant ,talks about her non stop and is overwhelmed with admiration .

Those on here with psychological knowledge - is there a reason people behave this way?

If you’ve lived for years on the bare minimum you stay frugal, always afraid of being unable to pay the next bill.
I reuse tea bags because I drink tea very weak and it’s only been in the cup for 2 seconds.

Back in the old days of " bring a bottle" parties, someone we knew would bring the cheapest possible bottle of booze, and then help himself to drinks from all the nicer ones on the table! Then later, he'd reclaim his unused cheap bottle and take it home.

Dont get me started.
A relative used to be jumpy if he cut off too much string!

I don’t do anything for meanness but I do like to save stuff from the bin or landfill by finding another use for it
I like making the soap into a new bar
I always straighten out birthday paper not because I need too but because it’s often too pretty to throw away
I m far from mean I ll share and give my family what they need but I also don’t like throwing anything still useful away

Esmay do you really want her for a friend !!!

watermeadow

If you’ve lived for years on the bare minimum you stay frugal, always afraid of being unable to pay the next bill.
I reuse tea bags because I drink tea very weak and it’s only been in the cup for 2 seconds.

During the pandemic when we were worried about food supplies we used to make tea in a pot and one teabag would make at least two cups of tea; they were never meant to make just one cup. I’d happily heat up a cuppa in the microwave later in the day. When I worked in a cafe in my youth we were told that when people had a pot of tea and a jug of hot water with it people would think the hot water was there to be added to the pot when it was empty but, in fact it was to be added to each cup of tea as it had been brewed too strong to drink. I was only looking at the amount of tea bags that go into my green bin each day ( having reverted back to using a tea bag for each cuppa) and thinking that I’d get the teapot out again. Not that we socialise much these days but when we did I used to hate going out for meals with a group of friends and splitting the bill afterwards as I could never eat several courses and neither of us drank.

Shinamae

What is a Bodach?

It’s a Scottish dialect word for the old man, most often, a bogeyman.

I am thrifty by nature but recently have revised some of my habits as meanness. If I become poorer I will need to be thriftier again.

NB 'meanness' is a moral evaluation whereas 'thrifty' is objective.

In the Sun newspaper this week was a woman, I think she was early 40s. She dries out tea bags,pegs them on the line and re uses them EIGHT TIMES, she said the get a bit weak,so you use less milk!

Bluebell- A good point .
Why be friends with such a user ?
But I always think about the behaviour of people and what makes them tick .
In the past this friend was extremely kind to my parents and they were fond of her with some reservations..At times they found her demanding and moody .
She has been very kind to me .
I've ignored her negative qualities.
Talking to one of sisters a few months ago I realised that their childhood had been less than idyllic .
Very comfortably off until their parents spilt up and then life with her mother was not so comfortable. She also said that her mother was cold . Having experienced that I know how it can affect you.
She also felt eclipsed by her beautiful sister .
My father used to say that she suffers from jealousy and that it was very obvious that she was jealous of me .
Her physical and mental health certainly has deteriorated since catching covid .
I think that she suffers from depression and now she's channelled all her hopes and dreams into this relatively new relationship with someone that she works for and is friends with .
Listening to her talk about this friend and employer makes me wonder if its a healthy relationship. She goes over to her house on non-work days and spends the night .
I wonder if her new friend might eventually find her suffocating and her husband consider her to be a bit odd .
I don't know .
I only wish her well .

My mother was a war baby and she was taught to make do and mend and was always very thrifty . She claims that was how things were back then .
She reuses teabags , would melt bits of soap into a bar . She washes up in about a couple of inches of water with a tiny squirt of washing up liquid . As a child we shared baths and the bath water would barely cover our legs . The heating was very low and if we were cold , we were told to put a jumper on . Even now my mother keeps the heating low .
Wrapping paper was always reused and old Christmas cards cut up for present labels . Newspaper was used to line the kitchen bin.
In a clothes shop mum would head straight to the sales rail and her first car was a hideous lilac because it was cheaper than other colours .
However although my mum was thrifty , she was generous with presents and still is.
She was also never mean or stingy with friends if she went out and happily pays her way.

Spurred on by the thread about vendors wanting to steal plants in a house they're selling -

I remember the vendors of the starter house I bought back in the day and they would win a meanness award too.

They:
- offered to sell me the very bog-standard little wooden garden shed they had in the back yard - for £350. Brand new sheds like that cost £150 back then! They took the shed with them when I refused their "kind" offer.

- took the cheap little bolt off the bathroom door with them

- stole a wornout fitted 2 decades old carpet from one of the bedrooms

- stole the freestanding 1950's kitchen cabinet we had specifically agreed in the sale

- stole a tiny little internal shelf from a built-in cupboard

- wanted to charge for a 1970's distinctly worn bathroom carpet (that going up the bath style that had been fashionable briefly - but that fashion was clearly over at the time I bought the house). I refused obviously - though, thankfully, they didnt quite have the nerve to steal that.

Basically - they stole everything they could get away with. Somehow - I was not surprised when I discovered subsequently that, though they'd only had that house about 7 years and he was a bank manager (ie would have been due for a cheap rate mortgage) they didn't have a mortgage on the house at all when they sold it. Goodness knows I was wondering if Mr Meany Thief even counted every bite of food the wife dared to eat at mealtimes (as it was blindingly obvious he was a controlling Little Hitler type). I thanked heaven I at least wasn't the obviously downtrodden little wife - who'd been daft enough to have two children with him (ie locked the exit to her way out of that marriage).

I worked for a bloke from the music industry and sometimes had to go to his London home to do stuff. He had a country pile in the West country, flash car & clothes + money but he had no boiler, a gas cooker that didn't work, ditto fridge freezer, washing machine, TV. All appliances were non functioning and for show. He used to panic if I used the loo about turning off the light/fan. He had a transistor radio. He used to try to get me to buy pints of milk & not pay. Everything was a blag.

I get very embarrassed when out with friends who won’t tip waiting staff or taxi drivers.
I am neither a high or low tipper and must admit stick to 10% on bills in pubs / restaurants as I object to tipping on wine etc when the mark up is as high as 300%.
For taxis I round up to the nearest £ or so,
Out last week, taken for my birthday with such a friend so I-had no control and obviously she footed the bill for the whole meal but it was uncomfortable when she paid the bill.
She is another who is far from short of money.

Oh yes, toilet didn't flush so had to use buckets. I offered to get a cheap plumber I knew out as I knew it was a simple fix but he would behave very strangely at the mere mention of having to cough up. He used to have melt downs if I brought my fan heater in & kept moaning it was too hot.
My mother had considerable sums of money stashed and refused to get a new TV when the sound went on her DONATED one. She got another given to her and the picture went so she stacked the TVs so one played the sound and one the vision. I used to sing David Bowies 🎵Sound and Vision🎵 when the out of sync TVs were turned on.

Thinking of someone I (used to) know now - ie in very recent years.

He made/makes a thing of "hippie with more otherworldly matters on his mind - much more important than everyday matters".

I recall him saying he'd been dumped at a music festival by his mother around about turning adult age and he went off from the festival and stayed in the house of people he'd just met there - for SIX months! He was so proud of himself for doing that that he told me that tale twice. I'd be willing to bet he contributed nothing towards the household finances or did any of the housework whilst there.

His (rented) house is in such a state that Social Services or someone paid for some hours weekly of his housework being done for him - goodness knows how he blagged that (something to do with him sharing custody of a child he'd bullied a woman into having...but he did). Cue for £x per hour was given to him to pay the poor person he employed to clean up that tip of a place - and I made sure she knew he'd been given £2 per hour for it more than he was paying her (ie he'd creamed off a bit of her money before he gave it to her). Something like he was given £12 per hour to pay a cleaner, paid her £10 of that and she told me that one whilst I was paying her £15 per hour to clean my house one time.

He is well-known for the fact he will literally pick up leftover food from other peoples plates and eat it - and doesnt necessarily stop to make sure they've finished what they're going to have first. I've had to say his name in a shocked tone of voice when several of us were having a meal out together - as he was about to grab some of mine and I hadnt finished.

That's far from the only tales of his meanness on the one hand and how much extra money he was finding to earn extra money (unofficially).

RosieandherMaw

There are some who, as they say, “Know the price of everything but the value of nothing”

I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing."

One of my relatives likes to holiday abroad but when they return all they seem to want to talk about is how much every meal, trip or hotel cost.

Shinamae

What is a Bodach?

Bodach is Scots Gaelic for ‘old man’! Sometimes in stories he can be a bad omen.

Sorry, Smintie, I just saw you had already answered!

I used to have an elderly relative who kept a running total of her expenditure. One day I did some shopping for her. I put the change from her bill in the zipped pocket of my handbag. On returning with the shopping I was asked for the receipt after handing over the change,
The bill was checked and the change was checked. I was told the change was a penny short. I found the penny in my handbag, then she was a happy lady.
A friend's mother used to save the good leg from a pair of tights and wear two bodies to make a good pair.

Desdemona

Those on here with psychological knowledge - is there a reason people behave this way?

I think it can be because people can see money as a way of measuring their self worth, so the more they can amass, the better they feel about themselves, and will go to any lengths to amass it.
With the sisters I talked about, I think it could have been that there was little money during their childhood, so they were simply living as their ‘Mammy’ had done.

DollyRocker

Oh yes, toilet didn't flush so had to use buckets. I offered to get a cheap plumber I knew out as I knew it was a simple fix but he would behave very strangely at the mere mention of having to cough up. He used to have melt downs if I brought my fan heater in & kept moaning it was too hot.
My mother had considerable sums of money stashed and refused to get a new TV when the sound went on her DONATED one. She got another given to her and the picture went so she stacked the TVs so one played the sound and one the vision. I used to sing David Bowies 🎵Sound and Vision🎵 when the out of sync TVs were turned on.

That’s really funny, I can imagine her sitting with stacked TVs 😂

My father in law recorded every time he changed bulbs, we inherited an electric fire from them when they moved house and over a 15 year period he had recorded every single time he’d changed the bulb, and the make of the bulb he had replaced. He was not short of money.