Meanest/ thriftiest thing you’ve ever heard of

I am on holiday in USA at the moment and it is still very much a throwaway culture. Breakfasts in hotel are mainly served on disposable plates and cups and throwaway plastic cutlery. It feels hugely wasteful.

That makes sense to me. Tinfoil can be reused or take a Tupperware box.
With the current generation’s emphasis on “saving the planet” by better recycling, minimal waste, the end of single use containers or bottles is this not the way we should be going?
Reusing gift wrapping where possible, especially those horrendously overpriced gift bags - often £4 or more each - ribbons instead of paper ties, lunch boxes and cool bottles or coffee flasks instead of clingfilm, tinfoil, takeaway coffee or plastic water bottles.
What was thrifty common sense is now equally valid in “saving the planet” and don’t get me started on shopping bags!

A married chap I worked with back in the 1980s used to bring a packed lunch in to work every day, wrapped in tin foil which he would carefully fold after eating his sandwiches and take home, to be used again the next day, and the next, until it only became fit for the rubbish bin.

When we were young marrieds with a baby, we had no CH and an immersion heater for our hot water. I used to have “first bath” (no smellies or bubbles allowed) and DH would have second while I saw to our DD. (Our flat didn’t have a shower)
Sometimes her needs and time dictated other way round and then I would top up the hot water and add bubbles!
We saw nothing unusual in this but I think young marrieds today would see this as grinding poverty.
Oddly enough sharing a bath has always been viewed as acceptable 🤣🤣

I was certain I posted this yesterday evening but it's disappeared so I'll try again.
When I was around 4, just before I started school, we moved house.
We arrived at the new place on a dismal, dark winter afternoon and I can remember my parents' outrage when they discovered thae previous occupants had removed all the light bulbs and the loo roll.

I know how to be frugal, never mean, just frugal. Born during the post war rationing years. Eldest of 6 siblings, lived in a terraced corner house on a cobbled street in Liverpool. A shilling had to stretch a long way. Knew how to sew and cook by 7 and saw my mum iron christmas wrapping paper, make everything from scratch with bacon bits and the like, while a neighbour fed cod to her cats

We all got into grammar schools and we all went on to become professional people but frugality and being thrifty is ingrained, no meanness at all but we don`t waste money. Personally I do like to spend money on my hobbies and on the best food I can get. My dh and I went from living on home grown broad beans, tomatoes and parsley sauce and camping for lovely family holidays, to having 4 horses and a lovely united family, who pulled together

Nowadays I have passed on sums to my AC and to my DGC, without fuss. None of them are extravagant but again are professionals and have lovely fulfilling family lives, all have gone onto a shorter working week, to keep that work/life balance. Me and my late husband could not do that, it was a different era then, as was the era before

Nothing wrong with being frugal, it is how many of us came to be living a comfortable old age. Being mean is not in my life, nor that of my family or extended family

* pay not paid. Duh!

Littleannie. I think the woman you cleaned for was beyond mean!

nanna8

Someone we used to go out to restaurants with used to collect everyone’s cash,including all the tips and then pay the exact amount owed on his credit card, pocketing the tips. A couple of us worked out what he was doing so after that we all paid separately. It really wasn’t worth it for him- he lost his reputation and the trust of the rest of us. He was, needless to say, the richest person in the group !

We knew someone who did that, it grated even more when we found out as she and her husband would always seem to be the ones who benefited from dividing the bill.
We now all paid separately too.

Occasionally John Lewis give a voucher to loyalty card members for a regular sized drink and a cake in the cafe.

I saw a well dressed couple sharing their purchase. I could understand sharing a cake, but not a drink!

watermeadow

Why do people have this mania for reusing slivers of soap? Soap cost about £1.50 per bar and I buy perhaps 2 a year, plus I get given a couple for Christmas.

Quality soap is much more than this and is totally lush!

I suppose we use quite a lot (and different types)- two washbasins, shower, bath, kitchen sink...

I love soap. Why waste it?

Like BlueBelle I reuse pretty wrapping paper and stick my old thin soap onto the new bar.

Using soap "ends" for hand-washing delicate fabrics is a good idea. You can grate it in a mouli grater if you have larger chunks.

...maybe I'm odd but I don't have a problem with this sort of thing. It's not even really "thrift" surely?

Thrift is making new gloves from the leather of old jackets/boots and side-to-middling your sheets - surely.

In the 1960s when my son was small I cleaned for a couple who lived in a big house. My wage was 19 shillings and sixpence for 4 hours work 2 days a week. She used to give me a pound note and I had to give her sixpence change. At Christmas she told me to keep the sixpence as it was Christmas. Then she asked me if I liked raspberries. When I said yes she produced 2 big bags from her massive chest freezer. She carefully weighed out 2 ounces on her kitchen scales. A few too many fell out so she took them back. She told me I needn't worry about them having been sprayed as they had been given to her by her neighbour. So my Christmas present was sixpence and 2 ounces of somebody else's raspberries! I once cut my hand quite badly before going to her house. I put plasters on. I said I was sorry but it might impede me a bit doing the work, but I would wear a rubber glove. She said "make sure you don't bleed on my furniture".

Waste not, want not!

My grandmother used to put ends of soap in a jam jar with some water. It would turn into a gooey mess that she then used for laundry and washing up. It was before the shops were full of Washing powders and washing up liquid.

A woman I used to go to a craft group with was SO mean but lived in a huge house which she sold for £950,000 before buying two cheaper ones in different counties.

When the group all went for a meal she always chose the cheapest meal on the menu, never a dessert and never a drink.
She asked for her 50p back after I suggested we all round up to next £ so we could leave the waitresses a tip.

We did a city break in Paris years ago with another couple . Went B & b in a hotel and at lunchtime my dh had checked out some places on trip advisor. Our friends said let’s have a picnic and produced bread , cheese and meat from the breakfast buffet . Which had been sweating in their rucksack as it was quite warm . We said no way . It was our last trip with this couple .

Why do people have this mania for reusing slivers of soap? Soap cost about £1.50 per bar and I buy perhaps 2 a year, plus I get given a couple for Christmas.

I once had a ‘friend’ who would buy a large latte at a motorway service station and then decant half of it into a mug for her husband. On the odd occasion they joined us for a pub lunch they would order one lunch and two plates. They both had good, well paid jobs. The meanness got to us and we haven’t seen them for years.

Inheriting a 6 figure sum in the UK is not that unusual. Sell the house, divide in it 2 or 3 and most people will have 100 000 if the house was good value.

Good for the sisters for eating what they want. I don't eat expensive stuff and absolutely love soups and breads, plus eggs. Ready corn breakfast is not for me and tinned soup not always but it would be my own choice what I do and yes, my child will inherit a good sum, and perhaps will have inheritance from 3 different people. Good for her.

Oh and one final example. An acquaintdnce who only ever has a cup of hot water in a cafe. When I am with her I feel duty bound to buy myself a cold drink, a hot drink and a bun to compensate.

I absolutely cannot bear miserliness. Or people free loading off others. I knew someone who would join a group going for an Indian. She wouldn't order anything, just asked the waiter for a plate and then helped hetself to 'a little bit of this and a little bit of that' from the shared dishes. When the bill came it was split betwen the people who had ordered. Drove me mad- but she wasnt my friend and I was a newbie.
Another one is occasional guests who bring a bottle and take it back home with them..!! Seriously.
Others..reading the newspaper in the shop. ....watering down the milk....squuezing the life out of the tube of toothpaste... knicking loo rolls from pubs....as already mentioned- not leaving tips 'on principle'
Hideous. Ironically none of the above examples are poor people..!!

I have a friend,no mortgage she works part time,no kids,no mortgage. Her husband sits outside of the shop,while she goes in shopping,so he can charge his electric car for free.

I just remembered, my cousin lived next door to a woman who had a husband and two children. When either of them went shopping they would ask the other if they needed anything and one day my cousin was asked to get a quarter of a pound of sausages from the butcher’s for the family’s evening meal. My cousin was so embarrassed she told the butcher they were for an old lady who lived next door to her.

I had a couple of dates with a chap. He then invited me back to his house for coffee. His house was large and very impressive . I thought I was on to a winner. However, after coffee I needed to go to the bathroom . On the plastic rack over the bath was a very large assortment of small end bits of soap. They looked awful. I asked him what all the bits of soap were in aid of. He intended melting them down to make several big bars and said he didn't believe in wasting anything and that every penny counted. I knew then that I wouldn't be seeing the tight devil again.