Meanest/ thriftiest thing you’ve ever heard of

Most of these examples seem to me to be thrift, rather than meanness. Many people in the past could not manage without these economies, when every penny, and I do mean penny, counted. Then it becomes a habit that is hard to break.
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My friend always has the cheapest thing on the menu, not the food she really wants. And more recently she now eats at home beforehand and sits with me in the café or pub with her glass of free tap water. She gathers up sugar, ketchup and other condiment sachets to take home. At a recent get together for another friend's birthday in the pub my friend and husband shared one glass of lemonade and passed it between them all evening.

My MIL left an estate of nearly a million pounds - 40% of which went in inheritance tax. She was loathe to spend any money and downright mean when it came to birthdays or Christmas. The only pleasure she seemed to get from it was totting up how much she'd got. I think she would have liked to withdraw it all as cash and just sit looking at it

I’m following this for tips👍😁

I remember as a teenager going to stay on a farm in North Wales with our ‘gang’, strapping girls and boys. Every morning for breakfast we had a cup of tea and one boiled egg.

I do get two cups out of one teabag…

I remember a neighbour say “ I can’t wait to see my friend’s faces when they see how much money I have left”
She couldn’t believe why we looked at her with horror.

DH is not at all mean but he will keep commenting on the price of petrol wherever we go!

"Oh look, it's 2p a litre more here than at that garage we passed earlier" etc ad nauseum 😁

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.

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.

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.

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

Shinamae

What is a Bodach?

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

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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 .

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!

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.

Shinamae

What is a Bodach?

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

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.

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 !!!

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