Let’s have a little fun.
On Sunday, I reviewed Jeff Yeager’s new book, The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Guide to True Riches. Yeager has graciously offered to give away three copies to Get Rich Slowly readers. Rather than just do a random drawing, I thought it would be fun to share stories of extraordinary cheapness. It’s the Ultimate Cheapskate’s book contest!
Here’s how it works:
- By tomorrow night, leave a comment on this entry with a true story of extraordinary cheapness from your life (or the life of somebody you know).
- On Sunday, Yeager and I will select our three favorite stories. These commenters will receive a copy of his book.
Remember: this contest is meant to be fun. It’s a celebration of the lengths some people will go to save money. To give you an example of the sorts of stories I’m looking for, let me share some real-life examples from my own family.
First, my cousin Nick remembers two stories of his father’s cheapness:
- “My dad was so cheap that he once drilled a hole in a nickel so that he wouldn’t have to pay eight cents for a washer.”
- “My first memory of gas prices is driving home from my grandparents. We drove into a gas station, and pulled up to the pump. The guy came out and said, ‘Can I help you?’ My dad said, ’33 cents a gallon? No you can’t!’ We drove off. Five miles down the road, we ran out of gas. We had to pay a farmer 50 cent cents a gallon.”
In January 2006, my Aunt Virginia shared a couple stories of how cheap her husband is:
My husband likes quantity and sales.
For example, we just moved, and in the process I ran across an old receipt from Wal-Mart. It’s a receipt for 366 pair of panty hose. Yes, that’s right: 366 pair of panty hose. Also on the receipt are batteries, motor oil, and oil filters. After seven years, I still have enough new nylons left to last me until January 2007. They were purchased in July 1999.
More recently, Pop found a bargain at Wal-Mart the week after Christmas. Fruitcake regularly $2.99 was on sale for $1.00 a loaf. The more you buy, the more you save. Pop saved $106.00. He bought 53 fruitcakes, all that was left in the store. He spent $53.00.
For a longer example, check out Pop Buys Pop, in which my Uncle Stanley buys 70 two-liter bottles of Sierra Mist for $10.50.
Share your stories of extraordinary cheapness! You just might win a book.
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I have a cousin that when he takes his family to the movies, he pulls out a used unlimited bag of popcorn. Goes to the counter, and reuses it for free. Until they switch bags, he keeps using it over and over.
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Growing up my father’s favorite saying would have to be “that (whatever item someone might be consuming) doesn’t grow on trees.” One night when I was apparently putting too much firewood on the fire, he said “Go easy, wood doesn’t grow on trees.”
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I live in Poland, which used to be a communist country not long ago. This is a story of my mother’s cheapskate attitude. Might sound a bit odd, but back then – trust me, most things were that way.
It was terribly tough to buy anything in a communist country – you had to know when supplies would come, and queue for nights on end. So when my mother bought us a vacuum cleaner, this was no small victory. The machine would have to last for a long, long time.
It was one of those devices where every now and then, you had to replace the paper dust container with a new one. My mom figured out that these containers were the really expensive part – and that getting them might be just as hard as getting the cleaner. So she went looking.
Finally she found a shop that had them in store. I’ll have A THOUSAND of those, she said.
Everybody in the shop thought she was mad. But she took the containers home. She never had to buy them again, nor did she have to change her vacuum cleaner for want of spares.
The supply and the machine lasted until the year 2000.
Communism ended in Poland in 1989.
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Well — this is sort of an “ultimate cheapskate date” story.
Several years back I managed to go out on a handful of dates with a truly cheap person. His idea of a great date was that he’d come pick me up, drive me to different churches with pipe organs inside, and take me in to look at them. He also had a story (a complete fabrication) about each pipe organ and how he’d been the one to design and install the thing. (It was all a fiction though he meant for me to believe him. However he had no musical training and couldn’t actually PLAY any musical instruments. He was an insurance salesman! And he wasn’t even religious.)
I made it through two of these dates before I realized that these were going to just keep continuing if I didn’t do something. (The first one was bizarre but sort of amusing. The second one was an annoying venture into the twilight zone.) We didn’t even go out for food or anything, just a visit to a church to look at it’s pipe organ.
So when he asked me out a third time I put my foot down and said I’d go out for dinner but no visit to any churches or pipe organs.
Alright — so he wanted to go for burgers. I named a diner type restaurant where I knew you could get a decent burger (then for around $6-7 including fries). He sat down, looked at the menu and got a funny look, then said “I actually had something like Burger King in mind. I think they have a dollar menu.”
Then he made me LEAVE the restaurant and go with him to Burger King (I hate Burger King and so I was kind of ticked by this point.)
When we got to Burger King, we went inside and placed our order. Then when the person gave the total, he said to me “Oh, didn’t I tell you, I didn’t bring any money with me. So this one’s on you since you’re the one who wanted to eat.” Needless to say I left right then and there and walked home.
Funny, he didn’t understand why I would never go out with him again after that.
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My company provides lunch for us every Friday. On alternate Fridays
we get something other than pizza, Greek for example. One day I saw
some of the plastic containers the sauces came in being thrown away.
These containers are of a very sturdy, dishwasher safe plastic with
clear lids. Needless to say, I dug them out of the trash, washed
every one of them, and have begun a collection of these at home.
They’re the perfect rectangular shape for packing my own lunch in.
They also work great for left-overs, since they stack really well in
the fridge!
But that’s only the beginning. I have a collection of Boston Market
containers as well, which are perfect for bringing my breakfast cereal
to work with! They’re slightly smaller than the ones I get at work,
round, and also stack well.
But the topper is this. My neighbor and I share a driveway. One
Friday morning as I was bringing out our trash and stuff for recycling
I noticed in his recycle bin a bunch of various Tupperware and other
generic food storage containers. None were of great quality, but all
still work fine and have since found a new home amongst my eclectic
collection of “rescued and cast-off” food storage containers.
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I tried this yesterday and it would not go through so if this is a repeat I am very sorry. I have more to add anyway. Well, this week I went back to work after 2 weeks off and our PTA decided to feed us, which they never do!! So, they had this huge spread of food. Way too much for the number of people at the meeting. I knew there would be a ton of leftovers. So every once in a while during the meeting I would sneak over and grab another fiber bar or bottle of water and put it back in my office. THis didn’t include what I was eating during the meeting… Well, I was feeling kind of bad (but not too bad, cuz as I said it would have gone to waste) when they said at the end to please take whatever we wanted. SO I went back and grabbed a couple of orange juices, more water and went for the fiber bars again, which no one was eating, but they were gone. I found out later they moved some of the food for us to eat in the morning when the kids would be back at school. So in the AM I went to that office and grabbed a few more bottles of water and some more of the fiber bars. Yesterday, I had to stop back by that office and I noticed there was a loaf of cinnamon bread that hadn’t even been opened. The lady in there said she was about to throw it all away, so I made off with that as well. As it stands now, I have breakfast for the next week or more stashed in my office. I felt a little bad about it, but it was food that was headed for the trash anyway. I don’t feel as bad because I did it in stages so that I wasn’t taking anything from someone who also wanted it. (I know who got the majority of those fiber bars though because we were the only two eating them….)
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My 89-year old mother is so frugal, she patches my brother’s old worn out boxer shorts and wears them instead of spending money on underpants!
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Something similar to mrsbk, my Dad is so cheap that he buys his boxers used at the thrift store.
When my folks moved into their house I took down a ratty shower curtain and some plain wire rings holding it up that were rusting away in the basement. Dad dug the rings out of the trash and put them in a can in the garage just in case he might need them for something. To my knowledge they are still disintegrating in the can 9 years later…
While visiting my grandmother as a kid I enjoying some milk and cookies. I did not finish up my milk so Grandma told me to just pour what was left back into the jug so none would be wasted like she did. Gulp. From then on I had tap water and canned pop when I would go see her.
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My grandparents were the ultimate depression kids. Once when we were kids, they took us all to a park where you could walk around and see wildlife in its natural habitat. Unfortunately, it started to rain really hard while we were there. My grandfather refused to leave without seeing everything because it cost $5 per car to get in. He then proceeded to go into the bathroom and take the extra garbage bags that were at the bottom of the garbage can and made all of us wear them to stay dry.
The best part is that at the end of the day, he brought all the garbage bags home and had my grandmother sew up the holes that we had made for our arms and head so that they could use them as garbage bags at home.
Gotta love them. =)
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On a trip to visit my elderly aunt, I was surprised to find an entire cupboard full of individually proportioned coffee creamers, sugars, ketchups, stacks of napkins, stirrers, etc. It was all neatly arranged. Upon questioning, she proudly told me that the manager of McDonald’s now gives her and her friend free coffee every morning with the agreement that they will no longer take all of the condiments/coffee accouterments that are for customers.
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Instead of copy and pasting the whole blog entry here, I had a recent adventure with the cold weather we’ve been having in New England.
My furnace has been struggling with the cold weather we’ve been having. The fuel lines keep freezing, even with dry gasoline in the tank.
I saved $600+ on emergency HVAC Tech calls, instead opting to brave sub zero weather armed with nothing more than a Hello Kitty Hair Dryer and fix the freezing lines myself. In the middle of the night. Three times.
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I guess my own cheapskate story would be back when I first lived in an apartment. With 3 roommates, we quickly started to fight over shared expenses, particularly who was going to buy toilet paper. Soon everyone had their own private stash and just knew to bring it with them if they needed it. Well, one time, a friend of mine is over and heads off to the bathroom. I didn’t think anything about it until about 10 minutes later when he comes out and throws a magazine at me. “You better be glad I had that with me. You’re missing about 20 pages.”
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My mom could pinch a penny until it screamed. When my neice married it was a small (less 20 guests) wedding. Rather than “host a cake/punch reception” at her house which was 5 miles from the church, my mom choose to have the reception at a nearby restaraunt. The invitations (done on the computer) actually read “No host reception lunch at xxx restaraunt”
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So much of this just seems normal. I’m a combination of frugal and environmentally conscious, so what I don’t save for cheapness I save for landfills.
Preface to the stories below: I’m a student.
I realized a while ago, when I was anxious about money, that besides not buying anything for a month, I’ll stop eating. “I’m hungry. But I can’t eat, I didn’t know the tuition bill was coming.” In spite of the fact that I have a month’s food in my apartment. In spite of the fact that I have money in the bank, quite enough to cover more than a month’s groceries.
I’ve found that the best blankets in the world come from Jo-Ann’s $4.99/yd fleece sales. Two and a half yards is perfect for a double bed; smaller bits work well for couch and chair blankets.
I also went through some adventures this month involving my computer. My mouse stopped right-clicking a few years ago– it’ll do it, but intermittently– and the left-click started to go. I had been looking for a new keyboard for a while, because I love the ones in the engineering computer lab, and decided that it was time to get a new keyboard and mouse. I mentioned this to a friend of mine, who took the bit in her teeth and led me to the engineering electronics shop, the computer services office, and eventually to the computer shop itself. I got a keyboard free.
When I plugged it in, my wonderful monitor broke.
So what now? University Surplus! I waited until they were open, headed in, and got a monitor only a little worse than the one I broke– the image isn’t as crisp and it is a bit noisier when it turns on. In retrospect, I should have paid for it in change; it cost $1.06.
The mouse, instigator of the whole thing, was fourteen dollars at the engineering electronics shop.
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Great stories everyone. I know I belong here finally. I agree with Megan. To me, recycling stuff, getting it for free is normal. I am a custodian at my building so I get to clean up from the parties, so I get to have some of the food. When the offices purge their stuff for the year, I get to go through and get the office supplies (file folders, envelopes, desk acessories, ect.).
1-Wash out butter tubs, any heavy plastic including utinsels.
2-Reuse bags (inclues Christmas,Bithday, lunch, strore bags)until I can’t use them
3-Reuse clean foil
4-Make scrap paper out of a full-sheet and use both sides
5-Always print on both sides
6-Keep scrap wrapping paper for smaller gifts
Keep stuff “just in case I need it”
I don’t know if this makes me cheap,but I hate thowing anything away.
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Great stories everyone!
I know I belong here, not sure if I’m cheap or frugal, but I know I don’t throw anything out until it has achieved it’s usefulness. I’m a custodian at my building so I usually get to help set up/clean up the parties which usually means free food for me. When the offices purge their files for the year I get to go through and get much of the supplies (file folders, envelopes, desk acessories, ect.) Also I
1-Wash out the heavy plastic containers and utinsels for reuse
2-Reuse clean foil
3-Reuse bags of any kind (store, lucnh, christmas, biirthay)until I can no longer use them
4-Make scrap paper out of full-sheets and use both sides for lists, ect.
5-Always print on both sides
6-Keep scrap wrapping paper for smaller stuff
Keep it “just in case I need it”
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Last year in college someone threw a half erase board half cork board away. I had always wanted a dry erase board for my door, so i peeled the writing surface for the dry erase half off and hung it on my door with sticky tack. I was too cheap to pay the maybe 5 dollars it would have cost me to get a real one. College can make you very frugal.
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This is the dividing line. Stories above this are eligible for the prizes. Stories below this are just for fun. I’ll now go through and select my favorites and forward them to Jeff Yeager, who will make the final picks.
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I once sent a letter thru the mail by putting the return address as the person I was mailing it to and my address as the addressee. You can probably see where this is going. I didn’t put a stamp on it, and the post office did the only thing they could do – “return to sender”. I dropped it the mail in FL and it was “returned” to NH.
Yes that was cheap (and probably illegal). But it makes a good story
.
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Too bad! I recently read a crazy post in an Italian forum which is about frugality and environment. I will translate it accurately:
“This is my take on consuming less, in brief-
I haven’t been using for a while now:
- almost any kind of appliance (hairdryer, iron, vacuum cleaner, tv, icebox etc)
- disposable things like toilet paper, napkins, forks etc
- bottled water
- car
- any kind of detergent or cosmetic
- electric light
- phone, mobile or not
- gas cooker (I only eat raw food)
- public transportation, restaurants and such
I’m writing this in order to leave tips for the reader who wants to know how to switch to a lighter lifestyle while surviving in this world.”
…Of course this is way beyond frugal or ecological, this is giving up society and living as a hermit! Renouncing tv or bottled water or restaurants or hairdryer is fine to me, but gas cooker? soap? toilet paper?? How would I call my mum without a phone? What if I have to commute in order to work? And what about living in the dark or using candles?…
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[...] I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!When Jeff Yeager and I devised the Ultimate Cheapskate’s Book Contest, we hoped that Get Rich Slowly readers would have fun with it. But your responses exceeded our [...]
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Some of these are great tips. Some of these I do. And some of these comments make a joke of dishonesty. People may save a few cents or bucks by defrauding a business or taking more than their fair share but the cost adds up for everyone as a result. Furthermore, the material savings isn’t worth the moral cost.
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I work at a university and get my coffee everyday at the barrista downstairs. It’s a place that has a frequent customer card, buy 10, get one free. So every day, I ask ten customers without the cards if I can have their hole punch from their purchase, and I get a free large soy mocha. Time: 10 minutes. Value: $5.25.
Luckily, the people who run the coffee shop are very nice and friendly, and I always make sure to ask people nicely and with good humor.
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My 80 year old Dad is ‘frugal’ … he says he’s not cheap:
He rises very early and goes for a walk and on the way back, picks up the neighbour’s newspaper, reads it, carefully refolds it, and puts it back before they wake up.
To my mother’s dismay, he’ll wear clothes until they are threadbare (sometimes embarrassingly so), before he’ll wear something new. He has socks and shirts in his drawers (gifts) from 30 years ago that are still in the wrapper – waiting for their turn.
He does much of the cooking and my mother says he can make a piece of meat go further than anyone. First dinner–meat or chicken sliced so thin you could read a newspaper through it (this is a family joke). Next day–left overs for lunch, with the bones or scraps into the crock pot to make something for dinner.
When we were kids, they would buy milk in the plastic bags and the bags would be washed out to use for lunch or leftovers (I still do this). Wax paper cereal box liners & plastic oatmeal bags were also used for lunch storage.
Cookies were always home made (I still do this–my daughter grew up never knowing what a store bought cookie tastes like); note: my mom & dad both worked fulltime throughout my childhood. We also always sat down to a full meal every night–mom would leave something thawing in the morning and one of us kids would be assigned to make dinner. We all knew how to cook and learned based on the instant feedback of critical siblings and parents (I well remember my dad’s tactful, ‘very nice dear but don’t make it again’).
There was a pea farm behind us and after the harvest, we kids would be sent over to pick up the peas in the field missed by the machinery–we literally got bushels.
Paper towels were rationed; the quicker-picker-upper was a dishcloth. We had a drawerful that were washed after a day’s use. Nowadays there’s a balance realized between the laundry cost to the environment, but I still think a week’s worth of cloths doesn’t take up much room in a load of laundry.
Rather than buy a gas bbq my dad dug a hole in the ground, lined it with gravel and sand and put a truck rim over it with an old stove rack as the grill. In the winter, he’d bbq on a hibachi grill in the fireplace. He’d use wood and make his own charcoal. I swear he could start a fire with lint.
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oh, missed the cut-off, so many good stories. Brings to mind my college days and the “community towel”. Being as we were so cheap in those days, when we had friends over we didn’t have napkins, so we’d all use the community towel until it got so bad it would either have to be washed or it would get up and walk out of the apartment on it’s own.
That bit of frugality continues to this day, as we now use cloth napkins and the rag drawer in place of paper products.
Of course, my wife is almost as bad as I am, and the following are common events at my house.
1. Date nite #1: go to CostCo, buy a hot dog and soda to share for 1.50, walk around the store and have samples for dessert.
2. Date nite #2: buy group tickets to the local movie theater – sneak in snacks and bottled water.
3. We recycle everything – food scraps either go into the compost bin or the bowl for the chickens. Plastic containers get recycled and the money goes into my daughter’s college fund. old clothes go from ‘outside’ clothes, to ‘inside’ clothes, to the rag drawer to be used as napkins, and end up in the compost bin when they are falling apart.
4. Cleaning products are no longer purchased other than baking powder and vinegar – according to a book my wife read, anything can be cleaned with these two mystical substances.
5. Clothing exchanges for the kids – they grow up so fast – I don’t think we’ve ever bought an outfit for our daughter, when she was born we were given several bags of clothes and these just continue to make the rounds as each kid grows out of them and we swap bags with others.
6. The vacuum cleaner has a paper bag to collect dust. I regularly empty it out to reuse it and look for lost change as I’m pulling out the dirt. My wife recently suggested purchasing a new one because costco has a coupon for Feb. for a new vacuum – “What’s wrong with the old one?” I said, thinking about how even though the plastic parts are missing, the cord loop has broken 4 times and can’t be JB welded again, and the electrical cord itself has 3 sections of duct tape on it at least it still sucks like it is supposed to.
7. I’ve never bought firewood in 8 years of living at my house. When I first moved in i hired some day labor to clear the back slope. rather than haul away the wood i had them cut and stack it in the side yard. I still have about a cord left. And rather than just burn the wood, I stack up junk mail and flyers for those cold nights and use those to get the fire going.
8. The old Ford F-150 had a bad starter, the brushes would stick and so it wouldn’t turn the motor. The solution of course was not to buy a new starter for $30 but instead carry a hammer in the car – when it didn’t start, crawl under, whack the starter a couple of times to knock the brushes loose, and voila! it would start.
9. Before the Ford, I had a nissan pathfinder and the power window switch broke, rather than spend the 70 bucks for a new nissan factory switch, i fashioned my own with a paperclip, a piece of cardboard and some speaker wire.
10. My wife will not print paper on just one side, we have stacks of ‘used’ paper that she will print out things on the back side of – despite my offering to go out and purchase a package of 500 sheets for 99 cents.
Well, the list could go on for a while, but it’s nice to know I’m in good company.
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When my family went on a holiday to Canada, we were doing a long tour so stayed in 5 or 6 different hotels. We were staying in 2 rooms, and took ALL the freebies home – toiletries, pens, etc. Now we have a drawer full of pens and about 15 bottles each of shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser etc, as well as bath hats, sewing kits, and other little gifts. They were free, so why not?
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My Daddy is the ultimate winner at the “thrifty” game. I am sorry I missed the before the deadline.
My parents live less than a mile from their community dump. My Mom has to plan things for my Dad to do on dump “open” days, just to keep him away. Here are some things he has brought home:
TV
Lamps
Electrical cords
Picture frames
Shoes
Dog collar
Mini Blinds
Bar stools
Unopened cans of soda
Envelopes (used)
Car parts
A Bathroom cabinet
Broken Ladder
Remote Controls
and this is just a little taste.
He rides by construction site dumpsters after hours and pulls out scrap wood, and my personal favorite… strips of nail gun nails, which he then makes us seperate and put into packs of 100, for him to store for later use.
My dad is the king of Buy 1 get 1. Doesnt matter what it is, as long as he gets one free. has has come home with bags of stuff, like 20 padlocks, those cheap travel weber grills, cases of candles.
He will siphon gas from his truck to the lawn mower on an expensive gas day.
and my all time number one favorite-
in 1992 my dad was driving home from pennsylvania, and stopped at an outlet mall to stretch his legs. he wandered into a paper outlet and inquired about buying some christmas paper in bulk. He was shown a roll of paper that they just couldnt get rid of. The sales girl told him that she had no idea how much paper was on it, but she would sell it to him for $10. My family has been using that wrapping paper since. It is ugly!!! It has been through years where the ink ran and it looked psycadelic, through years where the main color changed completely from blue to green, then red, and back to blue. we have 4 kids in our family, all married, 2 with kids of their own, and we all wrap in this paper. it is used (inside out) for birthday paper. other family and neighbors have used it as well. This year we wrapped a 4 foot by 4 foot by 8 foot gift for my dad. In 2004 it finally got small enough that one person could maneuver it alone. While few in our family can actually lift it, it does get moved around some now.
I could go on and on with the stuff my Dad does.
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Growing up my dad used to fix our cars with a paper towel tube and duct tape instead of actually buying a new tube. I’m surprised the cars never blew up or something. LOL.
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nice, ripping off stores in the name of being cheap.
consider the time wasted washing out baggies and other nonsense. get a freaking grip.
there’s obviously nothing wrong with being frugal, but being a cheap bastard is just that.
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I’m bummed that I missed the contest, but figured I’d share my stories anyway!
The first story is about my college roommate. We were going on a weekend trip to the beach and at the store buying some basic supplies for the trip. The assumption was that we would probably go 50/50 on the stuff for the trip that we would be sharing. When I asked her about going 50/50 on the $3.00 bottle of suntan lotion – she was indecisive. Her concern? What if there was some left when we got back from the trip? Who would get to keep it? (I told her she could have it!!) The true moral of this story however is that she was the ONE person that I knew who graduated from college with money in the bank.
Second story is about my mom. She’s notoriously cheap – e.g. she likes to give the free gifts from the cosmetic counter as “real” gifts. The funniest thrift story is about the recycled birthday cake. It probably started about ten years ago – for someone’s birthday she had purchased a cheap grocery store sheet cake in a metal pan. Dinner must have been filling that night and so no one wanted cake. So the cake went in to the freezer. My mom continued to take out that cake for each birthday that we celebrated at her house and then re-freeze it for at least the next five years! Needless to say, it was up to the kids in our family to tell any guests that NO they did not want a piece of cake even if my mom offered them a slice.
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I know the contest is over, but my best one probably was the time that I stood in a return/refund line at a Wal-Mart for 20 minutes over a 1 cent discrepency on a lemon. I got some weird looks and they asked “so you want a penny?”, but then I made sure to point out the posted policy said that items under $3 were free if they were mispriced.
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[...] of myself as frugal until i finished reading entries for getrichslowly’s contest for the ultimate chepskates. the entries make for fun reading and if you are also frugal minded, good brainstorming. January [...]
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Brandon Barkley says:
[...]my best one probably was the time that I stood in a return/refund line at a Wal-Mart for 20 minutes over a 1 cent discrepency on a lemon. [...] I made sure to point out the posted policy said that items under $3 were free if they were mispriced.[...]
So, you earned $3 for 20 minutes of waiting, which equates to a rate of $9/hour.
That doesn’t sound cheap, that sounds dumb. Evidently your time is worth a lot less than mine.
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I think it is a bit rude of your to judge me like that pll. Anyway, I actually only got the cost of the item which was about 52 cents or such, so I am even dumber by your definition which I think is the point to show how I spent a lot of time for money. Though, really, the main reason I did it was because I dislike Wal-Mart and wanted to cancel out 52 others who were overcharged without noticing.
BTW – $9 an hour is a lot for some people (thankfully not me).
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I had a biopsy that required stitches at the doctor’s office… they said to come back 2 weeks later to have the stitches taken out. To save four dollars in train fare and a $15 doctor’s office co-pay, I removed stitches myself with rubbing alcohol, a razor blade, and tweezers.
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Brandon Barkley says:
> I think it is a bit rude of your to judge me like that pll.
I’m not judging you. I’m pointing out that what you’re doing is not cheap, it’s actually costly. “Being Cheap” is the ability to gain or accomplish something for nothing or little cost. For example, the person who used dental floss instead of thread for stitches because dental floss is cheaper. That’s being cheap. Standing in line for 20
minutes for a less-than $3 gain isn’t cheap, it’s actually very expensive if you value your time in any way greater than the monetary gain derived from your investment.
Now, there may be perfectly good reasons for doing what you did, but
a) you did not mention them in the initial post, and b) having other
motives moves them out of the realm of “Being Cheap” into the realm of
“Making a Point”. Those are two completely orthogonal planes of
thought.
I do judge you for your actions. It’s your time to do with what you
want. I’m merely pointing out that you weren’t being cheap, you were,
from a financial perspective, being costly.
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My grand-mother is the cheapest person I know.
When she takes a shower, she keeps the water so that she can wash her socks with it.
When I was little, for dinner, my grand-mother often served us bread soaking in milk ! Cost almost nothing since she had everything from the farm next to her place.
When she drives, she has no problem taking a rotary the other way around (we have a lot in France)… she always takes the shorter way in order to save on gas (while you are praying for your life sitting next to her).
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My Grandpa was notorious. One time he saw toothpaste was on sale and the coupon in the paper exceeded the purchase price. (he could get the toothpaste for free). He bought every tube they had. He had no teeth.
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[...] partner blogger J.D. Roth at Get Rich Slowly recently asked his readers to share accounts of downright cheapness they had witnessed, and readers responded with gusto. Some of the stories are grotesque. Jens [...]
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I knew a guy who was friends with a mortician… apparently, once rigor mortis has set in, it’s almost impossible to get shoes on the bodies… but it upsets families that their loved ones aren’t wearing shoes… so this guy would take the shoes!!!
His knickname was “Boots” by the way!
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We had a family of seven growing up. The only way we ever went to a movie was $5 carload at the drive in. We brought along our own huge paper grocerie sack of popcorn and a two liter with plastic cups. Good times.
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I buy most of my family’s clothes (except undergarments, socks, and some shoes) at thrift stores and garage sales. We save hundreds of dollars a year alone on kids clothes and my children are always clean and well dressed so no one ever notices. When we do take our children to a movie at the cheap theater I take healthy snacks and kids drinks in my purse. I also frequently wash out large plastic baggies- mostly in an effort to keep from running out before I have to run to the store. I just started making my own granola, laundry detergent and bisquick mix to save money. The granola and bisquick got raves from my husband. I frequently chose generic products over name brand. We go to the library every week for storytime and to check out books and movies for free entertainment. My husband takes our frozen dinner leftovers to work for lunch at least three times a week. I make powdered milk for cooking to stretch our milk dollars. I frequently find new gifts for people still in the packaging at thrift stores and garage sales. I buy greeting cards at Dollar General and Dollar Tree for .50 apiece. This was the first year that a portion of our Christmas was bought second hand. My children were both tickled with what Santa brought them anyway. All of these little frugal things helps my family stay out of debt and enables me to stay home with my children which is important to us.
I however, don’t steal condiments or other unethical things to save a dollar. If I have to lie or steal then I don’t need that item.
Frugality is just a vehicle I use to help my family stretch our dollars.
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where do i start? the sandwich bag thing is old news. the re-using of fast food containers is old. everybody knows u re-use wrapping paper. how about, when my mom babysat her grandkids that instead of using diapers we brought, she put her dishtowels and a breadwrapper on them! and she used bread wrappers for shower caps also. never buy anything new as long as there is a goodwill or salvation army in the area. and my grandma grew potatoes in her bathtub during the winter.
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Found an old store brand car battery at the dump. Date code indicated it was 4 years old, sticker said 3 year free replacement warranty. (top of the line model)
Took it to the store, they prorated it without a receipt; turns out it was worth half of its original value.
They let me buy a downgraded, 2 year warranty battery for $11 after credit. Also got a “core receipt” worth $10. If you follow me this far I’m still holding an “extra” battery out in my truck. Turned that in for the core (even though I also turned in the dud battery) and had a brand new car battery for $1!!!
Unethical, but a store used to sell cans of soda for $.18 plus .05 deposit, plus .01 tax= 24 cents a can. But they left the six pack rings on. If I bought a sixer they’d invariably scan one can and throw it in the bag. I’d return the cans and “make” 6 cents plus get free soda.
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This is an out-of-print book, but if you can find a used copy, buy it:
“Cheaper & Better: Homemade Alternatives to Storebought Goods” by Nancy Birnes (1987)
ISBN 0-06-096057-4
I’ve had my copy for close to 20 years and wouldn’t dream of parting with it!
Hint: Try addall.com – they have inexpensive used and out-of-print books in their database.
One of my most frugal habits is recycling uncanceled postage. The Post Office rarely cancels postage on metered mail, so I salvage the postage and use a glue-stick. If the postage is less than .41, I just glue on 2. Only one time (several years ago) did the PO return a letter to me with a note saying that the PO frowns on this practice. I wish I’d kept track of all the money I’ve saved with my scissors and glue stick…
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My father-in-law, who lives very comfortably, doesn’t want to pay for more than one can of garbage to be hauled away and the lid must be able to close flush to the top, or there is an additional charge. When there is a family get-together such as a picnic in which there will be trash, each family is presented with their parting gift of a bag of trash to take home. Lovely! Simply lovely!
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Most of this is familiar to me,I have been married over 25 years and have never bought saran wrap, foil, plastic bags of any kind, wax paper, paper towels. There is a substitute for everything. I do buy toilet paper.
Some of these seem extravagant to me – cutting dryer sheets in half – why would I spend money on dryer sheets? Don’t have a dryer, but if I did I wouldn’t use dryer sheets. I love rough scratchy towels for a good rubdown after the shower. And cutting paper towels in half? Why use them when rags are free?
An aunt by marriage was famous for one thrifty eccentricity – she had 3 little kids, and when they didn’t finish their glass of milk, she would put the little glasses in the fridge and use the milk later in her coffee. So the family joke was, Aunt Nat is coming to visit, clear a shelf in the fridge!
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My Grandmother, who grew up during the Depression, would never buy ketchup. She would just use a ketchup bottle that she probably bought in 1963 and fill it with the packs of ketchup that you get at fast food establishments….same thing for mustard.
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[...] January 4th: The ultimate cheapskate’s book contest [...]
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I’m so cheap, I pour milk in the (not so) empty chocolate syrup bottle and shake it up so I don’t waste any. Don’t laugh! I get one more glass of chocolate milk that you do!
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