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.
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.
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.
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
Sometimes certain managers or whoever in charge on ordering supplies, get a bonus when it’s below the allowable budget for the month
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yup. Imagine, adding sauce to pasta. Some people are just so entitled!
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.
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.
If my mom wants a coffee, she drives to her bank and gets a free (although pretty terrible, essentially brown water) cup of coffee
Drives? It would cost me more for gas and parking than the coffee itself...
Rarely uses auto air conditioning, for the sake of gas mileage. In Phoenix.
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
Only flushes the toilet once a day, boils his hot dogs in hot water, then uses the hot water for his instant coffee.
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.
If it's 3 am, and the doorbell buzzes, it better not be the neighbor wanting to pee!
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.
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
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.
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…
My cousins once got me a $5.00 Starbucks gift card for Christmas that had only $.10 on it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?"
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.
Very wealthy exBF would buy clothes, wear them and return them anytime he went out or had an event.
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.
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.
A friend of mine used to use a plastic sandwich bag as his wallet.
A plastic sandwich bag fits more bills than most, if not all, wallets. So he's not cheap, just rich. :)
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. . .
Replaces brake pads with blocks of wood??? Isn't that extremely dangerous?
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.
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.
My husband wanted to wear a shirt that his ex wife got him in 1990 to our wedding in 2015. He said it was still in good shape.
I set him straight and he ended up “splurging “ on a new shirt.
It’s not a money issue because we’re very comfortable. It’s a “why would I buy something new when I already have something wearable” issue.
Also, he has a hat that he wears when he’s gardening or we are out for a walk. The front of it ripped. Rather than get a new one he sewed a piece of random fabric across the entire front of the hat. He only wears it if he’s going out alone because no one in the family will be seen with him when he wears it.
If I don't think a paper plate is dirty enough I just wipe it off and use it again. I'm single though so it's not like I'm making other people use it.
I also put water in the bottle if I'm almost out of shampoo/body wash
That is not cheap, that is within reason. For example - if there were only breadcrumbs - you can shake them of and use the plate again. And to put water into almost empty shower gel/shampoo/etc - is reasonable. I do it to - it helps you use the remains inside of the bottle and don't have to throw it away when there is still something inside. I have this hair conditioner - it is great, but the bottle makes it almost impossible to squish it out - so, every use I put a little water in it and shake it well...and eventually clean the bottle from the inside.
My father in law refused to pay for cable or streaming because real tv came free. My MIL wanted cable all her life and didn't get it until he died.
He wouldn't get garbage collection and just drive his garbage 30 miles to the landfill himself every month. By that time it smelled bad, and he and his truck would smell bad when he made the trip.
Drawer full of ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, and salsa.
Left overs are a part time job.
You have to pay extra for household waste collection? In the UK this is paid for from our council tax. It's only very large items or excessive amounts of rubbish that need taking to the refuse & recycling centre.
My dad unwraps presents very carefully and reuses the paper. He freezes the wrappers to butter sticks and uses them later to grease pans for cooking or baking.
I know a couple who deduct the tax, and the credit card charge before they calculate the tip, in a restaurant
I just can't believe that tax is calculated separately for you guys. Must be such a headache! Our shops have the price you actually pay (tax is inc in price) and when you get a bill or menu at a restaurant, the tax is also preloaded/already added to to the items so you order knowing exactly how much it costs, tax included.
My mate who owns a near million dollar property (without a mortgage), makes great money and has good savings, literally just won't eat some times mostly because he's cheap.
I remember housemating with him, and his GF would come over at 10pm and be like "whatve you eaten today" and he'd answer "nothing" and absolutely not be kidding.
This guy could order ubereats 3x a day and it wouldn't bother him financially. But he still just literally skips eating out of cheapness.
My father in law has millions in the bank, but he won't pay 50 cents extra for bacon on his cheeseburger even though he really wants it. It's the poor person he once was that will not let him get "extra".
My dad used to save lead wheel weights. He'd stop the car and turn around to grab one. Once he had enough he'd melt them down to make fishing weights and the like. I always questioned if the lead smelting had some part in his health downfall. He left uckets of weights left in the garage along with lots of other things I'm in the process of organizing. He was the thriftiest person I've ever known, saving everything. Sometimes it came in handy, other times the habit was not so cool. Even worse, as my parent and role model, he programmed me to be the same way.
Had a friend who needed to buy a dryer but waited forever to do it. Maybe to buy it used. In the meantime, little bro tried to navigate the domestic arts and hang his laundry to dry. Somehow, this man didn’t know how to do it and was not hanging them somewhere they dried before becoming mildewed. He smelled like s**t for months. So gross.
Edit to add: same dude also brought a gallon bag of Christmas ham that his mom gave him on a ski trip. He carted the warm ham to and from the mountain each day and ate fistfuls all week. He would throw loose granola bars and oranges in with the ham in the morning then use the bag to store wrappers and peels each day until he transported it back in the motel fridge. We had some weird stares that week. I remember one family moved away from us because they were so grossed out by him just munching, open mouthed, on a fistful of ham. I’m not usually embarrassed by frugality but I thought that one was just vile.
Dryers aren’t that necessary really. You just need to have a few hangers, clips and something to hang your clothes from to dry
Ice cream where I live comes in plastic tubs. We often use those tubs as Tupperware.
Carefully measures every bite of food. Knows exactly how many banana’s, eggs, slices of bread, etc that he’ll eat.
Spent years going to a pay phone just over municipal lines to make a local call to his spouse at work. It wasn’t far and he worked out the cost including gas vs calling long distance from home.
Would use exactly X number of charcoal briquettes on his grill, knew with reasonable accuracy how much cooktime he’d get from them and how many came in a bag.
I work with a guy who rinses out his sandwich bags for reuse.
Guilty. Why should I throw away a good thing which is nearly clean? Throw the crumbs out, wash it and reuse it when it's dry. End of the story.
My mom cuts paper napkins in half.
We are using napkins made of fabric. Surprisingly, you can wash and reuse them for years.
He wore his shoes to the point of them literally being completely fallen apart and you would have thought he got them in brown instead of white because of how dirty they were. He would rather wear them until they literally could not be worn than buy a new pair
Still wears clothes she made in the 1970s
I don't see why that's a problem if they still fit. If she can make her own clothes, they are probably good quality.
If we cook on the grill and dry laundry on the line, we can survive the summer without AC.
My wife and I share a single car and walk, bike, or ride the bus so we don't ever have to drive.
dutch car wash: wash my truck with a bucket of rainwater and a sponge. turns out it gets it looking reasonably clean and i didn't have to use soap.
If you don't use soap most of the grit will still be in your paint when you wash it. If you don't have soap to lift it off the surface of the paint it will leave horrible swirls in your paint when you run the sponge over it and ruin resale value. OP is literally cutting off their nose to spite their face, FFS you can use dawn dish soap and still be better off.
My wife mixes water with the last 10% content of the shampoo bottle
A miserly person just loves to hear the screams of all those pennies when they are pinching them.
I know I do but for different reasons as in truth I, like many others have no choice but to pinch them because everything is so damned expensive, and you may not eat if you don't.
N. S
I have a friend that always get us pizza every time we (a group of 10) go out (we split the bill) he always have coupons i don't know where the heck he gets them
Me, I am cheapest person I know. I will literally cook my own food, find the cheapest discount and make any excuse possible not spend any money that's unnecessary. Also as an hypocrite I spend a lot on my ciggs.
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.
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.
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.
My friend had a cheap burner stove that used a gas canister that you swap out when empty. It broke, and he is cheap and loves to tinker. Of course it blew up in his face and hands (he is a guitar player) so he had to spend months in the hospital on morphine until he healed. This was in Thailand, so he could have paid some Thai person (who would know what they were doing) to fix it for probably 300 baht or so. ($12)
I'm a big time cheapskate. I never split checks, always ask for my own. But also I always tip at least 20%. I don't spend a lot of money on clothes (rarely buy clothes, just keep what I have which wasn't expensive to start with). My rent is always low and when I travel (which is most of the time nowadays), I stay in cheap lodgings and eat where the locals eat. In other words, I live so that my expenses are never more than half my income - which is okay, but not super high. The reward for this is that I have less stress and I save every month. I don't have enough saved to do anything dramatic with, but it is enough so that it takes away worry should I need to cover myself for a few months. And if an unexpected expense arises (currently I need a couple of dental implants - which natch, being cheap, I'm having done at a good dentist in a cheap location), I'm able to cover it without stressing about it. TL:DR: I'm cheap b/c living well below my means is a way to lower stress and save $.
Cheapest and most disturbing one I ever knew was my ex mother in law. They had a cat that was old and needed to be put down. Rather than take it to the vet, they put it in the car with the engine running and the garage door closed. Put a hose from the tailpipe into the window and asphyxiated it, like someone trying to unalive themself.
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.
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.
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.
My friend had a cheap burner stove that used a gas canister that you swap out when empty. It broke, and he is cheap and loves to tinker. Of course it blew up in his face and hands (he is a guitar player) so he had to spend months in the hospital on morphine until he healed. This was in Thailand, so he could have paid some Thai person (who would know what they were doing) to fix it for probably 300 baht or so. ($12)
I'm a big time cheapskate. I never split checks, always ask for my own. But also I always tip at least 20%. I don't spend a lot of money on clothes (rarely buy clothes, just keep what I have which wasn't expensive to start with). My rent is always low and when I travel (which is most of the time nowadays), I stay in cheap lodgings and eat where the locals eat. In other words, I live so that my expenses are never more than half my income - which is okay, but not super high. The reward for this is that I have less stress and I save every month. I don't have enough saved to do anything dramatic with, but it is enough so that it takes away worry should I need to cover myself for a few months. And if an unexpected expense arises (currently I need a couple of dental implants - which natch, being cheap, I'm having done at a good dentist in a cheap location), I'm able to cover it without stressing about it. TL:DR: I'm cheap b/c living well below my means is a way to lower stress and save $.
Cheapest and most disturbing one I ever knew was my ex mother in law. They had a cat that was old and needed to be put down. Rather than take it to the vet, they put it in the car with the engine running and the garage door closed. Put a hose from the tailpipe into the window and asphyxiated it, like someone trying to unalive themself.
