Some people would do anything to save a buck, especially on food. They'll resort to the tricks, lies, and just plain aggression in order to get exactly what they want, no matter the consequences. Their cheapness truly knows no bounds!
There Was Something Off About That Orange Juice
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“I was at a friend’s house when we were kids and we wanted something to drink. Her mom asked what we wanted, we asked for orange juice. Her mom poured maybe a double measure of juice into pint glasses, then watered it down from the tap.
It was disgusting. I asked why I couldn’t just have normal juice. She claimed it was ‘how everyone drank it,’ then when I said I didn’t really want it, she poured the whole lot back into the carton. To be honest, in hindsight, I doubt much of the carton was ‘pure’ juice before mine went back in.”
That’s Not What The Penny Tray Is For…
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“A friend of mine used to work at a gas station. I stopped by to fill my car up and say hi. This guy walks in and grabs a soda. He digs in his pocket for change and clearly doesn’t have enough money. So he goes over to the penny tray, which has a good amount of change in it and grabs all the change. He counts it out right there and figures out he has more than enough to buy the soda. He looks around and decides he has enough to buy a candy bar, too. My friend, not knowing what else to do, lets him make his purchase. Then the guy proceeds to leave, taking what’s left of the change with him.”
While Everyone Else Enjoyed The Tailgate, He Was Worried About His Hot Dogs
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“Went tailgating with my two sisters and their fiancés, one of which is insanely frugal and completely oblivious to the repercussions in social settings.
So me, him, and the other guy go to the grocery store to buy the necessary stuff. We tried to split the cost more or less evenly, like ‘I’ll buy the beer, you get the liquor’ knowing full well that A) it would not be a perfectly even split and B) as at any good tailgate, there would be food leftover.
So while me and the other guy are each loading our carts with like hundreds of dollars worth of steaks, chicken, ribs etc, frugal guy’s cart is totally empty. Almost as a joke, we asked frugal guy if he would get the hotdogs and buns, so he asks us each if we will eat a hotdog. ‘Yeah. I’ll probably eat a hotdog.’ He then proceeds to text or call everyone who was expected at the tailgate and ask them whether or not they intended to eat a hot dog. This took like half an hour, and he figured we would need like 18 hot dogs.
We get the checkout and the stuff me and the other guy are buying is just piled up like a mountain on the conveyer belt. Then, at the very end of the belt, after one of those plastic sticks to separate his groceries from ours, is frugal guy’s little pack of hotdogs and buns. We get all of our crap bagged and paid for, and it’s his turn to pay for the hotdogs and the guy says to the cashier, I kid you not, ‘You only sell buns in packs of twelve, but I only need 18. Is there a way your manager can get the bakery to split a pack?’
Me and the other guy literally couldn’t believe it. I mean, we were stunned. Furthermore, this was basically the first time we met the guy, so it’s not like we could make a scene or conflict out of it.
Then we get to the tailgate and every time someone comes up frugal guy is like, ‘Hey, have a hot dog!’ Like he is this lavish host offering caviar and expensive champagne, but only to the people who said beforehand they would eat a hot dog. If any of the other ‘non-hot dog list’ people get a hot dog, he sits there and grumbles under his breath. At the end, there were two hot dogs left and when we were packing up he made sure that he got to take them home with him. You know, since he paid for them.”
He Got Banned Over A Shocking Amount Of Money
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“I worked at a Krystal when I was a teenager, and we had a guy come into the restaurant and say he wanted to call the police to press charges against me for theft because I short-changed him by a single penny when he was in the drive-thru. The manager gave him the penny out of her own pocket and told him never to come back. My register, at the end of my shift, counted up dead on.”
It’s Tragic That She Had To Resort To That In Her Golden Years
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“When I worked at Petsmart, we would regularly have older ladies that would come in when Friskies went on sale for 25 cents a can. I was the inventory manager at the time and dreaded those sales because we could never keep up with demand. I remember this one older lady very clearly though. I ONLY ever saw her come in during those sales. She would buy (no exaggeration) 100 cases of cans and take them home in multiple trips in her old, tan Volvo. It was during one of these trips that I got saddled with helping her load her beast of burden. In the middle of stacking, she said, ‘Me and the babies are going to eat well for a while!’
I stopped mid-stack, turned to her, and said, ‘Excuse me?’ because I thought there was no way I could have heard that right. But nope.
She proceeded to explain how she got very little money from her pension, SSI was a joke, so she made things stretch because Friskies ‘is totally edible and very yummy!’ I had one of my stockers do the rest of her trips. I wasn’t sure which disturbed me more: the fact that she ENJOYED the food or the fact that in her older years she’d been reduced to eating cat food to survive.”
His Dinner Parties Became Less Fun After A While
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“I knew a guy who would throw dinner parties and invite about 15 people. He would demand that every person bring an entire bottle of liquor so we could all get drunk, and he would make the food.
It took two times for me to realize that he would just make a big batch of spaghetti for everyone that cost him about $10, and then fill his cabinets with about 15 half to three quarters full bottles of liquor.
If you said anything about it, he would get super defensive too.”
He’d Go To Any Length To Save Money, Even Humiliating His Own Family
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“My old boss was the cheapest and most dishonest son-of-a-gun who ever lived. Partial list:
-He would send his daughters to buy things at the store with expired coupons and he would berate them if they didn’t get the coupon price. This was so embarrassing to them that they simply began paying the difference out of their own pockets and told him they got the discount.
-When his family would go out to a restaurant, he wouldn’t order coffee for himself but instead, would assign one of his children to get a cup from another table and stole the coffee from the coffee station.
-He would take coffee stirrer sticks, napkins, knives and forks from fast food restaurants and sell them to employees for use in the break room.
-One company Christmas party consisted of the staff assembling in his backyard and being provided with a Dove ice cream bar to eat. He loved them and thought they were a ‘special treat.’ We all stood around in a circle and ate our ice cream in silence before leaving.
-Even though he classified all of us as ‘exempt’ he would dock our pay if we were late (even 5 minutes) but would expect we would work late or on weekends without compensation. Once I worked a full day and all night at a client site, returning in the early afternoon. He offered to buy me lunch at a fast food restaurant as a ‘thank you’ for my work. I ordered a large drink (it was one of those all-you-can-drink fill your own things) and he went nuts, yelling I was wasting his money by not ordering a small drink and then refilling it. The difference was 30 cents. I didn’t get paid at all for the overnight shift and for only 4 hours that same day, and since it was the day before a holiday, he docked me the holiday pay because I didn’t work the ‘full day’ before.
Although he was the cheapest man I ever knew he was also the wealthiest. He didn’t want to pay for accountants, so his wife did the books with the assistance of some low paid clerks (whom he abused as well). From them, I learned that he was paying himself as much as $750K per month from various accounts and funds he had set up.
His cheapness finally caught up with him though. Since he did not have health insurance (too expensive), he delayed going to the hospital when he had a massive heart attack at 50 and died at home.”
She Held Up The Whole Line For That?
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“I was at Dunkin Donuts at the beginning of my hour long commute to work and the line was a bit longer than usual because they were training a new cashier. When I was about to place my order, the woman ahead of me placed an order for a few strawberry smoothies, two egg sandwich things, and a few donuts, but the brand new cashier forgot to charge for one of the items. The cashier realized his mistake immediately after he handed her the receipt, and offered to correct it immediately. However, this freaking lady decided that she deserved all her money back because of the sign that said something like: ‘Your order is free if your receipt is incorrect.’ To be fair, she was technically right, but who would actually apply it in that situation? It wasn’t some egregious mistake made by a cashier trying to make a few extra bucks on the side (which I’m sure what the law is intended to protect against), it was a genuine mistake that anyone would make on their first day on the job. So she started yelling and yelling about getting her money back, and the workers were being really respectful and courteous. I would have probably lost my mind. When the manager finally came out, he corrected the situation. However, by then, 5-10 minutes had passed and the line of people was out the door all so this woman can get 12 bucks for a dumb mistake.
I guess in the end, she won, but at the expense of a lot of good people’s time.”
Snowbird Season Always Brings Out The Cuckoos
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“Oh, let me tell you about the Snowbirds. These are geriatric vacationers from Canada/Minnesota/Wisconsin that come to Florida during the winter for their vacation. They are the cheapest humans on the planet. I have enough stories to write a book; let me share a couple of my favorites:
-A server comes over to me and mentions that the lady at table 47 is on her second glass of iced tea and the appetizers weren’t even ready. I replied, ‘So what, she’s probably thirsty.’ A few minutes later, the server comes back and informs me the lady has a gallon ziploc plastic baggie in her purse and she’s pouring her iced tea in there, saving it to take home later.
-One morning, an old couple joins us for breakfast. We have coffee pots on each table, and we sell the cup for $1.50, all the coffee you can drink. They order one cup. The old guy pours himself a cup, drinks it, then fills the cup for her. She’d drink it, then pass it back to him. This went on for their entire meal.
When Snowbird season hit, we’d remove all the condiments from the table, otherwise they’d take all the sugar, sweeteners, and anything else they could.
A popular bumper sticker in the area read, ‘If it’s Snowbird season, why can’t we shoot them?'”
Great-Grandma’s Iced Tea Was A Special, Family Recipe
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“My great-grandmother, who was born in 1915, reused ice cubes. All she ever drank, all anyone ever drank at her house was iced tea. When you were finished with your glass, she would rinse the ice cubes under the faucet real quick then put them back in the freezer. She did this to save money.
A remanent of the old ice box days, I suppose.”
They Literally Just Brought Whatever Was Lying Around
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“A family I know is widely known as being cheap. One day, a gathering of families ensued where each family was to bring some food. We brought two large bowls of salad and two more bowls of macaroni salad, while other people brought hot dogs, burgers, pizza, cake, etc.
This one family brought a bowl of maybe fifteen small mushrooms they’d picked from their driveway before coming over. Apparently they were edible, but I didn’t try any.”
Everyone Hated It When It Was Mr. Stingy’s Turn To Buy A Round
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“I went out drinking with five other mates one night. Now, where I live, you can order tap beer in two glass sizes – large (a ‘pint’) or small (a ‘middy’ or half-pint). So this night, we’re doing rounds, pints for everyone all night long. It gets to a point where everyone except Mr. Stingy had bought a round, so we send him up to the bar. He comes back with 5 middys for us and a pint for himself.
He sheepishly said something about being a bit short on money. Which, if true, we’d all have had no problem with. But the fact that he bought everyone at the table a small glass of the crappiest beer they sold and a pint of something nice for himself, holy crap! Definitely the cheapest thing I’ve ever seen someone do.”
He Had All That Money, But Still Pulled Cheap Tricks Like This
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“Years ago, I was employed by manufacturing company with a dozen locations around the world. I was in the corporate headquarters. The CEO’s base salary was around $600,000 per year, not including benefits and stock options and bonuses and such. He would have his secretary go to Costco and get a rotisserie chicken for his lunch. She then had to take it to the hot dog condiment area and load it up with the free-for-hot-dogs sauerkraut. That would be a few days’ worth of lunch for him, if he was paying out of his own pocket. When he had an excuse to expense it, of course, it was a different story. It was maybe a year of this going on before Costco started keeping the sauerkraut behind the counter. That might have been a coincidence.”
Servers See The Cheapest Antics At Work
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“White trash lemonade. They order ice water, ask for multiple plates of lemons, and empty out the sugar caddy, along with all other sugar caddies in the immediate vicinity, making cup after cup of lemonade.
Another time, this elderly lady, who had been obnoxious and had run me around the entire time, finally paid her bill. When I came to pick it up, she was gone, but her purse was still there. I looked inside, hoping to find some form of identification. Nope, it was completely filled with salt/pepper shakers, sugar, sweet ‘n low, equal, half and half, I mean completely filled, nothing else.
My personal favorite: I had one customer ask for a cup of coffee, and ask how much for just two pieces of bread, I said no charge. After I brought him that, he asked for a large thing of ranch. I then proceeded to watch him eat a ‘ranch sandwich.'”
He Argued Over A Coupon For Soda Like His Life Depended On It
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“It drives me insane the lengths people will go to just to save a few cents. Worse is when they try to wheedle you out of a few cents because they know it’s not worth your time to argue with them.
I once saw a guy try to argue that his Coke coupon should work for Pepsi. It was the cashier, paid to be there no matter what, and this guy who had to weigh saving a buck against spending ten minutes arguing with a cashier when he was absolutely wrong. Guess what he picked?
‘Ah, you see sir that’s for Coke, not Pepsi. Sir, sir no. No sir, you can’t use them on a different brand. You can use them on other Coca Cola products, like Diet Coke or Fanta…’
Long pause for complaining and whining.
‘Sir, I’m sorry but I can’t just let you use it on Pepsi. It’s a different brand. No sir, it doesn’t work like that.’
Long pause for complaining and whining.
‘Sir, it says ‘Coca Cola products only’ right on the coupon.’
You get the idea.
The cashier was very polite the entire time while this dude complained. In the end, he just left about 6 cases of Pepsi sitting there for her to clean up.”
She Absolutely Had To Get Her Two Cents
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“The store where I work has price matching. Another store had two liters of soda for $1.49, we also had soda for $1.49. Our policy is to price match for one penny below the competitor. She wanted 2 bottles, I told her our price was the same, but she insisted I price match it so she can save exactly two pennies. It sucked because at the time I wasn’t a supervisor, so I had to wait for one to approve the price match. And since it’s Canada and we don’t have pennies anymore, we round it to nickels/dimes, so her total rounded back up. Effectively did nothing but waste both our time. This rule is left over from before we eliminated the penny. We only keep this policy in place now because using your credit or debit card still use exact change.”
Here’s A Tip: Leave A Better Tip!
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“I was out to lunch with my sister, her husband, and his mother. We were at Denny’s. The bill came out to be somewhere around $75 for all of us. My sister’s mother-in-law insisted on picking up the bill. To my horror, she left $1 as the tip for the server.
I promptly added $15. She looked at me like I was crazy and slowly took back her 1 dollar bill.”
They Probably Won’t Go On Another Double Date Anytime Soon
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“I went on a double date once with a friend and his wife. They had been watching their budget, which I totally understood, and she had been watching her waistline, which is fine.
Both couples order an appetizer and a meal, we have our starters then the main course comes out.
She takes a couple of bites, decides she’s not hungry anymore, calls the waiter over and says it ‘tastes funny.’ It doesn’t, she’s just not hungry. The waiter graciously asks if she can get her something else to make amends, my friend’s wife says no, the taste made her lose her appetite and to please remove it from the bill.
I thought it was totally uncalled for.”
