Yes, it’s important to be responsible with your money. But to what lengths are you willing to go? These people went to infinity and beyond.
This post is based on two AskReddit threads: “What Levels Of Cheapness Have Astonished You?” and “What Is The Most Extreme Form Of Penny Pinching You Have Ever Witnessed?” To see the full threads, check out the links at the end of the article.
1/20. My 10th birthday present from my grandmother was a single expired McDonald’s coupon.
– deleted
2/20. My friend’s husband won’t let her flush the toilet until after 5 or so trips to save water.
– jennipho
3/20. My ex boss was at the station to fill her motorbike with gas when she noticed fuel across the street was a penny less. She got so excited she drove over a curb and sideswiped a bollard trying to get there. Ended up costing her over $2000 to repair the car.
– Zoot_Katz
4/20. Went out to lunch with someone. I drove. We ate similar things and split the check. I gave her cash and she put it on her card. Back in the car on the way home she said ‘you realize you shorted me 25 cents’. I gave her a quarter and never went out with her again.
– Jaxgirl227
5/20. My friend was selling a car, but didn’t want to hand it over with any gas in the tank. The problem is that he ran out of gas halfway through driving it to the buyer.
– unknownajax
6/20. I used to frame houses. At the end of the day my boss would walk around the job site and pick up bent nails. He would then proceed to straighten them all out and use them the next day.
– deleted
7/20. I have a friend who is full-on gluten intolerant. However, he’s SO CHEAP, that he’ll go to ANY LENGTHS to avoid paying for food (or anything else!)…When he found out he could dumpster unlimited bread in San Francisco, that became the staple- nay, the entirety- of his diet. He spends his days moaning in agony as his insides churn and roil, suffering from constant fiery diarrhea… yet he continues to eat his glutinous meals merely because they’re free!
– WanderingBard
8/20. Worked for a commercial laundry where, I shit you not, the maintenance manual specified you were to write the date a fluorescent bulb is installed with a marker. When said bulb burned out, you were to calculate the hours used and if it did not add up to the hours specified on the packaging, you were to contact the manufacturer and demand a partial credit.
– Fezig
9/20. This guy had dinner with his wife but they sat at separate tables. He had two coupons, but could only use one coupon per table. He told his wife: “‘but we’ll sit at adjacent tables'”.
– ponyduder
10/20. My dad was getting a hip replacement and the day before the operation I came home to find him writhing in pain as he mowed the lawn with a push mower. When I asked him what the hell he was doing he replied, ‘Using the old one up before getting a new one.'”
– User_Of_The_Internet
Continue reading this on the next page to see more cheap things people have done!
11/20. The man at the front of the line for ice cream offered to pay for all the kids in the family behind him because he was taking awhile. He gave the booth $40 bucks and said what was ever left over should go to the charity (the church was running the ice cream booth). The people with the kids ice cream totalled $21 and they insisted for the change back. It wasn’t even their money!! When the lady refused she asked for the manager!
– quietlyjudgingyou
12/20. I worked at a Krystal when I was a teenager, and we had a guy come into the restaurant and want to call the police to press charges (theft by taking, he said) against me because I short-changed him by a single penny when he’d come by 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.
– PowerSkunk92
13. Whenever we all go out to eat as a group, my grandma’s boyfriend (manfriend? significant other?) likes to get everyone’s free lemon wedge that typically comes with their waters, squeeze them all into his, and then add a packet of sugar so that he doesn’t have to pay for a lemonade.
– Virtualgoose
14/20. A group of folks went out for dinner at a convention, and several people had leftovers. When we returned, one of the people who had not been able to get out to dinner was bummed, so one of the diners said, “Well, I have some leftovers, if you’d like them.”
“Sure!”
“Okay, my meal was $10, and there’s about half of it left, so you owe me…”
– DrDebG
15/20. My parents split everything. My mom has her shampoo, my dad has his. They have their own food, drinks, etc. Fast forward… My dad was sick and needed some Pepto Bismol. He didn’t have any, my mom measured out 15 ml, then divided that by the cost and my dad paid her 23 cents or whatever it was.
– Captain_Dipshit_
16/20. I knew someone who once went to buy shampoo at a Walmart and didn’t like that the bottle wasn’t filled to the very top. (Don’t try explaining to her that bottles need room to expand during transport.) So she unscrewed another bottle and poured it into the bottle she wanted to buy to top it off. Well, security cameras saw her doing this and she was busted by the security officers. She got argumentative and combative and ended up being arrested. All for half an ounce of shampoo. Then she got kicked out of med school for stealing scrubs to wear because she was too cheap to buy real clothes.
– austex_mike
17/20. At Ikea coffee is bottomless (now a cup is free with the ikea family card) but before that it was like $2. My girlfriends friend, and her family, would go in and buy one cup and it would be passed along to each member to get their turn. They would apparently be there for hours socializing over a single coffee.
– Skyhooks
18/20. My mom had a boyfriend who would pull the stems off of cherries before purchasing them from the grocery store because he felt they’d weigh less without the stems and he’d get more for the money.
– ChrissyKat
19/20. At an all-you-can-eat buffet I once watched my grandma very slyly scoop food into her purse to eat later. I think she had a container of some sort in there to put the food in, but I’m not entirely sure.
– cosmic_potato
20/20. I was working at target when a woman came forward with an odd assortment of items. I rang them all up for her and it totalled to just below 300 bucks. She asked me to hold on for a second and pulled out a plastic bag. It was one of those gallon sized ziplocks and it was chock full of coupons and those 5 dollar gift cards you can get through certain deals at target. Apparently she had called the store or a store ahead of time and had a list of what order to put each of the coupons through. I scanned them one by one. Now when you use a coupon if it won’t work due to some reason like “coupons limited to this amount” or “only when buying such and such product” it will stop you. In this case not a single one did, they all went through. Then she used the gift cards.She ended up paying 10 cents.
– deleted
Source: What Levels Of Cheapness Have Astonished You
Source: What Is The Most Extreme Form Of Penny Pinching You Have Ever Witnessed