Stingiest things thread(op for R&R access)

Owryan

Mr.Wemmick wrote: »

Considering he bought himself an expensive lovely-looking new racing motorbike last year, I don't think so.

Now you know how he paid for it.

Used to part of a group that went out every weekend. There was one guy who was always late and left early so he wouldn't spend as much as the rest of us. He used to do the normal avoid buying rounds tricks as well.

He owned his own place and one night brought his housemate with him. As the evening progressed the stories came out. Sockets were taped over, bulbs removed from lights, teabags reused over and over. He charged for refuse but brought the rubbish into work. This was when dial up was the only way to go online and he charged 2 pound to connect the pc to the phone line. Then he charged by the half hour.

I'll admit that I can be frugal with money, but that's cause I'm in college and have 3 kids and things are tight. But this guy was a bank manager, had several properties and was loaded. Looking back it's hard to see how someone can enjoy themselves when they are constantly trying to save a few pence, especially when they don't have to.

Graces7

OK, stinge?

Years ago when I lived on a remote North Sea island, a neighbourman used to go fishing in a small boat.

He would fill a bucket with fish.

Some of us asked to buy from him but he always just took out what he wanted and tipped the rest back into the sea, dead of course..

Stingy or just mean?

Graces7

Owryan wrote: »

Now you know how he paid for it.

Used to part of a group that went out every weekend. There was one guy who was always late and left early so he wouldn't spend as much as the rest of us. He used to do the normal avoid buying rounds tricks as well.

He owned his own place and one night brought his housemate with him. As the evening progressed the stories came out. Sockets were taped over, bulbs removed from lights, teabags reused over and over. He charged for refuse but brought the rubbish into work. This was when dial up was the only way to go online and he charged 2 pound to connect the pc to the phone line. Then he charged by the half hour.

I'll admit that I can be frugal wit h money, but that's cause I'm in college and have 3 kids and things are tight. But this guy was a bank manager, had several
properties and was loaded. Looking back it's hard to see how someone can enjoy themselves when they are constantly trying to save a few pence, especially when they don't have to.

Maybe call this the Scrooge Syndrome?

ohnonotgmail

Graces7 wrote: »

OK, stinge?

Years ago when I lived on a remote North Sea island, a neighbourman used to go fishing in a small boat.

He would fill a bucket with fish.

Some of us asked to buy from him but he always just took out what he wanted and tipped the rest back into the sea, dead of course..

Stingy or just mean?

more stupid i would think. he is throwing money away. that is the opposite of stinge.

hobie21

Electric Sheep wrote: »

Mr.Wemmick wrote: »

We have a friend we have known for a long time. Over the last year or two we have noticed a change in him which at first we tried to shake off as it didn’t make much sense.. but then, slowly but surely, we realised he had become a manipulating user and a stinge.

If he drops in and ends up staying long enough and we cook food, he will take our offer of food with a clear attitude that he is doing us a favour by eating a cooked meal.

"Ah, well, wouldn’t want you to throw it away if there’s plenty”

“I won’t disappoint you and say no, even if I have to be going soon”

"I’ll have a little so as not to be rude, but then I have to go”

"I’ll not hurt your feelings by saying no, hahaha"

He has done this quite a few times with rushed sentences like above, but then, quick as a flash, he is deep in another subject, subtly done too so we never really noticed until it happened quite a number of times. Easy to eat a meal by happening to just be there and then you do not have bring wine or dessert or gift for the kids, etc. Anytime we were all out in a group, he would put his hand in his pocket less and less, eventually meaning we all paid more for the drinks than he did.

But the straw that broke the camel’s back, was his prolonged pretense at being ill. Ended up at our place a lot because we were manipulated into feeling sorry for him - an injury with his leg meant he was in pain, couldn’t get around very well after a stint in hospital. One time when he was at ours, I happened to walk in on him in mid-flow conversation on the phone when he thought I was out getting something from the car. He was walking normally up and down the room with a light skip to his step and full of high spirits having a good chat with someone. I left the room, went into the kitchen to check the dinner and said nothing. He was soon back to grimacing and painful oohs and ahhs over dinner and left the house with his limp on show.

We are polite and friendly to him when we see him, but no longer have him over to the house and mostly avoid him. Why on earth would you go to the bother of milking it, manipulating friends to that extent, all for what, a free meal and a drink. We would never begrudge a friend a meal or a drink. It takes all sorts.. and some folks are just selfish, manipulative and twisted in their thinking.

Or he's recently fallen on hard times and is embarrassed to tell anyone.

Some people get a kick from getting one over on others. He probably really enjoyed using ye, thought himself very clever and thought of ye as fools.

Mr.Wemmick

hobie21 wrote: »

Some people get a kick from getting one over on others. He probably really enjoyed using ye, thought himself very clever and thought of ye as fools.

Yep, he has had a couple of nice holidays too last year. More than we could afford, lol!

Sad. He will end up a lonely old man as I have noticed some of the gang don't see him much anymore, nor talk about him.

No doubt he was doing the rounds, helping folks get rid of the spare meals and drinks and very smart about it he was too. He is incredibly bright, sharp wit, articulate, great craic to be around.. well, once upon a time. Sad way to go.

Hope he enjoys his money.

LirW

We have a friend we have known for a long time. Over the last year or two we have noticed a change in him which at first we tried to shake off as it didn’t make much sense.. but then, slowly but surely, we realised he had become a manipulating user and a stinge.

Could it be that the guy might be mentally unwell or starts to show signs of a degenerative disease? Sometimes an abrupt change in behaviour can be explained by that. Maybe he knows and is pretty scared of being on his own? It was quite similar with my nan when she started showing signs of dementia.

Or maybe he's just a pr1ck.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Pre computer days, I knew a man who was extremely wealthy and, in addition to his well paid job, traded in shares. After work he went to the shop near his work, picked up a paper, checked on the stock prices (often taking notes), folded the paper and returned it to the shelf before leaving without buying anything.

Mr.Wemmick

LirW wrote: »

Could it be that the guy might be mentally unwell or starts to show signs of a degenerative disease? Sometimes an abrupt change in behaviour can be explained by that. Maybe he knows and is pretty scared of being on his own? It was quite similar with my nan when she started showing signs of dementia.

Or maybe he's just a pr1ck.

This is why it took us so long to accept his mean ways; maybe he's not thinking clearly, stressed, worried, unwell etc. etc., but no he is far too bright, alert, sharp-as-a-pin, successful in his career to be unwell.

It was the pretend limp and pain that did it for me.. I might have gone on a bit longer with him before that happened. Clearly he planned it and thought about manipulating us. Nasty and sad in equal measure.

LirW

I can only tell how it was for my nan, she was always absolutely lovely to us and suddenly she tried to play her kids against each other, got nasty to everyone and only tried taking advantage of them, turned incredibly passive-aggressive and she's never been like that ever. That went on for like 2 years and it got better but suddenly she started to have very patchy memory. Now she couldn't even remember that I visited her with my baby daughter last year, she always asks if I had the baby already.

But yeah, people like that are nasty, if you don't feel comfortable with this friendship, get rid.

ButtersSuki

I was in the presence of someone last week who was boasting about how they got their parents (in their 70s) to sign up for Netflix and are "sharing" their parents Netflix whilst contributing nothing to it. No need for both to pay I guess when they can share, BUT it was the boasting about tricking the parents (that was how he described it) into paying for something they I assume likely didn't need to have any great desire to have prior to his suggesting it that annoyed me. This guy bought a new house in 2014 for a lot of money, and himself and the missus treated himself to new cars in 2017. They are not broke by any means. If anything you'd think he'd pay for the parents?

benjamin d

hobie21 wrote: »

Some people get a kick from getting one over on others. He probably really enjoyed using ye, thought himself very clever and thought of ye as fools.

When I was 15 or 16 I was drinking in an alleyway (as was the style at the time) with a couple of mates before a teenage disco and another group was there including a well known "bad boy" from around town. At one point he borrowed my lighter and the next day I heard from someone else that he was going around bragging he'd stolen it from me. For one thing I didn't even realise it was gone until then, and for another it was a bloody 50p lighter, who gives a sh¡te!

Some people are just knobs.

Graces7

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

more stupid i would think. he is throwing money away. that is the opposite of stinge.

he was doing it to spite us though. That was more important than any money

Deise Vu

The last number of posts are people who live by the old saying "a pound saved is a pound earned". I have known lots of people like this in my lifetime. Not trying to start a fight but I think it must form a large part of the course in Templemore. I know loads of Guard, including a brother, who never, ever loosen the purse strings. Birthdays, Christmas and Weddings (including your own!) etc are not moments you lose the run of yourself, they are opportunities to save money.The more flaithuilac everyone else gets, the more alive to opportunity the lads get.

I come from a large family and Christmas is always mental buying nieces and nephews presents and we have a great day on St Stephens day where we all get together and watch the excitement as all the kids open their gifts. The brother lives out of town. He comes down a couple of days later to collect his kids presents and never, ever brings one himself. It doesn't even cost him a thought (literally!).

I have a sister who has a touch of it too, (although not Templemore trained!). When we went from the bananas buying every kid a present to pooling cash and getting one or two really good present for each kid, she said she didn't mind contributing equally even though she had three kids to two for the rest of us. It took me ages to figure out why she thought this was magnaminous. Eventually, I cracked it. Under the old system her family was getting three presents from everyone but she was only buying two for everyone else. She genuinely thought paying equally under the 'pool' system was generous on her part. (You probably need to think that logic through very slowly).

It's a bit of disease if you ask me.

Dial Hard

Deise Vu wrote: »

I have a sister who has a touch of it too, (although not Templemore trained!). When we went from the bananas buying every kid a present to pooling cash and getting one or two really good present for each kid, she said she didn't mind contributing equally even though she had three kids to two for the rest of us. It took me ages to figure out why she thought this was magnaminous. Eventually, I cracked it. Under the old system her family was getting three presents from everyone but she was only buying two for everyone else. She genuinely thought paying equally under the 'pool' system was generous on her part. (You probably need to think that logic through very slowly).

It's a bit of disease if you ask me.

Jaysis. I've no kids but 9 niblings and we do the pool system too. Imagine how she'd feel in that scenario!

Deise Vu

Dial Hard wrote: »

Jaysis. I've no kids but 9 niblings and we do the pool system too. Imagine how she'd feel in that scenario!

I have 7 siblings, most of whom are perfectly normal. Just looking at my post I don't think I explained the sister thing too well. Ignoring all the other siblings and just taking me and her on her own, I was spending, say, 3 X €20 on her kids but she only had to spend 2 X €20 on mine. When we went to pooling, it was €50 each, in her eyes, a saving of €10 for me and a cost of €10 for her. The fact that it was still €60:€40 in presents to her family was irrelevant in her eyes. How she could even think in this way, let alone voice it out loud is beyond me.

Like I said, it's probably a disease. It is most certainly a different mindset than most normal people possess.

punisher5112

It's called stinginisim

ncmc

I work in a car dealership and a few years back we had a man in for a car service. Instead of charging him €109, the service advisor only typed in €1.09 on the credit card machine. I noticed the mistake the next day when doing the cash and had to contact the customer to explain what had happened and to get his credit card details again. He grumbled a bit, complained about inconvenience etc but to be fair, he eventually gave the credit card details and I said I’d send him out the credit card slip. Well cue a few days later and the same man rings back and he is angry, I’m talking apoplectic with rage. He wanted to speak to the manager, the owner, he called me names, he threatened Joe Duffy, you name it, this guy was going totally postal on me. Finally got him calmed down enough to figure out what had happened. Turned out, when I charged the card for the second time, I’d charged the full €109 and forgotten to subtract the original €1.09 he had paid. Now fair enough, I had made the mistake but the absolute rage of this guy over a measly €1.09 was just scary.

I said I’d refund him straight away and he swore he’d never darken our door again and go somewhere that wasn’t staffed by incompetent idiots, blah, blah, blah. Course, he came back a few months later as it turned out he’d alienated himself from every other garage and we were the only ones that would deal with him!

ButtersSuki

ncmc wrote: »

I work in a car dealership and a few years back we had a man in for a car service. Instead of charging him €109, the service advisor only typed in €1.09 on the credit card machine. I noticed the mistake the next day when doing the cash and had to contact the customer to explain what had happened and to get his credit card details again. He grumbled a bit, complained about inconvenience etc but to be fair, he eventually gave the credit card details and I said I’d send him out the credit card slip. Well cue a few days later and the same man rings back and he is angry, I’m talking apoplectic with rage. He wanted to speak to the manager, the owner, he called me names, he threatened Joe Duffy, you name it, this guy was going totally postal on me. Finally got him calmed down enough to figure out what had happened. Turned out, when I charged the card for the second time, I’d charged the full €109 and forgotten to subtract the original €1.09 he had paid. Now fair enough, I had made the mistake but the absolute rage of this guy over a measly €1.09 was just scary.

I said I’d refund him straight away and he swore he’d never darken our door again and go somewhere that wasn’t staffed by incompetent idiots, blah, blah, blah. Course, he came back a few months later as it turned out he’d alienated himself from every other garage and we were the only ones that would deal with him!

If he was an older gentleman (shall we say), and he has some rare or obscure disease, or recently suffered a death or two in the family, or was in a Christian Brothers School, Joe will have him on for a week to discuss this outrageous overcharging...........:pac:

Lollipops23

ncmc wrote: »

I had made the mistake but the absolute rage of this guy over a measly €1.09 was just scary.

I'd be pretty pissed off at two incompetent incidents in a row tbh.

ncmc

Lollipops23 wrote: »

I'd be pretty pissed off at two incompetent incidents in a row tbh.

It was the busiest time of year and we are only human, hands up, we made a couple of fairly basic mistakes. But there is absolutely no excuse for the way he acted which was over a tiny amount of money in the scheme of things. Just this week, I was charged twice by BOI for a replacement card, so overcharged €8. I had to make three phone calls so sort it out. So way more inconvenient than the guy in my story. But I still didn’t give the person on the phone abuse. These things happen and you will find yourself a happier person if you accept that and not go off the deep end at every mistake made.

veryangryman

ncmc wrote: »

It was the busiest time of year and we are only human, hands up, we made a couple of fairly basic mistakes. But there is absolutely no excuse for the way he acted which was over a tiny amount of money in the scheme of things. Just this week, I was charged twice by BOI for a replacement card, so overcharged €8. I had to make three phone calls so sort it out. So way more inconvenient than the guy in my story. But I still didn’t give the person on the phone abuse. These things happen and you will find yourself a happier person if you accept that and not go off the deep end at every mistake made.

Agreed. You catch more bees with honey etc.

Stingy story: Once i heard of a guy giving vinegar instead of honey!

ncmc

Thinking about work has reminded me about another incident. Though not sure if it’s stinge or just plain theft! We have one of those charity boxes with sweets, chocolate, crisps, cans of mineral etc for €1. Which is actually pretty good value as you’d pay more than that in shops. Every week the woman would come in to refill it and take the money and every week it would be short money. I moved it over to the reception desk and put an extra post it note on it reminding people to pay and still the money would be short occasionally.

There was one woman who was buying a new car and had been coming in a fair bit for one reason and another. I’d seen her take stuff out of the box and was fairly sure but not certain that she wasn’t paying. One day I came back to my desk and caught her red handed and so politely pointed out that the items cost €1 each and it was a charity box. She proceeded to bluster and get thick and starting going on about how she was paying thirty odd grand for a new car and how it was only a couple of Euro. I tried to explain how it wasn’t us taking the money that it was an outside charity but she was having none of it. So in the end I made a big show of pulling out €1 from my purse and saying ‘sure this ones my treat’. She had the decency to look a bit sheepish but not sheepish enough to pay herself!

Thirty something grand on a new car and stealing stuff from a charity box ffs.

Boom_Bap

ncmc wrote: »

Thinking about work has reminded me about another incident. Though not sure if it’s stinge or just plain theft! We have one of those charity boxes with sweets, chocolate, crisps, cans of mineral etc for €1. Which is actually pretty good value as you’d pay more than that in shops. Every week the woman would come in to refill it and take the money and every week it would be short money. I moved it over to the reception desk and put an extra post it note on it reminding people to pay and still the money would be short occasionally.

There was one woman who was buying a new car and had been coming in a fair bit for one reason and another. I’d seen her take stuff out of the box and was fairly sure but not certain that she wasn’t paying. One day I came back to my desk and caught her red handed and so politely pointed out that the items cost €1 each and it was a charity box. She proceeded to bluster and get thick and starting going on about how she was paying thirty odd grand for a new car and how it was only a couple of Euro. I tried to explain how it wasn’t us taking the money that it was an outside charity but she was having none of it. So in the end I made a big show of pulling out €1 from my purse and saying ‘sure this ones my treat’. She had the decency to look a bit sheepish but not sheepish enough to pay herself!

Thirty something grand on a new car and stealing stuff from a charity box ffs.

We have one of those boxes as well, when it's counted every week it's short.
There is at least one or more stinge that steals from charity every week multiple times.

ncmc

Boom_Bap wrote: »

We have one of those boxes as well, when it's counted every week it's short.
There is at least one or more stinge that steals from charity every week multiple times.

Yep, I was tempted to tell her to take it away to thwart the stinges, but we’re a drive from the nearest shop so it’s handy when you need a sugar fix! 90% of the stuff is bought by staff so I’d bet money the main stinges are colleagues.

rawn

Boom_Bap wrote: »

ncmc wrote: »

Thinking about work has reminded me about another incident. Though not sure if it’s stinge or just plain theft! We have one of those charity boxes with sweets, chocolate, crisps, cans of mineral etc for €1. Which is actually pretty good value as you’d pay more than that in shops. Every week the woman would come in to refill it and take the money and every week it would be short money. I moved it over to the reception desk and put an extra post it note on it reminding people to pay and still the money would be short occasionally.

There was one woman who was buying a new car and had been coming in a fair bit for one reason and another. I’d seen her take stuff out of the box and was fairly sure but not certain that she wasn’t paying. One day I came back to my desk and caught her red handed and so politely pointed out that the items cost €1 each and it was a charity box. She proceeded to bluster and get thick and starting going on about how she was paying thirty odd grand for a new car and how it was only a couple of Euro. I tried to explain how it wasn’t us taking the money that it was an outside charity but she was having none of it. So in the end I made a big show of pulling out €1 from my purse and saying ‘sure this ones my treat’. She had the decency to look a bit sheepish but not sheepish enough to pay herself!

Thirty something grand on a new car and stealing stuff from a charity box ffs.

We have one of those boxes as well, when it's counted every week it's short.
There is at least one or more stinge that steals from charity every week multiple times.

Same! We've taken to hiding the box and sweets when we go home, yet still we end up short. We're not sure if people are taking sweets and not paying, or taking money straight from the box (oh i just need change of a fiver, etc). Mega stinge for sure.

shawki

We had one of those sweet boxes in work, same thing every week, the guy would come back saying it was down a few euro.

We started counting bars to track theft but couldn’t find any. We figured that the “charity” were getting the original number of bars in box wrong or they were trying to scam us.

On closer expection of the box, we realized it was separate company from the charity and only donated a portion of its net profits to charity. The box was handed back the following day.

4Ad

Our lady on the till at work needed change one day, so she went through the poor box and replaced 50 euro of coins with a 50 euro note.
When she checked the following day the 50 euro note was gone.
She knew there was one shift in who are notoriously mean (and proud of it) they are so stingy they even had to bolt the chocolate vending machine to the wall as the used to rock it to get the chcolate out !

Couldn't accuse anyone but the meaness of them..

Lollipops23

4Ad wrote: »

Couldn't accuse anyone but the meaness of them..

Not stingy, outright theft.

rushfan

It's miserappalling Joe