Stingiest things thread(op for R&R access)

ProudDUB

WellThen? wrote: »

Like I would never spend that much on a bag, but would have no problem paying 1.75 for ketchup.... people are weird.

God, no. The bag was a present. For such a stingy person, she doesn't half expect her friends and family to give her expensive handbags and accessories for Christmas and birthday prezzies. Naturally, her logic is that they pay for themselves over time. Just as long as she isn't the one doing the paying !

Hans Bricks

A friend of mine was going out with my other friend's sister for a while and they would frequently come out to town with us. Anyway, after they "unbelievably" broke up, it was revealed he had bought her a drink which cost about €3.50 and asked for the money back off her at the end of the night because he had "spent all of his". She had regularly bought him drinks too without asking the favor in return.

He is also notorious for jumping in with the rest of his mates in taxi's then playing dumb when they reach the destination and proclaiming "oh I have no money".

Shameless.

eternal

Had the experience of seeing someone whose friends were a little bit suspect to say the least. They were basically serious drinkers and drug users but I didn't know at this stage. Went to the toilet in their apartment and there was no toilet roll. They were using the Yellow Pages instead.

Dan Jaman

eternal wrote: »

Had the experience of seeing someone whose friends were a little bit suspect to say the least. They were basically serious drinkers and drug users but I didn't know at this stage. Went to the toilet in their apartment and there was no toilet roll. They were using the Yellow Pages instead.

That's frugality!

eternal

Dan Jaman wrote: »

That's frugality!

It's rough, in more ways than one

Dan Jaman

eternal wrote: »

It's rough, in more ways than one

Not as bad as Izal, and for that small mercy, it's forgiveable. Mind you, everybody's ass would be imprinted with details of plumbers, accountants and fast-food joints. Could be handy though. "Hey Paudy, I fancy a pizza, drop yer kecks so I can see the phone number."

Mehaffey1

RonanP77 wrote: »

Seeing light bulbs mentioned earlier reminded me, I know a girl who took all the light bulbs with her when she was moving out of rented accommodation.

Girl I know took all the batteries out of the remotes when she moved out (employer owned furnished house)

eternal

Mehaffey1 wrote: »

Girl I know took all the batteries out of the remotes when she moved out (employer owned furnished house)

Aw, that old 'my vibrator's going dead' chestnut.

_Whimsical_

dxhound2005 wrote: »

A spendthrift is actually the opposite of a stingy person. In fact it normally means wasteful and irresponsible spending. I've never thought about it before but I can see now how it might be interpreted otherwise.

Thanks for that. I have always used that incorrectly so, I actually asked a couple of people today how they use the word and they thought like me that it meant "thrifty". So you've enlightened several people.

Dan Jaman

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

Thanks for that. I have always used that incorrectly so, I actually asked a couple of people today how they use the word and they thought like me that it meant "thrifty". So you've enlightened several people.

Yeah, I'd the same misunderstanding of the word for years. I think the confusion arose because it seems the word might be the descriptor of a thrifty person and is applied wrongly. I've never heard anybody called a 'thrift'.
Otoh, 'stinge', 'tightarse', 'crowbar wallet' and 'pocket orange peeler' don't have the same classical ring to them.

Birneybau

RainyDay wrote: »

Remind me to stick on shorts if I'm ever at a session in your place.

I wouldn't be letting you drink in my gaff wearing just your jocks.

eternal wrote: »

Had the experience of seeing someone whose friends were a little bit suspect to say the least. They were basically serious drinkers and drug users but I didn't know at this stage. Went to the toilet in their apartment and there was no toilet roll. They were using the Yellow Pages instead.

Not Yellow for long...

Sheeeeit

One of the boys who is notoriously stingy was driving us all to the cinema, 15 minutes away, one night. There were 4 of us in the car including him. He asked us all for €2 each to cover the petrol, we laughed about it but then after realising he was serious someone threw him a fiver. He proceeded to pull up at a petrol station on the way and put €5 worth of petrol into the car

rorymagory

I bought a used car from a huge garage in East Galway in April 2014. It had just passed NCT a few days before I bought it. I brought it for NCT in April 2015 and it failed on a visual - the side-lamps (the small headlights beside the main headlights) weren't working. Not to worry said mr nct, easy fix.

Called into a car shop, handed the guy the NCT cert and said 'please help' as I haven't a notion about cars. He sold me 2 bulbs for €1 each and offered to put them in for me.

He did his thing and got under the bonnet. When he finished he mentioned that there were no old/broken bulbs in the sockets when he went in, so he didn't have any old / broken bulbs to throw away....

Basically,right after the car passed NCT in April 2014, the garage went and took out the 2 side lamp bulbs (worth €1 each) and kept them. For a full year I'd been trying to use side lamps that had no bulbs. The headlights bring slightly dimmer than expected was the least of my issues with that car though.

sligojoek

You just reminded me of this.

I was chatting to a friend a few weeks ago about NCTs. He told me his car failed because of a tiny crack/chip on the headlight lens. What he did was this.
He took his wifes car to the breaker's yard and bought a 2nd hand headlight for 40 euro. Fitted it and took it for the visual check. Passed. He then swapped the lights back and got his money back off the breaker after telling him some cock and bull story about the car being a UK import and it wouldn't fit.

Mr. Guappa

I was on a stag a few years back - group of houses rented at €60 per house, with typically 3/4 lads per house, so €15-20 per head for the night. One house contained 3 brothers and a 4th lad who cancelled at late notice, so it ended up being just the 3 of them in the house.

It was a pay at main reception on the Sunday morning type thing. What ensued was an unseemly row with the reception lady as each brother only wanted to pay the €15, refusing to make up the difference for the 4th lad (a fiver each). In the end the stag himself had to step in and fork over the €15.

NufcNavan

Right, long time reader of this thread and I've been meaning to post on this for a while. There's a friend of mine who I went to college with who is a well known stinge. A nice lad but just a bit of a tight bastard.

A few years ago in college myself and the lads would play 5 a side once a week to sweat off the beer and stay somewhat fit. There was one time where (we'll call him Mark) Mark couldn't make it for whatever reason. He then said it wouldn't be so bad in the end, coz he'd save himself two quid for not playing...

Mark would be the type of lad who wouldn't pay into a round at the start of a night in a pub, instead would wait until everyone got into the nightclub and he would get a round of whatever was on special, thus saving himself a few quid. There was another time where we met up before a soccer match and we were in rounds, and it was his turn to pay next. The f#cker sat on his pint for nearly an hour before everyone got fed up and left to get some food before we went into the game.

This story beats all though. Mark and another friend of mine went on a J1 in New York a few years ago. They were lounging about in the sun one day, it was really humid, 40 degree heat. They both had a bottle of water on them and were about to go into a museum to kill a few hours. The security guard at the gate told them they couldn't bring water inside. No problem, so they both guzzled what was left of the water and put it in the bin. Mark was stunned by this though, and didn't know what to do. He reluctantly put his EMPTY bottle of water in the bin beside the door.

Not over yet though, as they are leaving, Mark doesn't tell his friend what he wants to do, but it's painfully obvious that he wants to get his bottle back from the bin. He lingers beside the exit and stands awkwardly beside the bin, but as he does so the security guard starts watching him, and they kind of had a cowboy stand off as he tried to get around him to pick through the rubbish and get his bottle back. In the end he didn't get it back and he was crestfallen. My other friend, watching this as it happened, was disgusted and didn't speak to him for the rest of the day.

skittles8710

My current housemate usually gets up about 10-15 mins before me during the week to have her breakfast. She has a cup of tea and porridge.

Each morning I go down after to make my a cup of coffee and microwave my porridge she has the kettle and microwave unplugged at the mains. I doubt this saves major bucks on the electricity bill..

suicide_circus

Mr. Guappa wrote: »

I was on a stag a few years back - group of houses rented at €60 per house, with typically 3/4 lads per house, so €15-20 per head for the night. One house contained 3 brothers and a 4th lad who cancelled at late notice, so it ended up being just the 3 of them in the house.

It was a pay at main reception on the Sunday morning type thing. What ensued was an unseemly row with the reception lady as each brother only wanted to pay the €15, refusing to make up the difference for the 4th lad (a fiver each). In the end the stag himself had to step in and fork over the €15.

Miserable fooks, dunno why this stuff annoys me but it really does.

fizzypish

skittles8710 wrote: »

My current housemate usually gets up about 10-15 mins before me during the week to have her breakfast. She has a cup of tea and porridge.

Each morning I go down after to make my a cup of coffee and microwave my porridge she has the kettle and microwave unplugged at the mains. I doubt this saves major bucks on the electricity bill..

True that but plug out anything with an adapter/transformer. If they **** up badly enough, they can light up. Worse case scenario.....

Field east

coolhull wrote: »

I always wash the toilet tissue when I've finished with it.

Bloody awkward things to hang out on the clothesline though.

Cut up your near threadbare towels into facecloth size portions and you should find them easier to hang out. Many more repeat uses when compared to toilet paper.

Field east

rawn wrote: »

If I had just bought them and they were expensive power saving ones damn right I would too! If they were Dealz or Euroshop ones then it's definitely stingey.

From a technical perspective/ financial perspective, this is not a very smart move because the landlord would be entitled to deduce bulb replacement cost from deposit. Ditto for blown bulbs if bulb was working from the outset.

skittles8710

fizzypish wrote: »

True that but plug out anything with an adapter/transformer. If they **** up badly enough, they can light up. Worse case scenario.....

A big explosion in the 10-15 interval between when she turns off the kettle and I turn it on? They're bog standard plugs in any case.

fizzypish

skittles8710 wrote: »

A big explosion in the 10-15 interval between when she turns off the kettle and I turn it on? They're bog standard plugs in any case.

No. I meant in general about laptop/mobile chargers. I completely agree with you. Leave the **** kettle plugged in!

check_six

Field east wrote: »

From a technical perspective/ financial perspective, this is not a very smart move because the landlord would be entitled to deduce bulb replacement cost from deposit. Ditto for blown bulbs if bulb was working from the outset.

I'd disagree with some points here. From a technical perspective a blown bulb is clearly wear and tear, not damage. A deposit covers damage, not wear and tear. There is a significant tax allowance to cover wear and tear for landlords. This is something like 12.5% of value of the contents every year. One can imagine the value the stingey landlord will put on a set of furniture made from tea chests and bits of straw!

Taking the bulbs is stingeful, charging for broken old bulbs is also stingebaggery of the highest order.

I have some personal experience here where a landlord tried to charge me for a broken lamp they had left in a store room in one house I was renting. It wasn't working when I moved in (which I informed them of), and it wasn't working when I moved out when they attached a large value to it and chopped it off the deposit. Stingebags!

(By the way, they are absolutely not entitled to do this but they got away with it in this instance because I am a sucker, and also Ireland, etc.!)

Michael D Not Higgins

check_six wrote: »

(By the way, they are absolutely not entitled to do this but they got away with it in this instance because I am a sucker, and also Ireland, etc.!)

I wouldn't say 'also Ireland'. Landlords can be bad and attempt all sorts of things in any country. But here at least the PRTB is a recourse for the tenant for unfair retention of the deposit.

check_six

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

I wouldn't say 'also Ireland'. Landlords can be bad and attempt all sorts of things in any country. But here at least the PRTB is a recourse for the tenant for unfair retention of the deposit.

Thread for another day, but that was attempted.

ucd.1985

check_six wrote: »

There is a significant tax allowance to cover wear and tear for landlords.

Do you honestly think that being allowed to deduct the price of a light bulb over 8 years is a significant tax advantage?

Lollipops23

LESS LIGHTBULBS/SOCKETS, MORE STINGE!!!

Thargor

Have all the lightbulb obsessives not been in a Dealz or Aldi lately? Lightbulbs are not the big investment they were in the past.

partyguinness

skittles8710 wrote: »

My current housemate usually gets up about 10-15 mins before me during the week to have her breakfast. She has a cup of tea and porridge.

Each morning I go down after to make my a cup of coffee and microwave my porridge she has the kettle and microwave unplugged at the mains. I doubt this saves major bucks on the electricity bill..

Are you sure it's not just a safety issue with her?