various people have various viewpoints when it comes to money. Some people live frugally and think they should be saving money for rainy days, while others want to live each day as if it were their last and spend their money on nice things and luxuries. Naturally, not having a large budget is not a terrible thing, but being a cheapskate does reduce one’s quality of life—not just for themselves, but also for their family.
Regardless of how tiny or unimportant the item may be, cheapskates frequently find happiness in receiving stuff for free.
If you are fortunate enough to not have experienced what it’s like to live with a cheapskate, check out the following Reddit user tales to discover what wild adventures they had.
#1 How This Dad Used a Clever Trick to Get a Free Bar of Soap
u/[deleted]: When my dad moved into his house, he had a person come over to conduct a free demonstration for a water filter that goes under a sink. After performing his demonstration with a bar of soap, the guy walked away.
My dad never meant to have a water filter put; he phoned at least four different firms for a free demonstration, only to preserve the free bar of soap. He acts in this way, and as he gets older, it becomes worse. But I just let him carry out his actions.
#2 Dad’s Paper Towel Addiction
u/TheCommonStew: Dad saves all of his paper towels. He doesn’t want me to squander them, so even at 21 he still wants me to obtain permission before using them. His anxiety that I might waste them made me assume that I was paying $100 for a roll.
He only buys the cheapest item that breaks or doesn’t function as well, which makes him a cheapskate who spends twice as much money on everything. I spilled a gallon of milk all over his house when my girlfriend and I were there. She reached for a roll of paper towels and used it all to mop up the mess.
Although I felt really bad for assisting her, my dad’s expression when he realized we had used the entire roll was amusing. Since he was too nice to shout in front of my fiancée, I knew he wouldn’t yell at us. However, it was clear that he was suppressing his hurt, rage, and sadness over the “wasted” roll.
#3 What a Creative Method for Preserving Every Penny
u/notronbro: Dads, oh my god, they are the worst. Mine hangs his clothes outdoors, which would be okay if he didn’t do it all year round—even in below-freezing temperatures—because he detests having to pay for power. He would sift through our trash, hunting for “valuables” (money or recyclables) that we had thrown away, whenever my sisters and I cleaned our rooms.
I once stayed in the car with him as he drove around town for thirty minutes looking for the lowest gas since he is obsessed with gas pricing.
He actually puts his car in neutral, opens the door, and uses his foot to propel himself down hills when he wants to drive. I was only permitted to have chicken fries at a Burger King once as a burger was “too expensive.”
#4 See the Maestro of Return Policy
u/halfadash6: My father abused the Costco return policy to the fullest extent possible. We had an outside set of furniture that he returned after around eight years. It was weathered from the weather, with a few shattered bits. They took it, and he paid for most of a new patio set from Costco with the money. Unbelievable.
#5 Revealing My Grandmother’s Economical Triumphs
u/Acetylene: One of my summertime jobs as a little child was to set the table every night before supper at my grandparents’ house. I was told to use “the good napkins” whenever we had guests around for supper.
That referred to the napkins that were devoid of printed restaurant branding. My grandmother felt she could win the deal, and there were plenty of ways to do so, so we only went to restaurants when she thought she could.
Of course, she clipped coupons, but that was child stuff. She would always ask someone to take her out to supper as a way of “returning the favor” if they had done her anything. She had a huge handbag, which typically returned packed with napkins and food from the buffet.
If a restaurant didn’t offer a salad bar, she didn’t see much value in visiting there. When my mother and I decided to treat her to supper on her birthday one year, we had to travel more than an hour to get to a Sizzler that she wasn’t barred from.
#6 Adding Up Your Savings
u/Real_Askin Questions: My dad brought us over to where the enormous industrial rolls that you see in some retail complexes are sold. It resembles one enormous roll that contains around three or four regular rolls’ worth of toilet paper. Never before have I felt so awkward inviting friends over.
#7 The Amazing Sears Lifetime Guarantee from my grandma!
u/stone_opera: In the late 1940s, when Sears offered a “lifetime guarantee” on nearly every item they sold, my grandparents used them for their gift registry when they were married.
Since then, my grandmother has moved almost 10 times, yet she has maintained every appliance’s guarantee and flattened box from the time she got married.
About two years ago, I took her to Sears to replace her iron. To acquire a new one, she brought all the documentation and boxing from the 1940s. Remarkably, they delivered on the promise and provided her a new iron!
She’s so frugal that she hasn’t had to pay for a new appliance in over 60 years, which I find funny! Her mantra is “Lifetime guarantee means lifetime guarantee.” She immigrated to Canada from Ukraine.
I feel awful for Sears since our family is notoriously long-lived (her father lived till 104). Sometimes I wonder if all these cheap elderly women cashing in on lifetime promises is the reason Sears is doing so badly.
#8 My Dad’s Cheap House Turned Into An Exciting Renovation Project
u/InVultusSolis: My father is pathologically cheap. I’ll give the most notable story from my many tales. My dad doesn’t consider anything else but the monetary amount. He will always purchase the $5 pack of toilet paper if it is offered alongside a twelve-pack for $7.
You can thus immediately picture how any significant purchase would proceed with him. I think he bought a house when I was about eight. Back then, one could get something rather respectable for $110,000 in my region. We’re discussing updated flooring, cabinetry, and interior features like trim, doors, and windows.
He spent $89k on a shoddy house in the end. It was constructed in 1947. The man who constructed the home was equally as frugal as my father. The doors and windows were all original. The original asbestos siding was still present.
The inside was bare of trim. There were no internal doors except than the bathroom door, which lacked a handle. No kitchen cabinets or countertops.
The bottom level bedroom’s linoleum was carelessly unrolled over the bare wooden living room floor. Thus, in purchasing the house, my dad basically “saved” twenty-one thousand dollars, but he has had to invest much more than that over the years.
#9 Keeping Cool on a Budget
u/cerem86: Georgia, the land of heat and humidity, is where I’m from. Until the temperature rose beyond 100F, my dad would not turn on the air conditioning. He purchased these foam styrofoam pads with a metallic foil end.
When we had the air conditioner set to “keep the heat out” in order to save money on energy, we had to jam them into every window and entry leading outside. We also have a natural spring in our city. It’s free and safe to drink.
So let me establish this situation — There is a line in front of it. On a hot day, there would be kids requesting cool water from their mothers, mothers carrying a pitcher to fetch some, maybe a man carrying an empty milk jug, and my father filling forty-two five-gallon bottles “just in case the spring dries up tomorrow.”
#10 Present card
u/deleted user: The world’s most frugal man was my granddad. I inherited a $30 gift card after his death. I opted to utilize it even though I was planning to give it away.
My life was divided into two periods: “before” and “after.” When I gave the cashier the card, her face became pale. Cashier: Where did you get this? This can’t be!
Me: Oh, I see. My grandfather owned it. Cashier: “PLEASE, ALL OF YOU! The winner of our store’s ten-year concealed sweepstakes is in front of us! The gift card was a unique promotional item with a million-dollar reward that had gone unclaimed for years, the cashier enthusiastically revealed.
The store manager walked over to confirm the incredible news, and I stood there, dumbfounded. My grandpa’s “stingy” present suddenly became a life-altering opportunity that completely changed my future.
#11 How We Came to Eat Noodles with a Collection of Flavor Packets
u/forgno: My dad puts the flavor packets in an oversized Ziploc bag because he season his ramen noodles differently than I do. We have a hundred of those things, I promise. When your preferred flavor of ramen runs out, it does come in useful!
Each sauce package we receive from fast food restaurants is saved by my dad. We sometimes eat them, and there’s a bag of them in the refrigerator.
#12 The Time-Tested Brick Legacy of My Father
u/sp3ctr41: My dad made us clean every brick when we tore down our brick garage and arrange them in a row around our house for later use. Eight years later, they are still there. It was all worth the $500, the year, and the backbreaking work.
The value of our autos is $2000. The same automobiles are purchased by my dad, who disassembles them for components. He takes the engines out of them and piles them beneath the carport when you think he’s finished scrapping. 300,000 kilometers have been driven by them.
Around the supper table, we are seated on them. We use 20-inch TVs to conserve energy. Most of our furniture is made from items that people discard on the streets. Shampoo and shaving cream are made using soap.
You have to wriggle past everything in our granny apartment because the couches and cabinets are heaped on top of each other all the way up to the ceiling. The weight is so great that the earth has shifted and cracks have begun to form everywhere.
I attempted to justify that renting out the room would make more sense, but it seems that maintaining broken treadmills, lawnmowers, refrigerators, ovens, and washing machines for spare parts is more important.