Well you know what they say, a penny in the pocket is a... wait, what's the saying? Is there even a saying? Whatever, just go read about these cheap people, OKAY!? We all know you're not here for the intro, anyway.
1. I have a friend whose grandfather would take out all of the grandchildren to Dunkin' Donuts. He would buy a single doughnut and then cut it into six pieces for each of the grandchildren. Then he would take a huge handful of napkins and take them home with him. At home he would cut them in half to use.
This same man also bought cat food when he first came to America because he thought that it was cheap tuna for people and that the cat was a mascot selling the tuna.
2. My wife always talks about her great-grandfather's frugality. He hand built most of their furniture, had a black and white TV in the 90's, and drank Sam's Choice beer. The neighbors had a dispute with him concerning the overhang of his outside shed, it apparently was too close to their property line. So this rickety old man filled his Sam's Choice beer cans with homemade concrete, somehow raised the entire shed by himself, and rolled it on the cans 6 inches away from their property. Entire endeavor cost about $8. This man was slick.
Weird thing is, he had money. Lots of money. He was an engineer for NASA during the Gemini/Apollo missions. I guess doing it right for a cheap as possible was ingrained in him. He died before I met my wife. He would have been fun to talk to.
3. When my grandpa was alive, he griped at my dad for leaving the Num lock on on the keyboard because it was wasting electricity. My dad gave him a nickel and was like "there, that just covered the next two years."
4. My grandpa takes everything from restaurants he can get his hands on. Crackers, mints, ketchup packets, napkins. Not like one. Like a lot.
5. The year before I went to University I had a sudden realization that I would need to start thinking about household essentials in a way I hadn't before. I was paying for everything myself, so I thought it would be a genius idea to start saving up as many free things I could, that way I could have myself covered for those basic costs. Every time I went to a restaurant I would take home fistfuls of ketchup, mustard, straws, napkins, sugar, salt, pepper, and other of those little free giveaways. I must've collected hundreds and I was pretty proud of myself, too, until my mom came in one day and asked me
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I must've collected hundreds and I was pretty proud of myself, too, until my mom came in one day and asked mewhat it all was. "Oh, I'm saving this stuff for university," I said. My mom looked at the sugar packets and was like, "You know you could buy a full bag of sugar for like two dollars, right?" Oh.
Thewriter
6. In Canada we no longer have the penny so when you're total comes to 2.33 it rounds up to 2.35. Or 2.32 would round down to 2.30.
Whenever a friend of mine makes a purchase he waits to see the total, if it's going to round down he pays in cash, but if it's going to round up he pays with card since the machine can actually charge you the correct amount. He saves pennies a day!
7. They offer to go on a lunch run for everyone in the office. The place they go to has these "Punch this card 5 times get a free lunch".
He's basically got to get 5 people lunch and his is free, all he has to do is take a 10 minute walk.
Pretty smart if you ask me.
8. In college I worked as a barista and we threw out a ton of pastries, bagels and sandwiches. The owner was very clear that we could not take anything out of the case and bring it home but there was nothing stopping us from digging through the garbage. So at closing time we would take out the day's trash then divvy up the food to be thrown away put them in small bags gently set them inside the clean trash bag for a second then take it out and go home. Free food loophole.
9. This was in the mid-90s, but I worked with a guy who knew the "throw out routines" of several close-by fast food restaurants: McDonald's, Schlozky's, etc.
Back then, McDonald's would just make a ton of everything, put them under a heat lamp, and they would just get picked up as people ordered them.
Items had a fairly short shelf life, so they would get tossed. He said most of the time they would all go in the same trash bag, everything in their individual wrappers.
He somehow knew which bags were which and would bring home a big bag of Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, and whatnot.
I took his advice and went to Schlozky's right after closing. I opened their dumpster and, sure enough, there was a big garbage bag FULL of their fresh-made bread and nothing else. I took that bag home, froze most of it, and ate for a year on Schlozky's bread.
That was my only time dumpster diving, but the guy was definitely onto something (that didn't include weight management).
10. My dad refuses to buy drinking glasses. Instead, he will
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buy the cheapest spaghetti and alfredo sauces that come in glass jars (ragu, I'm looking at you), use the sauce, and save the jar. He cleans the jars, removes the label, and voila new drinking glasses.
11. It was me. When McDonald's used to give those stickers out with their coffee, after you filled one up with four stickers you could get a free coffee. I worked the recycle truck and would stockpile every cup I'd find working a suburb. Free mocha frappes for months on end.
12. Whole Foods take 10c off your bill for every bag you bring with you. If you bring two bags, they'll give you 20c although everything you bought could easily fit in one bag. The easiest way to get your bill from $168.40 to $168.20.
13. My friend's dad would make the family collect the water you run in the shower before it heats up. He would then use that water to water his yard.
14. In high school, I worked at a pizza place that would clean the refrigerator on Thursday nights for a supply shipment Friday mornings. Anything in the refrigerator that was fresh (onions, tomatoes, etc.) or not frozen anymore (meats, certain sauces, dough, etc.) were to be scrapped. One of the managers that closed on Thursday nights would instead of throwing out all this food, have us make whatever we wanted to take home. After 2 weeks of working the closing Thursday shift, the manager requested I help out permanently on Thursdays. We would clean the restaurant and then make whatever we wanted then do the dishes. I would generally take home 10 pizzas or so to my mom and sisters (I grew up pretty poor so pizza was a treat) and have dozens of hot wings.
15. A guy that lived in the room next to me only ate rice to save money. He got scurvy.
16. My friend's family used to struggle over dish-washing duties: the parents would frequently get mad at the kids for leaving their dishes in the sink and not emptying the dishwasher.
One day, I was at their house with all the kids home, and when we left the dishes in the sink, the parents blew up: it was time for a family meeting. (Continued)
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Not sure where to go, I awkwardly sat in the next room, but could still hear the meeting conversation. After a few minutes of bickering, it turned out that the reason the kids unload the dishwasher was that they didn't know if it was clean or dirty was because the mom would always turn off the "clean" LED light on the dishwasher to save energy. When I heard that, I just burst out laughing, which relieved the family tension and the mom realized the ridiculousness of her statement. No more turning off the LED unless you empty the dishwasher.
Problem Solved.
17. I know a lady, who keeps on collecting those small ketchup sachets you get for free at food joints. She is known to have collected up to a kilo of ketchup in a day in her handbag from all the different food joints in the city. Later she fills up small bottles and sell it as her homemade ketchup to unsuspecting people.
18. I know a bunch of people that will burn a gallon of gas driving across town to get the "cheapest" gas. Come on man it's like 3 cents cheaper and you have a 12 gallon tank.
19. Going to the gym every other day which is my hair wash schedule and showering there to save money on hot water.
20. A large catfish in the only bathtub of my Vietnamese friends house. He told me they fatten them and purify them for a few days before eating it by feeding it a special diet. Oh, and they showered with it.
21. Guy joined our unit in the Army stationed in Germany, over a decade ago. Only eats in DFAC (Dining Facilities), only wears PT uniform off duty. Owns only a couple other pieces of clothing. Buys nothing, even puts socks on layaway at the PX.
We invited him to the clubs and he would only go if (Continued)
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We invited him to the clubs and he would only go if we paid. For everything. Didn't drink though, only water. Middle of a deployment and he's about to ETS (End of Term of Service = leave Army). He only had a 2 year contract. Ships back to Germany before flying back home to San Francisco. Buys a 3 series BMW for cash before going home.
You think you have discipline? This guy was on a different level.
22. I had a roommate in college with a back up battery. He would go to the library and charge that thing all day then use that to power his PC at night. I managed the bills in the house and I noticed $8~20 monthly reduction in electricity once he started doing that.
23. Took the kiddos trick-or-treating this past Halloween. One house had a bowl on the porch that only had restaurant peppermints and fortune cookies.
24. Someone I know bought a microwave. Knowing the store has a 90 day return policy, they return the microwave for a new one every 89 days, citing a new "problem" and often making up a problem of their own.
They've never had to replace a microwave and are always at the pinnacle of microwave technology.
25. 1) My great grandfather bought insanely cheap cigars and then cut them open for chewing tobacco.
2) 10 years ago, he lost his leg to something like gangrene because he was too cheap to go to the doctor. After they took his leg off (below the knee), he opted out of the prosthetic (it would have cost him some money, I don't know how much but anything over $20 would be too much) and carved himself a pegleg.
3) He drank one Hamms Gold beer a day. That was his beer because he got 12 packs for $2 at a drugstore by his house. Cheapest beer available.
26. A friend of mine had converted her loft space into a spare room, which her ex boyfriend moved into after (Continued)
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they split up. They were not living together prior to the split. I always found that a bit weird, because he had to go into her bedroom and pull down the loft ladder to access his own room. It must have been awkward when they had new boyfriends/girlfriends staying over.
27. One of my grandmothers would rarely flush her toilet. "But my dear, water is SO expensive." Riiight. Also she'd often sit in the dark in the evenings to the extend you'd think she wasn't in. "The price of electricity these days!" She had money. She'd just got weirder and weirder as time went on. Lived on long life canned food and powdered milk. (She was 92).
28. I cut my own hair. I haven't gotten a haircut from a barber in 3-4 years. At first it was because I could never find a decent barber, but nowadays, it's easier for me to take care of it.
29. My husband grew up very poor and his dad won't use air conditioning. Their house is hot as balls in the summer. He tried doing that with our house but my pregnant self put a stop to that real quick.
30. Back in college, I had an acquaintance who was the king of dipping out of a bill. He would pay the first round of the night because he knew everyone would remember it and it was usually the cheapest (college bar beers). Then he would not even bother to chip in the rest of the night. The worst was dinner tabs. He would all of a sudden get sleepy (pretending to be too tipsy) right before the bill was coming and put his head down when it showed up. He would than magically wake up and be perfectly fine after the rest of us split it up. Funny thing is he was so smooth at this that most people never even noticed. But I did. I remember you, jack. Don't be like jack.
31. Not actually saving money, but simply wasting energy...
My Grandma would collect the cold water from the hot tap, then re-heat it up on the stove, to dump back into the sink to wash the dishes by hand before putting them into the dishwasher to run.
32. Had a friend who would camp out behind the Good Will / Salvation Army, and when people showed up to drop off donations, would walk up to the car and ask if they wouldn't mind if he looked through what they had first. He was up front about it, and most people seemed to be okay letting him.
33. I had a friend that would carry around a Mcdonald's and Subway cup in his backpack in the summer, and if he were ever thirsty he would stop off at the nearest location, get a free refill from the machine, and be on his merry way. He said you had to refill something like 22 times until they started losing money, so he would use the cups that many times, then buy the next time, and so on. For a kid in high school, I thought it was bloody brilliant.
- Thewriter
Try not to follow the bad advice given here, because you don't want to get the results that these guys did.
U/Duckerton375 asked: What's the worst advice someone ever gave you, but you still followed?
The workplace can bring a cornucopia of terrible advice. Don’t follow these unless you want to get fired.
​Bad jobs are usually not worth it.
Stick with a job no matter how bad it is. I stayed with a terrible job working retail, dealing with horrible customers and sexual harassment. I was told I wouldn't find anything better.
"No, no, you misunderstand. I said you wouldn't find anything better at making you feel like complete garbage."
This gets really creepy really fast.
frustrated workplace GIFGiphy"After you put in a job application, you need to call them at least once a day every day until they hire you."
Note: this did not get me hired. It got me called out by the HR person I was calling and forbidden to ever contact their facility again.
I work for a law firm that employees over 1500 people in the home office alone. Once I received a call from the building security saying, "Insert Name is here to speak with the owner." Well we are run by a committee so that's odd. Found out they just applied for a job and wanted to talk directly to the person that would potentially hire them. Told him the firm will contact them to schedule an interview. They refused to leave without "talking to the owner." Had security escort them out of the building.
​This is absolutely not true.
"Sleep is for people who do not want success" great words from my uncle, it almost killed me.
Now I may be oversleeping.
​Interpersonal relationships are also a big breeding ground for terrible advice. Don’t listen to any of these.
Heartbreaking.
My father always tought me and my brother that "having friends is bad and in the end they will never be there for you" so everytime I told my father about my friends he would get kinda mad and give me the advice to stop talking to them.
Now I am afraid of people and have several trust issues, thanks dad.
​This won’t end well.
A Christmas Story GIF by filmeditorGiphyIn the fifth grade my teacher was talking about bullying, then she said "if anyone tries to bully you just agree with them." So the next time I got bullied I agreed with the bully and they bullied me more.
Dude one time I saw an anti bullying video that told the victims to just BE NICE TO THE BULLY. Like the bully was hurling insults and the victim was smiling and complimenting him. My first thought was about how much I hated the mere thought that this would work. My second thought was of how the people who came up with that method had clearly never been bullied.
​Oof.
When I met my now wife at the age of 19, one of my coworkers said that it's very important to start at the bottom with presents and work your way up, she still has the socks I gave her on our first anniversary on the wall over our bed as a reminder...
I'm still trying to teach my boyfriend about good presents and bad presents. Biscuits from the supermarket = bad present. Cheap unbranded laptop battery from China as my only present = bad present (and only lasted 2 months). Anything off my 7-page wishlist = good present. It's literally a list of things I want to receive as presents.
​Can tell you from experience that this is a bad idea.
Had a falling out with some friends. My husband recommended I reach out to an old friend who ghosted me suddenly in a manner that induced some pretty severe abandonment trauma. Went for it anyways because "it's been so long, surely they changed". Am now experiencing the same things as last time.
When you follow bad advice, it can lead to mistakes that you just can’t come back from.​
Buying a house is tricky.
for sale dancing GIF by Lisa VertudachesGiphy"Buy a home now before the prices go up!" -my FIL in 2006.
We bought in 2007 and paid $259,500 for our 1,300 sq ft house (we really couldn't afford it and had an 80/20 so we had 8% interest for one loan and 6% on the other) and in 2008 it was worth $97,000 so refinancing wasn't even an option. We watched all of our neighbors walk away or get foreclosed on but we kept paying our bills and as of this very moment our house is worth $462,000. I'm so happy we stuck it out, we both worked our @sses off and the house will be paid off in 2 years.
It worked out for us, it's a horrible idea. Especially since 1300 sq ft houses are $460+k
My heartbreaks for future generations, I honestly don't know how people are going to afford housing in the future.
It’s there for a reason.
"Never apply for any government assistance."
Cue years of suffering trying to work full-time with a painful disability. Quit a particularly terrible job, and wanted to apply for food aid until I could find another gig; a friend with lots of DHS experience recommended I apply for Social Security "just to get in the system." Turns out my disability was bad enough to get accepted the first time, which I wasn't expecting. Really could've used that support, oh, the 30+ previous years of my life.
Credit is important to have.
I was told to not get a credit card until after college. I was super fortunate to have my college paid for so I had no loans, car paid in cash, no credit card or anything to start building credit. Found myself out in the world at 22 years old with a credit score of 0.
So while a lot of this bad advice came from trusted people, oftentimes they were too misinformed to give that advice in the first place. Don't trust the word of one person--do your research, and make decisions for yourself.
It'll be way better in the long run