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
Redditor Galactic_Blueberry1 wanted everyone to share the weird oddities that keep us concerned with life, so they asked:
"Reddit, what is the most eerie thing that's ever happened to you?"
Being creeped out in life is part of living.
There should be a warning.
Coincidence?
twins GIF by Soul TrainGiphy"I once met the same set of twins in the same day. One after the other. One at a library and then another at the mall."
willywonkerbonker
Normal
"I’m a medic and firefighter. We once had a call for something normal, like chest pain or something, I can’t remember. The caller said he was in his barn/garage, which isn’t weird really around here. Anyway, we pull up on the scene and something just felt off. No idea why but something just told me in my gut that something was wrong."
"I decided to do a 360 around the building before we went through the door at the front that was clearly the entrance. I walk around and come to a window on the side of the building and look in. There was a shotgun rigged to the door. The guy had set a booby trap for us. And he had hung himself as well."
"We kicked in this plexiglass-type material on the side of the building and entered that way. Guy was dead. Nothing we could do about it at that point. I would have been the first through that door. No idea why I didn’t just walk through it that day. I’ve posted this before but I feel it’s a decent story."
pokemon-g**gbang
Talk to the Neighbor
"I was driving home per usual and got this random, unwavering feeling that my house had been broken into. I kind of laughed and said 'Please don’t let my house have actually been broken into' out loud as I turned the corner onto my street. The first thing I noticed when I pulled up to the house were the blinds on my bedroom window. They were yanked around and twisted up."
"Some guy that lives across the street turned out to have been stalking me and decided to climb through my bedroom window. He took nothing valuable. Just some weird personal items. It was terrifying to walk in and see my things rummaged through. It was even scarier when I talked to the neighbor and they admitted that multiple people in the neighborhood had seen it happen."
"But they were all too scared of ol’ dude to say anything. The weirdest part of it all (and I mean this guy took some creepy personal things) is that nagging feeling I had before I found the remnants of the break-in. I swear I knew before I knew, and that was such an eerie feeling."
No_Sense_7384
'Hey! What are you doing out here?'
"This happened last year. I was having a recurring dream where I was in the woods at night. I noticed a campfire in the distance. Whoever was sitting at the fire noticed me and yells out 'Hey! What are you doing out here?' and starts moving towards me until I wake up."
"Late last summer I decided to go out to the woods for a hike. Once I got out there, I needed to pee. I hopped off of the trail to get closer to the creek so I could take care of business and not worry about anyone walking up on me."
"As I approached the creek, I see a hidden shelter and a man setting up a campfire. When he noticed me, he said "Hey! What are you doing out here?' Nothing else happened. I apologized and went on my way. It was the only time in my life that I had dreams of an event before it happened. I was pretty shook at the time."
Imahorrible_person
Very Weird
The Kid Mero Showtime GIF by Desus & MeroGiphy"One time my husband and I were lying in bed and the bottom drawer to his nightstand slammed shut. There was no logical explanation for why that happened and we still don’t understand to this day! I should clarify that we were both awake when this happened."
"We were just lying there reading and playing on our phones and we both heard the drawer shut clear as day! My husband has a habit of keeping his lower drawer open and we looked over and it was closed. Very weird!"
mrsjay717
Things that go bump in the night.
NO THANK YOU!!
Jump Out
Rain Storming GIF by reactionseditorGiphy"During a severe thunder/lightning storm one night, I was alone in the cathedral - high up in the loft above the nave practicing the large pipe organ for a forthcoming recital."
"The flashing lightning illuminated the stained glass around the pipes with such intensity that it made the biblical characters seem to 'jump out' of the windows and remain suspended in mid-air all around me (as if they had somehow come to life)."
Back2Bach
Oh Grandma...
"When I was in middle school, I used to spend my free time playing on my Gameboy or listening to CDs in my room. It was a three-family house. Most of my family, including my parents, sister, and I, lived on the top floor, while my grandmother lived alone on the second floor."
"My grandma used to take care of my sister and me while my parents were at work. She would frequently walk up the stairs at least twice a day to check on us. She wore loud wooden slippers in the house, so we could always hear her walking around on her floor and especially when she was coming upstairs."
"One weekend while I was alone at home with my grandma, I was sitting on my bed playing my Gameboy when I heard my grandma's unmistakable footsteps coming up the stairs. I heard her walking down the hallway and stopping in front of my door. I looked up to meet her gaze, but there was no one there. I felt startled and ran out of my room to check the hallway, kitchen, and stairs, but I couldn't find anyone else upstairs beside me. I found my grandma sitting downstairs on the couch watching television."
lovelybliss
In Dreams
"I had one of those dreams that you couldn't wake up from. I knew I was asleep and I was aware but I couldn't wake up. I was absolutely terrified thinking that I was stuck in a coma or something. I had a gun with me for some reason and as the terror of not being able to wake up grew I for some reason had a thought and belief that if I killed myself in the dream I would die in real life and that that was a better alternative than being in a coma. So I brought the gun to my head and pulled the trigger. I physically felt pain in my temple and heard the shot. I woke up right afterward."
StraightsJacket
What did he hear?
"My ex and I lived in a remote part of Northern Nevada. The house was literally in the middle of a field and our neighbors were far away. He worked nights and I never liked how dark and quiet it was. On the night he was working, I fell asleep and had a dream about him. In the dream, he was standing on the edge of a cliff (like the Grand Canyon), looking out at the view."
"I tried many times to get his attention but he wouldn't acknowledge me. He was just staring straight ahead. After ignoring me for a while, he abruptly turned to me and grabbed the outside of my arms firmly. His face looked panicked and he said, '(name), there's somebody in the house.'"
"Like the movies, my eyes shot open and I woke up with my blood running cold. I lay in bed silently, listening for any sound. I was even more terrified when the dog woke up almost immediately, started barking, and ran out his dog door, into the yard. What did he hear?"
"I never saw or heard anything out of place. I couldn't see anything outside in the dark. The dog came back in and fell asleep. I stayed up the rest of the night, totally creeped out."
bae_guevara_
Outside my Body
Shirley Manson Transformation GIF by GarbageGiphy"I was walking to a college class and felt as if I'd suddenly stepped outside of my body and was watching myself move around like a puppeteer."
"It lasted for about 10 minutes while I called a parent to ground myself to reality. Happened again the next week for a smaller amount of time. I'm guessing it was some kind of stress-induced disassociation episode since it was midterms season and my first semester away from home."
I_Ace_English
College can drive anyone to insanity.
An always out of body experience.
Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor XqueezeMePlease asked:
"What are your immediate thoughts when you hear a guy refer to himself as an 'Alpha Male'?"
People shared their interpretations to hearing a guy declaring himself an alpha.
Self-Granted Permission
"Translation: 'I am going to be an unapologetic a**hole.'”
–darkwulf1
Moving Forward
“I can’t take anything from him seriously from now on.”
– YourLocalOrangePeel
"It's a real life cheat code to make your reputation go to 0%."
– AstronomerNo556
Being A Male
"try to explain to them how much of a bitch they really are for having to boost their self importance by telling others how great they are....instead of actually BEING great."
"i will never forget my father telling me 'being a male, does not mean your a man.'"
– tokikain
What is he really saying about himself?
Hiding Insecurity
"That he’s deeply insecure."
– ButternutSnuggleButt
"Narrator: he wasn’t an alpha male."
– Yellowmellowbelly
The Thing About Actual Male Confidence
"The entire sub-culture around 'Alpha Males' is centered around men being insecure. And I say this from personal experience. In middle school, high school, and even early college I was a very insecure guy and I’d watch videos constantly on 'how to be an alpha' and it would only spiral into me hating myself more for not amounting to the standards of an 'alpha'.
"Confident, secure men wear what they want, do what they want, and are comfortable being themselves regardless of what society or its standards say. I mean take Harry Styles for example, that man can wear a dress, put on makeup, and be himself confidently AND he still is more of a man than any self-proclaimed 'alpha.'"
"Manliness and masculinity isn’t about looking like a lumberjack, drinking whiskey, and working out 24/7 (though it’s okay if you do any of these things because that’s what you genuinely enjoy), its about being confident in who you are as a man whatever that means for you. People fail to realize, if you are a man and you do something, anything, that in and of itself is inherently manly regardless of what society says."
"I’m so happy that I was able to come to these realizations and deal with the real underlying issues I had of low self-esteem but it’s so sad to see so many young men fall prey to “alpha” bs and base their entire existence on the concept of trying to be 'alpha' all because instead of talking through their feelings and mental health they let their insecurities dictate their life."
– ccalicich32
Measure Of A Man
"Small dick energy."
– NeoWarriors
You want to stay away from these types of men.
Self-Aggrandizement
"Translation: I’m extremely insecure and need to feel superior and also think woman are property."
– TwistedFate21
Potential For Abuse
"My girlfriend has bruises she lies about"
– AsperaAstra
Code
"'Alpha Male' is just code for I think I can beat up most people around me so I want to be treated as special and not be forced to obey social niceties and laws."
– anon
Public Threat
"Like an alpha of a program or videogame, highly unstable and should not be available to the public."
– Whismurr_
Let's face it. No one using the phrase "alpha male" to describe themselves is going to be likable.
Unless you are desiring to be dominated by a superior alpha under erotic pretenses, you're better off keeping your inner circle exclusively without complete morons.