We recently asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the most extreme cheapskate thing they'd ever witnessed and, boy, they did not hold back. Check it out:
1. "My sister was an accountant, making good money. On my birthday, she said she'd 'take me to lunch.' She took me to her chiropractor's office, where they were offering 'free lunch' as a way to draw in new clients."
2. "A former friend of mine, used to ask people for their receipts from fast food restaurants so she could take them and go back to complain and get a free meal."
3. "If my grandparents had us for the weekend, to take us out to lunch meant eating free samples at Sam's Club."
4. "Not me, but my father once came home and said he saw his boss remove used staples and try to straighten them out for re-use."
—Anonymous
5. "I work at Starbucks and a coworker of mine takes home all the food from the pastry case and any expired/thrown away food. One time, somebody threw out a sandwich they had dropped and he literally dove into the trash can to dig it out — in front of all of the customers. This coworker also used to shower in his clothes because he was 'washing his clothes and himself.'"
6. "My sister’s in-laws visit my parents at Christmas every year, stay in their house for two weeks, and my mom cooks them three meals a day. As a 'thank you' for two weeks of hosting and catering, the in-laws cook a single dinner. They pre-measure all their spices at home, put them in plastic baggies, and drive them from Seattle to Los Angeles. Apparently, if my mom lacked a particular spice, it would be 'too expensive' to buy a new container from the grocery store and leave it with their hosts. This has been going on for 10 years. These people retired early and have spent their retirement traveling. They go on at least five international trips every year. They have a 4+ bedroom house in which only they live, but they have never reciprocated. When my parents went to Seattle for my sister’s baby shower, my sister’s MIL made a point of telling my mom where the nearest hotel is."
"But heaven forbid they accidentally contribute a bottle of coriander to my parents’ spice rack."
7. "My uncle's ex was too cheap to build a fence, you know when lumber was actually a decent price so she went and took a bunch of the free paint stir sticks at a home renovation store and made a fence herself, outside of her house, out of the paint stir sticks."
—Anonymous
8. "We would watch our next-door neighbor's home when they would go on vacations, which was frequent because they were travel agents. One of our duties included feeding their valuable tropical fish, which made me nervous in case one died on our watch. Upon their return one trip after we'd done this for about three years, they invited us to dinner to show their appreciation. When we got to the restaurant at 4:00 p.m. they informed us that we could only order from the back side of the menu which was for early birds. It was a short list of options, none too appealing, and they were $4.99 for the whole meal. We did not watch their home again."
—Anonymous
9. "College roommate used to shoplift or change price tags (taking off lower priced ones and sticking them onto higher priced items). This was her way of, 'saving money.' She also offered to pay for half of my wedding present expecting me to foot the rest. She wasn’t poor which made her behavior even more despicable."
—Anonymous
10. "My grandma grew up in the middle of the depression and kept a lot of old habits, like scrimping and saving every bit of food to the crumb and money to the penny. Every empty container was cleaned out and saved for something. She claimed she saved money on toys for us grandkids because we could play with her empty makeup cartridges. She is not and was not poor by any means, and all of that I could live with. But the cheapest thing I've seen from her was when I was cleaning out her cupboards last year, I found a pack of Jell-O with a sell-by date from the 1980s. She kept saying it's a dry good, it's preserved, it'll last forever, don't waste the money. It was like a lime-flavored rock. It took me a WHILE to convince her it was time for me to buy her a new box of Jell-O for $1. She's still upset about it."
11. "Participated in a gift exchange game with my husband’s family at Christmas. It was a $50 limit. His grandparents' contribution to the game was a cardboard box filled with random stuff from their garage. My brother-in-law ended up with it and wasn’t too pleased."
12. "Dated a super rich guy in the 1990s. I was making $25,000 a year. I saved and scrimped and bought him a very expensive sweater that had been marked down (but still cost a lot). He gave me some peach tea with a tea caddy, a paperback book about Michael Collins, and one of those 'office' basketballs — a Nerf ball with a hoop you attach to a wastebasket. He was classy enough to leave all the price tags on the items. I added them up; he spent like 1/8 of what the sweater cost. Yes, it’s the thought that counts, but he obviously wasn’t thinking about me."
13. "I had a friend who used to buy her husband a one-quart bottle of beer per week. She would section off portions on the bottle with a white crayon into seven portions — one per day! If he went over his portion, well, too bad. He would have to make do till the following week. She used to portion out their toilet paper too…"
14. "When my ex-husband moved out of our home, he took the sugar, flour, salt, and spices with him."
—Anonymous
15. "Had a friend that for his wedding anniversary he would go to a cemetery and steal flowers from a grave site to give to his wife. And then he had the audacity to say they would not miss them!!"
—Anonymous
16. "I watched my father buy 12 cake mixes just to get one free, and he only bought yellow. Nobody had to ask what flavor the cake was for the next year."
—Anonymous
17. "When I was a senior in high school and my boyfriend was a sophomore in college, we entered a local baking contest. We split the cost of the ingredients that we bought at the grocery store. When we were done baking my boyfriend said he was going to SELL the unused ingredients to his mom and keep the 'profit.' I told him in no uncertain terms that that was NOT okay especially because his mom had helped us by letting us use a family recipe, teaching us how to make pie crust, letting us use her kitchen, and providing us with ingredients she already had in the house. Plus I told him even if he did that, he’d still owe half his 'profit' since we’d split the cost in the first place. I thanked his mom for helping us and told her that I hoped she could make something delicious with our unused ingredients. I regret staying with this guy for another two years."
—Anonymous
18. "We had a garage sale to sell my MIL’s stuff when she moved to assisted living. As is common for garage sales in our area, we had a box filled with items that was labeled 'FREE.' A couple was digging through the box and my husband just let them have the whole box. They took the box and we witnessed them selling items from the box to people entering our sale!"
—Anonymous
19. "Our family photos were stored in a large wooden box. My sister took possession of the box (without telling me) when our mother died. I looked for them at the time our mom passed. Years later I found out she had them and asked if I could take them to make copies (real photographic copies). She said no, she 'didn't trust me.' That Christmas she gifted me with 'copies' of the family photos. The copies were made on a barely limping, ancient Xerox machine where she worked. The quality of the copies was horrible. That was my Christmas. Of note between her and my brother-in-law they had an income of $200k plus a year — money was not the issue."
—Anonymous
20. "Prior to the pandemic, a local grocery store offered free coffee to shoppers. In the bakery section, the store offered free samples. I was standing in the deli when a nicely dressed woman came into the store, made a cup of coffee, grabbed a bakery sample, and walked out of the store without buying anything. A well-known national coffee shop was located in the same plaza, so she could've just bought from there."
21. "When I was in college, my teenage brother would spend his spring break visiting me. He was a very large, athletic teenage boy who ate the normal, gargantuan proportions that teenage boys ate. My mom told my dad to give me $25 (2004 dollars) to feed my brother for a week; my dad decided to give us $23. My friends and I had to steal so much cafeteria food to keep him fed."
—Anonymous
22. "I worked for a neighbor whose side hustle was mowing lawns for HUD. When we would drive to the different sites, he would use his brakes as little as possible to 'conserve' them. He would roll through stop signs, try to time stop-lights, and drive ridiculously slow."
—Anonymous
23. "My friend whips soft margarine with water to make 'whipped butter.' Her burgers are more breadcrumbs than beef. She makes powdered drink mix with twice as much water as is called for. She saves potato peels and fries them to make 'hash.' She uses half milk and half water for her cereal. She puts individual servings of ketchup, mustard, and mayo in snack bags so no one will 'waste' condiments. She washes her underarms once a week so she won't have to put more deodorant on. When we go out to eat, even if we offer to pay, she will only order from the kids' menu, and at the end of the meal, she picks at everyone's plate to take the 'leftovers' (like a bit of lettuce, a slice of tomato, the fat/bone from a piece of meat). It's embarrassing! This is someone who makes more than $70,000 a year, has no husband, no children, not even a pet!"
—Anonymous
24. "Some friends were staying at our place in Florida and after a day at the beach we went to get something to eat. We were already going cheap as we both had Groupons for this place. We were informed as we ordered that we could only use one Groupon for the table. They (our friends) offered to let us use our Groupon to pay for the entire table and then they would sell us the other one as they were not from Florida. So after spending four days rent-free in our place, they not only wouldn't buy our lunch but actually tried to make money off of us."
—Anonymous
25. "My grandmother's best friend was a very wealthy woman. Still, she would buy clothes, wear them a few times, and then return them. She would also always steal all of the condiment packets off tables at restaurants, squirreling them away in her giant handbag. After she died, her kids found drawers stuffed with jelly packets and artificial sweetener."
—Anonymous
26. "My husband and I have a good friend that never tips the wait staff when we go out to eat at a restaurant. We are talking NEVER. So, when we used to go out to eat with this friend, my husband and I made sure to leave a tip from us AND our cheapskate friend. We shouldn't have had to leave a tip from him, but we think it's rude of him to act that way. We tried talking to him and reminding him that tips make up a good portion of a waitstaff's salary. He didn't seem to care. So, eventually, we quit going out to restaurants with him because it's embarrassing and frustrating!"
—Anonymous
27. "A ski mountain was holding a Toys for Tots drive, and if you donated a toy, you got a free lift ticket for the day. Win/win, right? Well, a middle-aged man was in line ahead of us with bags full of toys. When he found out he could only get one lift ticket, regardless of how many toys he brought, he threw a fit and stormed out, taking all his toys with him. Literally taking toys away from children in need at Christmas! What a Grinch! Oh, and he drove off in a Mercedes SUV."
—Anonymous
28. Finally, "The coffee shop I manage contributes to a local festival and during the four days of this festival, all ticket holders receive 15% off if they ask. Two weeks after the fact, a lady came in asking for her discount from the weeks prior that she had stopped in. This is literally 15% on $4 coffee so I just wanted to get her the refund and send her on her way. I asked her for the rough estimate of what she spent so I could give her the discount in a refund. She wasn’t ok with this because she wanted to get every penny back that she could. She asked if I could go into our ledger and find her cash transactions and pull up the totals. I informed her that we have hundreds of cash-paying customers and unless she knew the exact time and date, that it would take quite a while for me to find. Of course, she had no idea. Two weeks after this she came back. She divulged to me that she lived an hour away and drove back because she found all of her receipts crumpled up in her car."
"She made copies and printed them out to give to me. The grand total of her discount? $2.50. I rounded it up to $3 for her troubles and while it was wild, she was very kind and grateful. I just don’t know in what world, the effort and gas money alone would have been worth any of that. But hey, she got her discount. And next year if she purchases another $400 festival ticket, she’ll get $3 worth of discounts."
—Anonymous
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.