People have been sharing tales of the tightest person they ever knew – 23 hilarious tales of outrageous penny-pinching

Being responsible with money and able to save for a rainy day is something that pretty much everyone agrees is a good quality in a person. But there is a fine line between ‘sensible’ and ‘miserable skinflint’.

They’ve been chatting about folk who would put miserly Mr Scrooge to shame on the AskUK subreddit after No-Snow-9605 posted this story of actually quite impressive parsimoniousness:

‘Who was the tightest person you have known, and why?’

And they started with a classic example oll of their own.

‘I used to work in British Steel, on the night shift if you did a 12 hour shift, started four hours earlier, you would get a free meal. The canteen would be closed by this time, so someone was delegated to go to the main kitchen to get cold food. Pork pies/ sausage rolls/ sandwiches .

‘This one guy always volunteered. While he was there he would steal pork pies and sausage rolls. I asked him what he did with them all?

‘I was flabbergasted by his answer.

‘”I put them in the freezer for when I retire”, was the answer.’

Okay, so that incredible anecdote is hard to surpass, but it didn’t stop people trying …

1.

‘One of my dad’s old friends would calculate precisely how much fuel to put in his car so he wasn’t carrying around extra weight. Somebody asked him if he’d factored in the losses to evaporation when opening the filler cap and apparently it threw all his numbers off.’
–ArgumentativeNutter

2.

‘An ex-girlfriends father was a very tight Scottish driving instructor. He would carry around jerry cans in his boot and fill up when he saw the cheapest fuel in the area. He’d then transfer it to a 55 gallon fuel drum in his garden and pump it out when needed.’
–deltree000

3.

‘My late father in law would drive 15 miles to a particular petrol station because it was the cheapest in the county. This wasn’t on his way to anywhere he had to go, this was a dedicated journey just to fill up his car.

I did point out that the costs of driving there would vastly outweigh any savings made, but he still insisted on doing it.’
–Striking_Smile6594

4.

‘Fella I used to play hockey with. If he was driving anyone to an away match he’d never go faster than 50mph. If he was at a social he’d hang around teammates near the bar waiting for people to offer him a pint. Never returned the favour.

Also looked liked he’d not bought new clothes in decades or got them from a charity shop. Once he turned up to training in a lilac beanie with a rose embroidered on the front of it. Something your grandmother would wear.

All while owning four BMWs and three houses.’
–chemo92

5.

‘I know someone who held in their poop until they got to work. When I asked why they replied “Why poop for free at home when I can get paid to poop at work?”.’
–CulturedClub

6.

‘Don’t know the individual but I worked on a new build development block of flats. Around 240 flats. Inside the drum of integrated washer/dryer there was an enclosed clear plastic packet which had warranty info, instruction manual etc, and one free laundry wash liquitab.

Not sure who it was but someone who had been working on the flats had been round every single flat and opened each packet and robbed the liquitab.’
–Slugmum1

7.

‘When I was a teenager working retail, there was an older bloke called Terry who used to boil the staff room kettle just before clocking off, then pour it into a thermal flask to take home. Asked him why once and he looked at me like I was the idiot. “Do you know how much it costs to run a kettle?” stuck with me.’
–HawkwardGames

8.

‘I used to work with somebody who each night before leaving he would pour some milk into a flask and pocket a handful of teabags.’
–DaveyTheNumpty

9.

‘Once received an itemised bill from my grandfather for my share of a family outing. It even had fuel costs for the drive there, the miserable git.’
–crgoodw

10.

‘My grandma’s sister and her husband (great auntie and uncle?) used to give out tins of homemade crispy cakes for Christmas. Then send a bill. I think they used to charge a fiver for a tin of these shite cakes that nobody wanted so they were making a tidy profit.

They were fucking loaded as well, mainly due to inheritance. Horrendous people.’
–AnonymousCapybara72

11.

‘A woman my dad worked with. She used to get a lift from a co-worker because she lived on his way into work. In exchange, she’d bake him a loaf of bread. One week he was off sick for a couple of days, so he only got half a loaf. She’d send Christmas postcards which were the cards she’d got last year with the back half cut off.

At dad’s leaving do, she only went under duress, ordered the cheapest thing on the menu and drank water. When dad said ‘It’s been a pleasure working with you all so this is on me’, her face was a picture. Dad said it was worth the expense just to see it.’
–Specialist_Being_691

12.

‘Factory I used to work at would give free custard. Not sure why. Everything was pretty cheap in the canteen anyway. A few of the older guys would come in and go through 4-5 bowls of custard. That’s all they’d eat on a 12 hour shift. Always had beer and betting money though.’
–james9483