Stingy

[Siv]

Yes I know it's been discussed about but just let me rant.

A co worker of mine, 64 years old was talking about his wife getting first SS check of $1,800 and he's thinking about getting the same some time next year. Together they can SAVE 20K a month on top of investment return, with little liabilities: 600K mortgage, 2 grown up kids, no other significant debt that I know of.

He takes bus to work, spend as little as possible for lunch or 70% of the time bring his lunch from home, getting reimbursed for everything that is related to office including cents....man, on the way back from lunch today a guy in front of us drop his wallet so we reminded him. His comment when we were in the elevator was that he were to walk alone he would have just pocket it....I was startled. I'm sure he's joking because he's quite an honest person but what is it with people that when they make more, they become stingier? I just can't understand.

I'm cheap to myself too for example I would look for the cheapest airfare, I don't save nearly as much as him(no debts) and fairly young but I can live my life. I'm more generous to my family members than to myself. We went lunch with one of the secretary which makes a fraction of his salary....like less than 10% and yet after all that talk he let her pay. Just blows my mind away.

No wonder some people can retain so much monetary amount. Excuse me for venting...I admit I'm a bit jealous, I just can't shake it off my head for the remaining of the day.

 

[Martha]

I had a coworker who made really good money. We also got reimbursed for business expenses. If he put a quarter in a parking meter he would request reimbursement. If he drove three miles he would request mileage reimbursement. A bookkeepers PITA.

 

[maddythebeagle]

I have had a few co-workers that worked forever and never spent....I always wondered what they were saving for....I guess it is fear and needing something....

 

[Leonidas]

...on the way back from lunch today a guy in front of us drop his wallet so we reminded him. His comment when we were in the elevator was that he were to walk alone he would have just pocket it....

There's stingy, there's greedy, and then there's thievery. I'm thinking your co-worker leans a lot further to the right of that scale.

I've had coworkers that are just incredibly stingy. Some of the stories are hilarious and I love to share them.

In my last work assignment, when I first started working there I had the night shift and we came to work several hours after the day shift had left for the day. The only carryover between the two shifts were the day shift desk officer and his evening shift counterpart who switched places sometime after the day crew went home and before we came in. Anyway, my night shift folks were in near rebellion over the office holiday lunches that were organized by the commander's secretary. She expected the night shift people to contribute, and invited them to come in (during the middle of the day when they were normally sleeping) and partake. They were only a little miffed at that, but the thing that had them completely pissed was the aftermath. After every such party there would be a lot of debris left behind, a very small amount of food (three broken potato chips in a bowl that once held pounds was common) and a note saying "we saved you some food, so please enjoy but clean everything up afterwards."

I thought it a crappy situation, but the commander doted on his secretary and I knew raising a fuss over that was a career altering move. But, after a year I was the commander and she worked for me and I was there for the afternoon feasts. That was when I found out what was really happening.

After the party the day shift people left a feast behind for night shift to enjoy when they came in at 7 PM. But, somewhere between immediately after the luncheon and before the evening shift desk guy came in at 3, it all just disappeared. I was standing near the main door at 3 and saw the day shift desk guy walking out the door carrying several bags full of leftovers.

Dan, what are you doing?

Just taking some leftovers home to eat.

Man, night shift is going to be pissed.

Screw 'em, if they wanted some they should have been here at 11.

At the very next luncheon I made it a point to publicly mention that I expected there to be some food left for the night shift and looked at Dan while I said it. Everybody there knew what was going on and he didn't do his usual takeaway grab. But he was obviously unhappy with me for days afterwards. I asked someone about his reaction and they told me "Dan counted on that food because he feeds himself for a week or two with the leftovers." When I asked if he was having financial problems, they said "No, he's single and has plenty of money, he's just cheap."

 

[free4now]

I think that people are perceived as stingy or not stingy based on how they present their actions, rather than on the actions themselves. If someone takes all the leftovers and says "hah now I won't have to buy food for a week and I'll put the money into upgrading my jetski" they will get one reaction. If they take all the leftovers with a smile and talk about how that saves them time to help out at the homeless shelter more, they get a different reaction.

If someone picks up a penny to put food on the table for their kids they are a hero, while if they pick up a penny to afford granite countertops they are stingy.

 

[Siv]

I felt that this kind of people are always lucky though. They seem to be able to squeeze water out of stone. No significant expense, always make money in investment they decide to buy and get paid highly for not doing much. In this case, my co worker gets 2 business class travel a year, housing allowance, nap everyday, no overtime since he's 64......and we're the young kids are the one who's pulling the jobs.

I'm usually immune, realize it's not my business and place to feel this way but am p***** that this secretary has to pitch in for his lunch while he never give her anything except pain. She's just too nice of a girl.

Hope that when I'm old, I'll be even more generous than I am now.

 

[Andre1969]

I think i heard an explanation once before that said if your cheapness only affects yourself, you're frugal. Such as bringing a bag lunch instead of eating out, etc. But if your cheapness affects others, you're being stingy. Such as stiffing a waiter on the tip, stealing food, etc.

 

[bbuzzard]

I had a coworker who made really good money. We also got reimbursed for business expenses. If he put a quarter in a parking meter he would request reimbursement. If he drove three miles he would request mileage reimbursement. A bookkeepers PITA.

I keep explainging to my employees that their $2 expense report cost me $20 to process, and that the cost comes out of their paycheck. I keep getting $2 expense reports. All I ask is that they keep track and turn in one large report instead of eight small ones. However, that would mean they would have to wait a month of two to get their $5 back, so ... no. I guess I am going to have to make some rules eventually.

 

[Leonidas]

It might be a subtle difference in how English is used in different regions, but in Texas I think "cheap" is used more often than "stingey".

I think i heard an explanation once before that said if your cheapness only affects yourself, you're frugal. Such as bringing a bag lunch instead of eating out, etc. But if your cheapness affects others, you're being stingy. Such as stiffing a waiter on the tip, stealing food, etc.

My first inclination was to agree with you, but I think it's just a little different. When we see someone doing something frugal it's either something we do or wish we had the discipline to do. When we see someone doing something cheap or stingey, it means we would be too embarassed to do the same.

Another stingey co-worker story.

This guy was incredibly frugal, but had a real ugly stingey side as well. His wife cut his hair, made his clothes and packed his lunch. Once a month or so he would splurge with a coupon and get a fast food hamburger as a treat. Pretty frugal. At first I thought it was completely admirable because he bought a nice Mustang with some of his savings which I though was cool. While it was frugal I wouldn't have done much of it the same way he did, because his wife could not cut hair very well (or she used a weed trimmer to do it), and her idea of fashion was orange, sherbet green or purple leisure suits when such things had been out of style (if they ever were) 10 years earlier. He looked like a freshman at clown college. Actual quote from a co-worker "Man, I can't wake up this morning. Let me go see what Smith is wearing today, that'll get my eyes opened."

But then I learned his darker side. He would load his wife and kids into the city car (free gas) on weekends and make them pick up cans on the side of the road so they could sell them to scrap places. Okay, reeeally frugal there and not something I would do unless I was desperate. But he was also the guy who sometimes helped himself to unattended lunches in the office fridge. "Oh, I thought someone forgot it and I hated to see it go to waste." was his excuse when I caught him eating my lunch. He was also the guy who would hover around us when we were eating, and beg for leftovers. "Can I have the rest of your chips?"

One night my partner and I bought a pizza at Domino's on the way back to the office. My partner really hated the mooching and stinginess of Mr. Cheap Guy and made me swear a blood oath: "No matter what, we're not letting him have any of our pizza. If we can't eat it all, we'll throw it on the floor and dance the Watusi on it before we'll give him anything."

Before we got halfway through the pizza we had to jump up and leave the office on something urgent. We gave the other half to another co-worker but made him swear the same oath: "no pizza for Smith". A couple of hours later we were back in the office and rememberd to ask the co-worker what he did with the pizza. He started laughing so hard he couldn't catch his breath.

"Man, you guys missed it. I ate all of the pizza, every bit, and then threw the box in the big trash can by Smith's desk. I was sitting over here on the other side of the cubicles just a couple of minutes later when I started hearing a scratching noise from his side of the office. It was weird, it sounded like a cat or a rat scratching on something. So I leaned back in my chair and peeked around the corner of the cubicle. The dude was standing by the trash can, he had flipped open the pizza box and was eating the bits of cheese that get stuck to the cardboard - right out of the trash!"

 

[Andre1969]

Oh wow, that story about the co-worker picking the cheese off the cardboard was priceless! I have to confess I've done the same thing, but when I did it was from my own pizza paid for by my own money!

As for the aluminum cans thing, I tried saving them once, and found it to really be a waste of time. For about a year, instead of putting our old beer and soda cans in the recycle bin, we'd put them in trash bags. Sometimes we'd smash them, but sometimes we wouldn't. My grandmother lives across the street from me, and sometimes I'd raid her recycle bin, too.

In the end, we got a full-sized pickup truck's worth of cans. Yet all that still only came out to about 100 pounds. At the time, I think aluminum was going for about 40 cents a pound, so all that effort came out to a whopping forty bucks.

I think nowdays, it takes something like 32 aluminum cans to make a pound. So if you can collect roughly 412 aluminum cans per hour, you might just make minimum wage!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I had an employee that would go along for lunch only if the two petite women in the group were going. He sat between them and ordered the cheapest smallest thing on the menu and when they stopped eating for a second he'd lean over and quietly ask "you gonna finish that?"

Cracked me up.

Maybe these guys have a lot of money because they dont like to part with it?

 

[bssc]

I knew of one guy in the State Department. He refused to spend any vacation time since he knew that when he retired, the Federal Government would cash it out for him. He was always in the office and was pretty stressed out since, he didn't have any down time.

He also was one of those people who read through rule books looking for ways to take advantage of the system. He found one. Not only does the Government pay for your vacation time but if you are in a place with a post differential (an additional percentage of your pay to compensate for being there), that percentage would get applied to the cashed out time.

So the guy applies to Aden which had a 40% differential because of various sorts of unpleasantness. He is accepted and goes to the post. One of the first acts there was to apply for retirement. And he got free shipping of his household effects anywhere in the States as a bonus.

 

[2B]

I was once described by a significant manager as still having "50 cents of the first dollar I ever made." I was slightly offended but he laughed and said I was tight and watched how I spent money. He knew that when I was in charge of a project there wouldn't be any money wasted and he didn't have to check worry about me "gold plating" anything.

I am tight with my money and any assets I'm "controlling." I do believe in value but my roots come through pretty quickly. I can't understand buying a Lexus or a BMW when a Honda does just as well. I've been in expensive cars but they sure don't seem to drive any better. In a couple of years whatever you drive is an old bucket of bolts anyway. I do keep my average vehicle 10 years or more. My kids got paid for educations but at state colleges. I believe in the value of their education but I also said they had to have a future career in mind. They could change what they did after they graduated but I didn't want any degrees in early French literature without a plan to teach French or become involved in the publishing business.

Excessive frugality is a "disease" just like over-spending. Anything taken to extremes will hurt an individual and those around them.

As for stories, I working with a woman (a low paid clerk) that had a terrible reputation for stealing food, taking home any leftovers and jumping at any OT before anyone else could volunteer. She had a lot of relationship problems with the other clerks and secretaries. I got talking with her and she told me about her husband who constantly blew money. They were way in debt, he couldn't/wouldn't hold a steady job and she depended on the leftovers to live on. It was a horrible mess. She ended up having an affair with one of the low level managers, got divorced and moved way up the economic food chain (literally).