Children of Cheapskate Parents Reveal Their Most Insane Stories

When it comes to stingy people, every penny is a treasure, and thriftiness is a way of life. While there are people who like to spend their hard-earned money to live a luxurious life, that's not the case for cheapskates. Even if they earn a fortune, these people will always make every dollar count.

You probably have come across a cheapskate. These people have a tendency to scout for the best deals, repurposing things, etc. To them, it's more than just spending money; they find joy in getting the most value out of every purchase.

When they get something for free, is a cause for celebration, whether it's a free cup of coffee, a sample-sized shampoo, or a promotional pen. If you have never encountered a stringy person, buckle up as these children of cheapskate parents revealed some of the crazy experiences they went through in their household. Here is what they had to say.

Comments have been edited for grammar and clarity.

1. How My Dad Scored a Free Bar of Soap with a Clever Trick

u/[deleted]: When my dad moved into his house, he had a guy come over to do a free demonstration for a water filter that goes under a sink. The guy used a bar of soap for his demonstration and left it when he was done.

My dad called at least four other companies for a free demonstration just to keep the free bar of soap and never intended to have a water filter installed. He does things like this, which worsens as he ages. But I just let him do his thing.

2. My Dad's Attachment with Paper Towels

u/TheCommonStew: My dad hoards his paper towels. To this day, he still expects me to ask permission to use them (I'm 21) because he doesn't want me to waste them. I remember thinking it was $100 bucks for a roll because he was so concerned about me wasting them.

He is a cheapskate and spends twice as much money on everything because he only gets the cheapest thing that breaks or doesn't work as well. While my girlfriend and I were at his house, I dropped a gallon of milk everywhere. She grabbed paper towels and used the whole roll to soak up the mess.

I felt so sinful helping her, but the look on my dad's face when he found out we used a whole roll, was priceless. I knew he wouldn't yell at us because he was too polite to yell in front of my girlfriend. But, he was visibly holding back his pain, anger, and heartbreak over the "wasted" roll.

3. My Dad's Unique Approach to Saving Every Coin

u/notronbro: Oh my God, dads are terrible. Mine hates paying for electricity, so he hangs his clothes up outside, which would be fine if he didn't do it year-round, even when it's below freezing.

Whenever my sisters or I cleaned our rooms, he would go through our trash, looking for "valuables" we had thrown away (money or recyclables). He's obsessed with gas prices, and I once sat in the car with him as he drove around town for half an hour searching for the cheapest gas.

When he wants to drive down a hill, he literally puts his car in neutral, opens the door, and pushes himself down the hill with his foot. One time, we went to a Burger King, and I was only allowed chicken fries because a burger was "too expensive ."

4. Meet the Return Policy Maestro

u/halfadash6: My father took insane advantage of the Costco return policy. He returned an outdoor furniture set we'd had for about eight years. It was weather-worn, and a couple of pieces were broken. They took it, and he used the money to pay for most of a new patio set from Costco. Unbelievable.

5. Unveiling the Frugal Achievements of My Grandmother

u/Acetylene: When I was a little kid, I spent summers at my grandparents' house, and one of my chores was setting the table before dinner every night. Whenever we had company for dinner, I was instructed to use "the good napkins."

That meant the napkins that didn't have restaurant logos printed on them. We only went to restaurants when my grandmother felt she could come out ahead on the deal, and there were many ways to accomplish this.

She clipped coupons, of course, but that was kids' stuff. Whenever she did anything for someone, she'd get them to take her to dinner to "return the favor." She had an enormous purse, which generally returned stuffed with napkins and food from the buffet.

She didn't see much point in going to any restaurant that didn't at least have a salad bar. One year, when my mother and I offered to take her to dinner for her birthday, we had to drive over an hour to get to a Sizzler she hadn't been banned from.

6. Rolling in Savings

u/Askin_Real_Questions: My dad discovered where the giant industrial rolls you see in some shopping centers are sold and moved us over to that. It's like one giant roll with about three or four normal rolls' worth of toilet paper. I've never been so embarrassed having friends over.

7. My Grandmother's Unbeatable Sears Lifetime Guarantee!

u/stone_opera: When my grandparents got married, they did their gift registry with Sears; that was back in the day (Late 1940s) when they had a 'lifetime guarantee' on almost everything they sold.

My grandmother has moved house almost ten times since then, but she has kept every flattened box and warranty for every appliance she got when she was married.

I drove her to Sears about two years ago to replace her iron. She brought all the boxing and paperwork from back in the 1940s to get a new one. Surprisingly, they fulfilled the guarantee and gave her a new iron!

I think it's hilarious, but she hasn't had to pay for a new appliance in over 60 years because she's so cheap! She's a Ukrainian immigrant to Canada and always insists, "Lifetime guarantee means lifetime guarantee."

I feel bad for Sears because our family is notoriously long-lived (her father lived until 104). I sometimes think that maybe this is why Sears is doing so poorly: a ton of cheap old women cashing in on their lifetime guarantees.

8. My Dad's Budget Home Became a Renovation Adventure

u/InVultusSolis: My father is pathologically cheap. I have tons of stories, but I'll share the biggest. My dad only looks at the dollar amount and nothing else. If he sees a six-pack of toilet paper for $5 and a twelve-pack for $7, he'll buy the $5 pack every time, guaranteed.

So you can already imagine how any major purchase goes with him. When I was about eight, he decided to buy a house. One could buy something relatively decent in my area for $110k back then. We're talking newer cabinets, floors, interior appointments like trim, newer doors, windows, etc.

He ended up buying a low-quality house for $89k. It had been built in 1947. The guy who built the place was just as cheap as my dad. All of the windows and doors were original. It still had its original asbestos siding.

On the inside, there was no trim. No interior doors except the bathroom door, which itself had no knob. No kitchen cabinets or counters.

The living room floor was bare plywood, and the ground floor bedroom had linoleum haphazardly unrolled onto it. So essentially, my dad "saved" 21k when buying the house but has had to put way more than that into it over the years.

9. Beating the Heat on a Budget

u/cerem86: I'm from Georgia, the land of humidity and heat. My dad wouldn't turn the AC on until the temperature exceeded 100F. He bought these styrofoam pads that were metallic foil on one end.

We had to shove those into all the windows and exiting doorways when we had the AC on the "keep the heat out" and save on the AC. Also, our city has a natural spring. The water is drinkable and free.

So let me set this scene - There is a line in front of it. Kids wanting cold water on a hot day, moms with a pitcher to get some, maybe a guy with an empty milk jug, and my dad with THIRTY-TWO 5-gallon bottles filling them all up "in case the spring dries up tomorrow."

10. Why I No Longer Eat Fruitcake

u/Uh_I_Say: My grandmother may be the sweetest old Jewish woman on earth. She also may be the cheapest. If there is a way to get something for free (or cheap), she will do anything to take advantage of it.

She's gotten cosmetic surgery, not because she wanted or needed it, but because she found out a way to get it for free. But the one experience I will always remember is the fruitcake.

I visited her a few years back, and we had just finished dinner. She offered me dessert and asked if I liked fruitcake. I don't, but I didn't want to be rude, so I agreed to have a slice. I wondered why she had a fruitcake around, as those are generally a Christmas dessert, and it was the middle of the summer. "Oh, this is from Christmas," she said.

At that moment, she walks over to the freezer and pulls out what I can only describe as a block of plastic-wrapped freezer burn. "So that cake is six months old?" I ask, growing increasingly more nervous. "Oh, no, this one is from two Christmases ago." My heart sinks even further. I joke that she must really like fruitcake.

"Not really," she replies, "But they go on sale after the holidays, so I decided to stock up. I usually give them away to the neighbors, but no one seemed to want any this year."

At this point, she carved off a slice of cake and placed it on a plate before me. It looks sad. I stare at it, coming to terms with the two-year-old block of fruitcake-adjacent ice I'm going to have to consume when Grandma pipes up.

"Wait! Do you want some Grand Marnier?" she asked. I nod and figure that some liquor could only make this experience easier. She grabs the bottle and tips it onto the plate rather than pouring it into a glass or something.

I'm no fine-dining expert, but I assume having a dessert with a small drizzle of liquor is not uncommon. But my grandma, having the fine motor skills of an octogenarian, freely pours several shots worth of the stuff.

The frozen cake is now swimming in a sweet, sour liquor sea. My grandmother then looked at me and smiled, so I hesitantly began to take a bite, and it was just as vile as I expected. I got three or four bites in before telling her I wasn't feeling well and wanted to lie down.

She lovingly obliges and tells me that she'll clean up dinner and I should rest. I retired to my room, confident that the ordeal was over. The next night, after dinner, she told me she had dessert ready for me already.

I pondered this for a moment as she went to the fridge and pulled out the half-eaten slice of cake, slowly liquifying and mixing with the puddle of grand Marnier surrounding it. And that is why I can't eat fruitcake anymore. I love you, Grandma.

11. How We Ended Up Having Noodles with a Flavor Packet Collection

u/forgno: My dad eats ramen noodles but seasons it with other things, so he keeps the flavor packets in an overflowing Ziploc bag. I swear we have 100 of those things. It does come in handy when you run out of your favorite ramen flavor!

My dad saves every sauce packet we get from fast food places. There's a bag of them in the fridge, and we use them occasionally.

12. My Dad's Brick Legacy That Stands the Test of Time

u/sp3ctr41: When we demolished our brick garage, my dad made us clean every one of those bricks and lined them up around our house for future use. They are still there eight years later. All $500, one-year time, and back-breaking effort were worth it.

Our cars are worth $2000. My dad buys identical cars and dismantles them for parts. When you think he's done scrapping, he lifts the engines out of them and stacks them underneath the carport. They have 300,000 kilometers on them.

We sit on these around the dinner table. Our TVs are 20" in size to save on power. Most of our furniture is stuff people throw out on the street. We use soap for shaving cream and shampoo.

Our Granny flat has cupboards and couches stacked on each other to the ceiling; you have to shimmy through everything; the weight is so heavy the ground has settled, and cracks have started to appear everywhere.

I tried reasoning that the space could be better utilized by renting it out, but apparently, it's more important to keep faulty treadmills, lawnmowers, fridges, ovens, and washing machines for spare parts.

13. How We Reused Bathwater to Save on Water and Gas Bills

u/[deleted]: We shared bathwater. My brother would get in first, then me, and then mum or dad would be last. It's pretty gross thinking about it now, but at the time, my parents did it to save money on the water and gas bills because they were on really low incomes.

14. Dog Bed vs. Baby Crib

u/whatitdowhatitbee: My dad is cheap, but my mom isn't, so it balanced out, but this story always makes me laugh. When I was born, my dad wanted to get me a dog bed instead of a crib or bed for a toddler or whatnot.

15. Here Comes the Cheap Christmas Wrapping Paper

u/Jade_GL: I used to think that Christmas wrapping paper was always printed funny, like a cheap 3D picture. All of the Santa faces were a half centimeter or more off their faces. I later realized that my mom always bought misprinted discounted wrapping paper.

The thing is, when I see really nice paper now, it doesn't feel like Christmas to me. The cheap, misprinted paper is more Christmasy to me, even 30 years later.

Similarly, my parents and aunt would count the boxes they used to wrap gifts in before Christmas morning. So, if my aunt brought 16 gifts that required the shirt/clothes boxes you would get at Sears/JC Penney, she would start Christmas morning by saying, "I came here with 16 boxes and I am leaving with 16 boxes!"

The funny thing is, back then, you would get the boxes free with your purchase, unlike today, where you usually have to buy the boxes. So, my parents and aunt were hung up on boxes they got for free.

We still have boxes with ancient tape on them, and they're starting to fall apart, but now my family is more likely to say that throwing them out is okay.

Back then, you box them up for next year and tape the major rips. We even had an old box from a store called Structure that lasted years and years longer than the actual store did.

16. My Dad's 'Perfect Bed' for My Newborn Daughter Turned To Be a Toy Crib

u/InnanasPocket: My dad tried to give me the "perfect bed" for my newborn daughter so I "didn't have to buy a crib." It was the bed from my childhood doll, which had been sitting in their garage for 20+ years and would not have worked, even if that wasn't a wildly unsafe idea.

17. Mom's Magic

u/choadspanker: My mom adds water to condiments to make them last longer. Sometimes, it feels like eating ketchup-flavored water. It's funny and a bit strange. In our house, every drop counts; she turns meals into moments of simple, "thrifty love."

18. Our Home's Collection of Cost-Saving Innovations

u/Miniature_Asian: We've always folded bread in half to use as hotdog buns. Using cooked rice as glue. We took toiletries from places we stayed at for our house.

I don't just mean those little shampoo bottles, straight-up toilet paper, tissue boxes, pens, notepads, and even the sugar packets for the coffee.

19. Navigating Life's Challenges by Choice

u/googiepop: In the 1960s, we got excited about going to the dump with Dad because it meant new bikes. Also, we used powdered milk as if it were a crime to spend money on us. We weren't poor!

Today's parents want better for their kids than what they had growing up. My dad wanted us to know the hardships he endured. Depression mentality. No self-worth. My character was built on abuse and humiliation. Thanks, Dad.

20. When Being Too Cheap Ends up Costing More

u/myrightbooobisbigger: My parents don't understand the "invest a few more dollars for a much better quality product" thing, so when I was in high school or just starting university, they bought me clothing.

It would be a $20 pair of jeans from JayJays that would last just a few weeks because Thunder's thighs were wearing them down as I wore them daily, and then we'd have to buy another pair.

They'd buy one pair of $5 shoes from Kmart because they were the cheapest, but they were also the most uncomfortable, and again, I'd wear them daily, so they wore down within a month, and we had to buy more.

I'm in my early 20s now and am teaching myself the concept of "bigger price tag is better quality." I bought myself a pair of Dr Martens in 2015, and my parents almost fell out of their chairs when I said they cost $180.

Except I've worn them practically every day since I bought them - whether to university or work (hospitality), and they're still solid and in good shape. Best investment of my life.

21. A $11.59 Bill Turned into a $12 Showdown

u/downvote_allymy_posts: I delivered a pizza in a rich area of Virginia Beach. I drove up to the house, and there was a jag and a BMW in the driveway; the house had to have been worth half a million easy.

The total pizza cost was $11.89; the girl who answered the door, around 12 years old, gave me 12 dollars. I took the money, told her to have a nice day, and went on to my other deliveries.

After I got back to Papa John's, my manager was pissed and said someone called, saying I ripped off her daughter by not giving her the change. After my manager told me what house it was, I informed him that the change was 11 cents! So he let it go.

However, over the next few hours, he got more angry phone calls demanding I return and bring the change. So I returned and brought 11 cents to a family whose house and cars were worth more than I would ever make in my whole life. I hate those people.

22. Grandma's Paper Towel Chronicles

u/solairebee: Using the same paper towel over and over again. So whenever my family and I visit my grandmother, we throw it out. She buys new groceries and other toiletries, but for some reason, she thinks throwing away paper towels is extremely wasteful.

23. Innovation in Vision

u/cogitoergosummanee: This happened last summer when I visited my dad. My glasses broke, and because I was blind without them, he bought a cheap plastic eyeframe and got a new pair of glasses made that was too big for my head.

They would keep sliding down to the tip of my nose every 30 seconds, and when I asked him for a new pair, he proceeded to perform a rather hilarious-looking yet ingenious hack.

He pulled his lighter out of his pocket and lit the flame, and with his other hand, he bent the glasses at the center where the small hyphen that connects the two lenses is situated and held it above the flame.

As it melted, he formed a pronounced U-shape out of the joint so that the lens width shortened, making the glasses fit relatively more snugly. The plastic did not look burnt because it was a deep mahogany color. I wonder how he thought of that so fast.

24. We Rolled on Free Paper Towels for Years

u/[deleted]: My father was in the restroom at the mall one day and noticed that the janitor came in and replaced a roll of paper towels even though they were still 75% new. It turns out it was cheaper to replace them every time than having someone check on them more often.

So, my father strikes up a conversation with the guy and can talk him into getting all the partially used (and very shitty) rough paper towels. And that's why my family didn't pay for paper towels for four years.

Growing up as a child, during bath time, we filled the tub up a few inches with cold water and then added a pot full of boiling water from the wood stove. The free wood stove is the only thing we use to heat our house.

I spent my summers chopping down and removing trees from family and friends' property for free. Is it summer? Then, guess what? It's time to shower outside! My dad installed the heater to heat the pool using the free hot water from the solar panels.

My dad and I had a running competition to see how late in the year we could shower outside. He has the record, December 3(we live in the northeast).

Is it Christmas time? Well, every present I got for the first twenty years was wrapped in free maps. My father is a pilot, and in the old days, they would get these updated maps of all the airports (I think?), and when they were out of date, my dad would bring them home. Hundreds of them!

The last one I'll share is before I was born. It was Christmas time, and my parents were extremely poor. My dad happened to stumble upon an old fake Christmas tree someone had thrown out. He brought it home, of course. The only problem was it didn't have the center pole.

So, my dad went out and got an old broom handle and drill and made one. I was told it was the saddest tree imaginable, but it was a tree.

My family is not poor (they used to be), but through financial responsibility and tricks like these, my parents managed to save, pay off a 30-year mortgage in less than ten years, and seem quite comfortable now.

25. Unusual Birthday Gift with a Touch of Bittersweet Memories

u/ariellan: My mom once gave me a little pillow for my birthday with a sausage print. I was like, uh, "Thanks, that's interesting. She said, "Yeah, well, I bought it for the cat, but you know she got run over, so now you get it."

26. My Dad's Unconventional Approach to Gaming

u/Flater420: When I got my first Playstation, my dad decided only to buy me copied games. This was before broadband had even hit the streets here, so you needed to know a guy who would solder a chip in the PSX in the back of his workshop.

They always overpriced it and then "needed to fix something else," which would cost extra. And you couldn't do anything about it because it was illegal. I'm not sure how strictly illegal it was to solder a chip in a PSX at the time, but my dad believed it, and by extension, so did I.

But not every copied game worked with every chip. About half of the games I got, I could never play. The rest would have quirks like being unable to save the game, crashing randomly, or after a set amount of time.

Not only did I get copied games, but I also got the weirdest games and never well-reviewed or popular games. The closest I got to a known game was Fifa '97, and my parents knew how much I hated soccer.

This is the same dad who has always proclaimed that "if you don't want to spend money on quality, you're an idiot." Except when he wasn't buying things for himself since he cheaped out for presents for my mother too.

27. Encountering the Queen of Thriftiness

u/avlas: When I was a child, my grandparents had an apartment at the seaside, and every summer, we would spend a month there, meeting other families coming on vacation from all around the country. My parents became friends with a couple with two children; the eldest girl was my age.

Probably due to the husband having gambling problems in his youth, the wife was the worst cheapskate I've ever met, even if they had a pretty generous income. When we were out of the house, the husband was "in control" of the finances, being the family's main breadwinner.

So we would go to the restaurant together, eat fish, and spend the equivalent of 50 Euros per person (we didn't have Euros back then), and he'd have no problem putting out this amount of money.

In the house, though, the wife was the queen. So they'd have no hand soap in the bathroom because it was a waste of money. When I visited, she would get a jar of Nutella from the top drawer and spread the tiniest amount of it in an almost invisible film on the cheapest bread.

Her children's faces told me the Nutella would not even come out of that drawer when they had no guests. The pinnacle was when they once invited us to their place for dinner, and they served a main course of ONE PIGEON for four adults and three kids.

As a good Italian family, my parents' response was simply to invite them to dinner for the next week and prepare a huge and delicious dinner. They willingly exaggerated the size of the dinner; we ate leftovers for days.

I'm friends with their son and daughter on Facebook. He still is the golden child (good guy, did nothing wrong, but their parents always preferred him to his sister). She left home and now works on beautiful beaches in summer and ski schools in winter all around Europe. Good for her.

28. The Inherited Legacy of Frugality in My Mother-in-Law's Bloodline

u/Cat_and_hot_men: My Mother-in-law has inherited her father's war effort frugality. She once asked if she could get a Happy Meal cheaper if they didn't have the toy.

Her husband was in the hospital, and he asked her to bring him tissues for his nose as the tissue paper was rough; she just took in toilet paper but folded it into a tissue box. She returned a single tin of macaroni to the store because it wasn't the right one.

She bought shoes for her daughter, but they were slightly too small, so she cut to the toe of the shoe so her big toes just hung out. She will ask her husband for £50 for shopping but then give him back the change! They have been married for 37 years. Like, can't she just keep the few coins?

She only buys sale clothes (always the wrong size) with the intent to sew them into something new. So many things don't make sense for someone who is effectively a millionaire. They now stay in their son's old room, where the wallpaper has been up since he was born. They moved into the room because it was quieter.

29. My dad's quest for cheap gas and free casino meals

u/[deleted]: My father would drive across town, several miles out of the way, to save two or three cents per gallon of gas. He would also drive 60 miles to the casinos for a "free" meal, but it was too cheap to go to a restaurant and buy one.

30. The Quirky Tradition of Re-Gifting in My Family

u/hhudsontaylor: I've been getting re-gifted presents for Christmas since I was a kid. And not like presents from other people that were then given to me.

No! We're talking about my favorite jacket going missing for six months only to be found under the tree as one of my presents. I just had my 30th birthday- I was gifted a Swiss Army knife I had as a kid.

31. My Grandmother's DIY Security Hack

u/tacojohn48: I was renting a house from my grandmother, and my door got kicked in. The deadbolt lock was bent about twenty degrees from straight, and she wanted my dad to hammer it straight and reuse it.

When someone moves out of one of her rental houses, instead of replacing the lock, she'll swap it with a lock on another house. She says that whoever lived there may have had a key, but now they won't know where the lock is. This might work if all of her houses weren't in a row.

32. Putting an End to My Mom's Unusual Tradition in the Bathroom

u/smitemebenji: Not flushing the toilet. My mother also tried to continue with that terrible decision when she came to stay at me and my (now ex) husband's home. I had to put a stop to that in a hurry.

She was (still is) an incredibly scroogey gift giver. The last birthday present I received from her (three years ago) was a pocket spiral notebook.

Nothing says "Happy birthday!" quite like a mother who goes to show you that she knows that it is your birthday but simply doesn't care about putting any thought into a gift. She probably fished it from her handbag before seeing me and thought, "Men, this will do."

33. How My Dad Mastered the Art of Bringing His Own Drinks to Restaurants

u/ecsa0014: My dad used to take his drinks to eating places. He also made us wash our hands, then quickly placed the order, ordering the kid's plate for us at all-you-can-eat joints. He did this until we were 18 or so.

34. The Unforgettable Escapades of Our Family Vacations

u/wickedblight: I wouldn't call it "cheapskate" since it's the best they could do for us, but we would go on "vacation" one town over because the motel had a pool and cable.

My brother and I loved it, and looking back, it feels good to know they cared enough to work within their means so we could still have vacations (we did have "better" vacations, too, but for some reason, the motel sticks out in my mind).

35. Poor girl

u/deleted user: While my parents lived in luxury, I had nothing. They deceitfully stole my inheritance after my grandmother's death. A 50-dollar Walmart gift card each year is all I get from them. I live so poorly that I don't even have a phone.

They buy themselves several luxury cars each year and fly off for vacations in the Maldives. But one day everything changed. While my parents were on a cruise, I received a letter. It was written on it ‘Do not open when they are around.’

I looked around and immediately tore open the envelope and began to read. 'Hey Mary, this is your real father. I've been looking for you for years. Your grandmother left you a substantial inheritance, which I've been fighting to recover for you. Meet me at the address enclosed; it's time to claim what's rightfully yours and turn your life around.

36. Gift card

u/deleted user: My grandpa was the stingiest man in the world. After he passed away, I inherited a $30 gift card. I was going to give it away, but for some reason, I decided to use it.

My life split into 'before' and 'after' that moment. The cashier's face went pale when I handed her the card. Cashier: This can't be, where did you get this??

Me: Uh... It was my grandpa's.Cashier: 'STOP EVERYONE! IN FRONT OF US we have the winner of our store's decade-long hidden sweepstakes!' The cashier excitedly explained that the gift card was a special promotional item with a million-dollar prize, unclaimed for years.

I stood there, stunned, as the store manager came over to confirm the unbelievable news. Suddenly, my grandpa's 'stingy' gift transformed into a life-changing fortune, rewriting my future in an instant.

If you are a cheapskate, as you find joy in making every penny count, once in a while, it doesn't hurt to spoil the ones you love with your hard-earned money. It doesn't mean you go all extravagant. Giving them a little treat or buying them those nice presents they've always wanted can go a long way.