My brother is a hungry ******!!!

LegacyUser

My younger brother (20) is as hungry a f***er as I have met in many a long day. It’s shocking how stingy he is, but on top of that he’s wiley and opportunistic in his stinginess. He comments occasionally that he’s “as tight as a ducks arse” and almost seems proud of it! I’d love some inventive suggestions on how to show him up publicly for his carry-on as I’ve a feeling that embarrassment may be the only way to make him realise how socially unacceptable his behaviour is. Here is a recent example of this type of behaviour:

A couple of evenings back I brought him to have dinner with a relation of ours (a woman in her seventies) We were having dinner at a restaurant and he’d known about this for two weeks in advance. The three course dinner special was €17.50, as I’d told him two weeks before. So he turns up at my house and announces that he has only €15.00 to his name. (He’s well known in the family for this sort of carry-on in restaurants; I’d never seen it before for myself but I have seen many other incidences of hunga-type behaviour outside of restaurant settings) Anyway, I gritted my teeth in annoyance but gave him €5.00 to make up the price of his dinner and a tip. I didn’t want him making a show of himself in front of our elderly aunt at the restaurant.

When we got to her house she pulled me over on the QT and said that we’d better not be going mad with drinks or anything because she hadn’t much money. I told her I wouldn’t be drinking as I was driving and anyway I hadn’t much money myself (which I hadn’t)

So fast forward to the restaurant: When we were sitting there all reading our menus he announces that he didn’t think he’d be ordering the three course special “because this money has to do me the week”!!! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! How the hell is the money you’ve got in your pocket to pay for your dinner supposed to get you through the week??? He was chancing his fcuking arm and I was fuming. I got annoyed and told him not to bother ordering from anywhere else in the menu because the €17.50 offer was the cheapest dinner he was going to find (which it was) So anyway, we all eat our food and then the bill arrives. My aunt puts her hand in her purse and announces that she’ll pay for my brother’s dinner. He didn’t even bother to pretend to try to stop her, and this is a woman on an old aged pension who supplements her income working as a cleaner we’re talking about. I was fuming and I still am. The bill came to €52.50. I paid €25, my aunt paid €30 and stingy hole paid, of course, fcukall.

This really isn’t to do with money; it’s to do with taking advantage of people. It’s to do with him feeling he can float through life getting a free ride. We’re not a wealthy family and none of us needs this sh!t, especially in times like these. I can't stand that side of him and I'm getting riled here just thinking about it.

Anyway, to finish my story (and wait till you get this!) I never said anything to him about the fiver I’d given him before we left my house. I thought to myself; I’ll say nothing and see does the hungry fcuker even have the decency to give me back that fiver. Of course he didn’t – so not only did he go out and have a lovely three course meal on his family, but he also made a fiver profit from it!!! I know some people may say I was mad to leave him with a penny but I wanted to learn for myself was he as mean and stingy as I’d been suspecting and he really proved it in fine style.

So, any inventive suggestions on how to show him up publicly for his carry-on are more than welcome – please bring them on!

Thanks in advance.

Oh The Humanity

People like this have no shame and as you rightly said, he is actually proud of himself so I doubt you will be able to shame him or show him up as he obviously has a neck like a jockeys b0ll0x.

What you will have to do here is be 1,000,000 times more brazen than him and be direct. No hints.

Just direct confrontation. Sly/mean people don't expect this, they count on other people being too mannerly to confront them.

Now obviously in the situation with your elderly relative you can't because it would be her the poor sould who would be embarrassed not him.

But in any other setting just don't let him away with it. Don't bother trying the 'noble' tack of hoping he will feel guilty and do the right thing. Just brazenly say, 'Give me my €5 back please' or if he announced he has no money just don't pay for his meal and let him squirm.

Never ever come to the rescue of these people. Embarassment is their number one weapon, you have got to be unembarassable in return!

skooterblue

Sorry to hear about your brother. The good news is as he gets on and out in the world ..... "Birds of a feather flock together". Soon he will find himself in equally wonderful people who will happily steal the eye out of his head and come back and p*ss in the socket.

When people find what kind of a tight ass he is social occasions will dry up. karma is a B*tch

kmick

Forget about the fiver. Just never invite him anywhere again. It will save a lot of hassle.

LauraLoo

you can never change him and as OTH said- he has no shame and a neck like a jockeys b**l**X

what you can change is your aspect of the relationship...

in the past you have enabled him to be a waster...

vow to never EVER give him money again EVER

and if you go out for dinner again, tell him in advance that you will not be picking up the pieces and if he cant afford it then dont come.

my sis used to always borrow money off me- she's never been good with cash (always broke the week before pay day) and i always had to ask for it back months later. i hated having to ask for it- i think its the rudest thing ever to borrow money and wait for the person to ask for it back (with the hopes that they are too polite to do so)

so one day i went mad at her and blew up and told her to never ask me for money again.

she hasnt except once when she texted me but i just didnt reply.

and if she ever says "oh i have no money" i just dont answer...

LegacyUser

Thanks everyone for your responses. I hate being put in this position; I resent the little bollocks and like I said it really isn't to do with money, or at least money isn't the primary issue and I'm certainly not sitting here stewing over a fiver - I'm stewing over the fact that he thinks this sort of carry-on is a-ok.

I related all this to another family member who assured me with certainty that my younger brother has hundreds and hundreds in the bank at least and just wouldn’t spent Christmas. I also found out that he was scabbing bus fare from the young teenagers in the family (AND their friends!) recently and when none of the kids had any money to give him he pulled a twenty quid note out of his pocket on his way out the door and absent-mindedly remarked: "Oh ok so, I just didn’t want to break this" - Can you fookin believe that!!!!!

Taltos

Might sound extreme but what about an Intervention.

Either just you or alot of the family just so he sees the impact he is having.
This guy sounds like a total waster and tbh if he was a friend of mine I think I would have "lost" his number quite a while ago. Tough though when he is a brother...

Monkey61

People only behave like this because they are allowed to. The solution is: shock horror, just don't give them money.

If other people want to give your brother money out of their own pocket, well that is their business. It doesn't sound like he is even being particularly sneaky and underhand, he is just chancing his arm and people are giving in to him. Thus they have nobody to blame but themselves.

Yes the thing with the elderly relative was a bit annoying, but if the woman is capable of going out to work as a cleaner to supplement her pension (and fair play to her work ethic) then she is competent and sane enough to decide for herself whether or not she pays for your brother's dinner.She obviously wanted to, and if she couldn't afford to then she wouldn't have.

All you can do Op is refuse to give him money. Let other people if they want to. Adults can make up their own mind. That is none of your business, unless he is somehow scamming the vulnerable, which it doesn't sound like he is.

aidan24326

hungabro wrote: »

So, any inventive suggestions on how to show him up publicly for his carry-on are more than welcome – please bring them on!

Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't even bother. Something like that could just backfire.

Like others have said the simple solution here is just don't facilitate his stinginess in any way. Do not ever lend him money for any reason, and if he's coming along for drinks or dinner or whatever tell him beforehand that if he isn't willing to pay he's not welcome and that you will NOT under any circumstances be picking up the tab on his behalf. If he tries it on again like he did in the restaurant just leave him sitting there, let him squirm.

Or better still, here's where you might just get revenge sometime. If you know for sure that he has got a few bob in the bank and is just being a stingy fcuk rather than being broke, try and engineer a situation where he gets left with the bill for something. A restaurant bill, maybe a really large round of drinks or something like that.

unhappycamper

I would tell your brother that you are deeply ashamed of him and leave it at that.

LegacyUser

Thanks again everyone. I suppose I'll just have to be much more proactive in letting him know what he's doing wont be accepted by me from here on out. I honestly wasn't expecting his carry-on in the restaurant that night because, although I'd heard all the stories about his being afraid to put his hand in his pocket during evenings out like that, I had given him two weeks notice (deliberately) in order to make sure it wasn't a thing that he'd just been stuck for money in the past. In other words, I reckoned two weeks was plenty enough time for him to make sure he had twenty quid!

Another thing he does that drives me nuts is this: EVERY TIME he walks in to my house he heads straight for the fridge. I couldn’t count the times I've had to say 'No, that steak is for tomorrow nights dinner' etc. It's not that he's short of food; he gets by just fine in that department as far as I can see - all eighteen stone of him! He tries to pull the same fridge trick in both my sisters houses and we all have a pain in our holes with it and put our feet firmly down in that department.

To the poster who said earlier that had my aunt not been able to afford to pay she wouldn’t have - my aunt COULDN’T afford to pay anything extra. She'd said so before we got anywhere near the restaurant. That was what annoyed me so much about his behaviour. You don’t need the IQ of Einstein to figure that an elderly woman on the old age pension cant afford to support your extreme stinginess. Feckin shameless…

InReality

Its fierce bad that he got an OAP to pay for his meal.
Thats totally wrong.

NickNolte

Tell him he'll get a reputation as a disgusting, selfish individual and will lose his friends and, possibly, family if he doesn't cop himself on.

Victor

Give him a copy of Scrooge for Christmas.

D-Generate

Victor wrote: »

Give him a copy of Scrooge for Christmas.

Nah, make a donation in his name to some charity. Nothing will annoy a miser as much as knowing that money that could have gone to them is gone somewhere else.

mayordenis

Tell him he's going to piss off good friends and his family with this carry on - that's not worth whatever few quid he saves from acting the dickwad.
Tell him you will publically humiliate him at every possible oppurtunity until he stops this - finally take something of his that is equal to the worth of any money/dinners/drinks etc. that other people give him - but say if someone buys him a drink for a fiver don't take something that as a whole is worth a fiver take 5 euro worth of his favourite jeans, cut a pocket off, cut the centre of his favourite t-shirt off - just piss him off until he gets the picture.

then and only then you should start mooching off him.

Xiney

D-Generate wrote: »

Nah, make a donation in his name to some charity. Nothing will annoy a miser as much as knowing that money that could have gone to them is gone somewhere else.

Absolutely.

Also tell him you're ashamed of him, like a PP said.