Watching your Money -v's- Being Tight

myshirt

Smartly dressed well-to-do chap in front of me in Dunnes today; stash of coupons for show, and counting out his change, copper by copper.

Ends up not having enough, sighs angrily, grumbles etc, asks will she let him off. Ah come on. No, she won't.

I say ok, that's grand, I won't judge this guy, that's fine. We all gotta live someway.

However, with as reluctant a tone you could imagine, he says to himself 'Guess I'll just have to break into a fiver'.
Opens a wallet and sifts through at least €500 looking for a fiver. Pays her and off he goes, sulking.

I wonder would this guy wear a miners hat around the house to save on electricity?

thecatspjs

How do you think rich people stay rich. Stingy f*cks the lot of them. I'm just dandy sitting here in relative poverty while spending my meagre funds on whatever shiny new thing happens to catch my eye.

dr.bollocko

thecatspjs wrote: »

How do you think rich people stay rich. Stingy f*cks the lot of them. I'm just dandy sitting here in relative poverty while spending my meagre funds on whatever shiny new thing happens to catch my eye.

*drops monocle*

I resemble that remark.

oppenheimer1

myshirt wrote: »

Smartly dressed well-to-do chap in front of me in Dunnes today; stash of coupons for show, and counting out his change, copper by copper.

Ends up not having enough, sighs angrily, grumbles etc, asks will she let him off. Ah come on. No, she won't.

I say ok, that's grand, I won't judge this guy, that's fine. We all gotta live someway.

However, with as reluctant a tone you could imagine, he says to himself 'Guess I'll just have to break into a fiver'.
Opens a wallet and sifts through at least €500 looking for a fiver. Pays her and off he goes, sulking.

I wonder would this guy wear a miners hat around the house to save on electricity?

You don't know what's going on in this man's life at all.

We can wonder and judge all we like at this man but who will be better off for it at the end of the day?

Each to their own I guess.

myshirt

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

You don't know what's going on in this man's life at all.

We can wonder and judge all we like at this man but who will be better off for it at the end of the day?

Each to their own I guess.

Well, I agree, and I don't.
That's why I'm making the distinction between watching your money, and being tight.

Take the old line, '...there's enough food in the world to feed everyone, just not enough money'

No one minds a guy being rational and prudent, but there's a difference when you are an outright tight bollix; the type of guy who would shamelessly wear a 'Filipino kids make the best tshirts' tshirt, cos it was only €3, rather than put his hand into his pocket and pay a fair and decent price.

osarusan

For all you know that 500 in his wallet was what he got for a car worth three grand that he was desperate to sell.

oppenheimer1

myshirt wrote: »

Well, I agree, and I don't.
That's why I'm making the distinction between watching your money, and being tight.

Take the old line, '...there's enough food in the world to feed everyone, just not enough money'

No one minds a guy being rational and prudent, but there's a difference when you are an outright tight bollix; the type of guy who would shamelessly wear a 'Filipino kids make the best tshirts' tshirt, cos it was only €3, rather than put his hand into his pocket and pay a fair and decent price.

You would find that most people would not be able to afford the lifestyle they have become accustomed to if they didn't take advantage of the essentially slave labour overseas. Most of us, myself included wouldn't be able to afford access to the internet if I had to pay a fair western price. We shamelessly use our smartphones and tablets knowing people have been exploited to make them.

You say you saw a wallet full of notes. Perhaps that was all this man had. Perhaps this man had thought he had counted up his purchases in order to get rid of change and was disappointed that he was going to get back a fist full of coins despite his efforts. We'll never know, but does it really matter anyway? Most of us have enough of our own problems without having to worry about others too

MJ23

I mind my money, and treat myself at times. I don't waste money on crap. I can't afford to buy cheap things.

SamAK

Rent, electricity and food shopping. As long as they are covered, i'll spend the rest on whatever I like.

I like to treat people. I really do enjoy it, if the person deserves it. Buying my very skint mate a drink or two on a night out or treating the GF to lunch....makes me feel good I hate being tight, but if one week (usually the week rent is due) is pretty bad, i'll do my budget shopping for that week at tesco and make it last til next payday. Pasta, noodles, rice....cheap and goes far!

Gave up smoking, and drink very little when I do go out. Although it's still scarily easy to make 50 quid vanish on an average night....few drinks, entry to venue, food.....boom! Gone. Gotta go out and socialize though or would go mad otherwise.

Wacker The Attacker

When you have as little money as I have you have to be tight

The One Doctor

I wouldn't call myself stingy, but I have developed a new appreciation for saving money since moving in with my girlfriend. We've just decided not to spend €850 on a few days in Barcelona and instead spend €400 on going to restaurants, plays etc over the next month or two. We just aren't arsed spending such a lot on a few days. We don't go to pubs or nightclubs and when I do go out it's usually to have a few beers with a friend in his house. I also brew my own beer for a hobby and to cut down on costs. And so my savings are rising and my girlfriend's credit card balance is rapidly falling. Win win.

Czarcasm

Nobody likes a tight arse. The guy in the OP was a tight arse. Hell of a difference between that, and a person who watches their money and budgets accordingly.

Vito Corleone

In fairness, it's sickening having to break notes just for a few cents.

Legs.Eleven

Vito Corleone wrote: »

In fairness, it's sickening having to break notes just for a few cents.

Ye can't let people off money in places like Dunnes and he should have more cop on than to ask such stupid requests. Your man reminds me of a customer that tried to haggle down the price of something when I worked in Easons.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

MJ23

Vito Corleone wrote: »

In fairness, it's sickening having to break notes just for a few cents.

Break a fiver? Ah jaysus, he was tight git.

GoldFour4

If I was a few cent short I'd chance my arm before breaking a note. Nothing worse than having to break a note, once it's coin I usually spend it on something I don't need within the day.

B_Rabbit

I work in a shop. One day a woman won €143 on the lotto, and I gave her the money. She asked for a four euro quick pick, and spent literally three minutes counting out coppers to make the three euro up to four. Ended up with €3.96 and kind of looked up at me and goes "Jaysus, so close".
I nodded my head in agreement and told her I hate when that happens. The look on her face when she had to break a twenty.

oppenheimer1

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Ye can't let people off money in places like Dunnes and he should have more cop on than to ask such stupid requests. Your man reminds me of a customer that tried to haggle down the price of something when I worked in Easons.

If the float in a till is off by 5 cents no one is going to say anything.

Legs.Eleven

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

If the float in a till is off by 5 cents no one is going to say anything.

Yeah but if it became an accepted thing, it would become an issue. Where do you draw the line? I obviously don't give a **** if a big chain loses a few Euro but I'm not getting told off by my boss because people can't be arsed to go shopping with the correct amount of money. That's grand in market stalls where you can haggle but not when your a cashier in Dunnes and you're not in the position to make those kinds of "executive" decisions. It's not as if this guy was on the bread line (if he was, I'd let him off). The guy could obviously afford the 5 cent, so cough up, pal!

CarrickMcJoe

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Had to prepay for diesel a couple of weeks ago. Paid €20, put diesel in and pump stopped at €20.08. Worst I ever do is one cent over.

poundapunnet

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

If the float in a till is off by 5 cents no one is going to say anything.

That's true, but I once let someone off ten cents (on a €20+ bill), manager happened to walk by, I got a bolllocking 'Are you doing that for everyone? If we all did that we'd be down a few euro a day, twenty quid a week, few hundred quid a year, do you know how tough the environment is for SMEs right now' and so on and so forth. Retail and catering staff are by and large treated by crap, I wouldn't make any assumptions about what will and won't get them in trouble. Plus companies use secret shoppers to check for petty stuff like that, it's never really worth your while to go out of your way to do something that could get you in bother. Quite often people do, but I wouldn't expect it.

It really depends how people go about it too.

myshirt

There was another guy I seen in Dunnes before who was short on his shopping. And as you do in this scenario, you just put a few things back.
He had bought over 40 bottles of beer. And also some nappies. So the choice was easy. He put back the nappies.

SamAK

CarrickMcJoe wrote: »

Had to prepay for diesel a couple of weeks ago. Paid €20, put diesel in and pump stopped at €20.08. Worst I ever do is one cent over.

Worst? Don't you mean best!?

I love messing with those pre-pay jobs, sometimes the auto-cutoff isn't great and if you give it a good squeeze just before it hits 20 you'll get another 30 odd cent worth...depends on the pump though.

Even petrol pumps aren't as tight as the guy the OP saw!

GalwayGuy2

Nobody likes a tight arse. The guy in the OP was a tight arse. Hell of a difference between that, and a person who watches their money and budgets accordingly.

I wonder if I'm a tight arse?

I wait for my one cent change so that i can save up to buy a can of kidney beans in Aldi.

I feel nervous at the thought of spending one euro because i can buy a big bag of pasta for .50 cent.


I feel very, very guilty for buying a 1.50 snack on the way to college.

Well, the last bit is just a big waste of money to be honest. But, you have no idea what's going on in his life. That 4 cent could have gone towards giving a dinner for a day.

And, for all talks of thrifty living, it's not particularly nice to live with a worry about the above things.

Ann Landers

The 'Spend a penny, leave a penny' thing should be more commonplace in Ireland. Problem solved.

harry Bailey esq

myshirt wrote: »

Smartly dressed well-to-do chap in front of me in Dunnes today; stash of coupons for show, and counting out his change, copper by copper.

Ends up not having enough, sighs angrily, grumbles etc, asks will she let him off. Ah come on. No, she won't.

I say ok, that's grand, I won't judge this guy, that's fine. We all gotta live someway.

However, with as reluctant a tone you could imagine, he says to himself 'Guess I'll just have to break into a fiver'.
Opens a wallet and sifts through at least €500 looking for a fiver. Pays her and off he goes, sulking.

I wonder would this guy wear a miners hat around the house to save on electricity?

The kind of guy who buys two scraps of the most expensive shag pile carpet and staples them to his slippers.