My dad is cheap because...

[dawgstudent]

Give us your best dad being cheap stories.

So my car in high school - my dad bought it for $2000. It was a 1988 Ford Taurus. My dad had a rule where you were not able to have a car your first two years for college.

So going into my junior year - I had enough money saved up to buy a car. I could go used or get a really cheap new car. I chose a completely stripped down brand new 1999 Chevy S-10. It was manual transmission without power Windows. The only luxury was AC. So my high school car just sat at home and I could drive it when I was home from college. My dad ilet me use the money from the trade in of that 1988 Ford Taurus to help buy the S-10. We traded in the car from the same dealership we bought it from 3 years earlier for $2300. $300 more than we bought it for.

 

[dawgstudent]

He made my mom fake being sick at an Orlando, FL steakhouse bc we found out it was more Ruth’s Chris than Golden Corral. We went to Taco Bell after.

 

[ExtremeDog]

My dad is cheap because................

He, the Cuz Brothers’ Dad, and Crowdog were in Jackson in the 1960’s for a game against LSU. The game was sold out, and those 3 were too cheap to buy a ticket beforehand, and were too cheap to pay scalper prices for tickets at the stadium. My dad came up with a brilliant idea: when the Famous Maroon Marching Band marched into the stadium, the 3 of them would March into the stadium in the middle of the band, and no one would ever notice them. Well I’ll Be damn, it worked! They blended in with the band, no one noticed them, and they got into the game for FREE!

 

[HD6]

My dad got really loud in JC Penny's when he found out Arizona Jeans were $15 a pair. Way too much, we should have gone to Wal-Mart. He wasn't even paying for them, my mom was.

 

[RocketDawg]

That's about the most creative way I've ever heard of. A $5 ticket then was a lot to a student, and to many other people who made $40 a week.

 

[dawgstudent]

We walked the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Never got on a boat ride.

 

[karlchilders.sixpack]

Dad was tight, but

with reason.

I did have an old ride, but it got my sister and I to HS. Which helped the family.

I can't complain

My sister and I both went to MSU, at the same time,

Both with minimal debt,afteward.

I can't complain.

( He passed, while we were in college, at 46)

 

[preacher_dawg]

I'm a cheap dad because... oh sorry, wrong thread

 

[civildawg88]

My dad would not get cable television due to the monthly bill. I had to go to my grandmas house to watch Monday night raw when I was a teen. He broke down and finally got it when we moved into a new house that already had the cable hooked up, that was around the year 2003. Sad thing is, i have recently dumped live tv due to the monthly bill.

 

[dawgstudent]

Let me add - I’m the youngest of 5 kids. All went to Catholic school. All went to college and my parents paid for most of our school if you didn’t have scholarships. Myself, my brothers and sister did pay for part of it. My dad worked for the corps of engineers. It’s amazing how we lived. We never went without but we certainly didn’t live high on the hog.

 

[TrueMaroonGrind]

My dad was so cheap that growing up I thought O’Charlie’s was a really nice restaurant.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

Don’t have any stories because mine is not cheap.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

My Wife has 3 sisters, her dad use to ration toilet paper to them....However my dad was so cheap that we baled hay with square bailer, then when I left home after college he bought a round bailer.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

When I was 14 I got to be 12 to get the child's ticket price to Dollywood

 

[forestdepth]

Waters for the table at the restaurant. Every.single.time. I could go on and on. Love dad. They don’t make people as tight as they use to.

 

[dawgman42]

Weren't "husky" pants extra? That would explain the anger.

 

[mstateglfr]

When I was 11 or 12, my dad talked me into buying cheap roller blades that I was buying with my own money. They were an early 3 buckle style and the teeth wouldn't hold. I slammed into the ground a few times due to the buckles not holding, then my mom took bought me the pair I initially wanted.



An often referenced family comment is 'I would rather burn it than...'.
This came from a garage sale about 15 years ago where my dad had a handful of surge protectors that were brand new in packaging, which he priced for the same amount as retail(which was listed on the packaging)! Late in the day, my dad had lost his patience and someone tried to buy a surge protector for $5 and after some back and forth, my dad said 'I would rather burn it than sell it to you for $5'.

We all lost it at how absurd the situation was, and its become a family joke that is referenced quite often.

 

[dawgman42]

Back in junior high and high school (late 80's/early 90's), my Dad wasn't really cheap on much of anything--the "joys" of parents divorcing and only seeing him during certain holidays and the summers--but when it came to buying new tennis shoes, he hated spending anything over $50 and went into a repeating 1950's-era monologue and rant if the ones I wanted to get were anything but 95% white with only one other color that could be red, black, or blue.

 

[cowbell88]

My dad still has a thing for the AC and heat. Is hard pressed to turn AC on till about June and won’t turn heat on till about November.

Warms up yesterday’s coffee in microwave before making new pot in the am.

Has a flip phone because he refuses to try and learn how to use the simplest smart phone, but likes Dish Network for TV.

 

[LawDawg97]

Back in the day he would drive 5 or 10 miles out of the way to get the .85 cent gas instead of the .89 cent gas. On one road trip I offered to cover the 50 cents he was saving myself, just pull over already so I can use the restroom. He wasn’t happy with that comment. He was very frugal but we never went without and the man has a pretty healthy net worth to show for it (which hasn’t changed his saving habits).

 

[Crazy Cotton]

My Dad had a 1981 Toyota long bed with the 22R. This is about 95, truck has about 250K. Radio quit working. He finds my brother's boom box, which normally takes 8 C batteries. He solders wires to the battery leads of the radio, then attaches them to each end of a block of wood. The, he solders the hot and ground from the truck radio to a piece of tin can, and epoxy's them to either side of the now empty radio bay. He now can set the boom box on the seat, and shove the block of wood into the empty radio hole, giving him his 12 volts to run the boom box. As a bonus, he can take the boom box with him by pulling out the wooden block.

Same truck, a few years later the transmission goes out. He can't find one in Jackson that he's willing to pay for, so he grabs a transmission out of an old celica. Doesn't quite fit, won't stay in gear. So he cuts a cuts a notch in a 1 by 4, and attaches a strap hinge to the other end. Strap hinge is wedged in to the gap in the bench seat, so he can flip the board up out of the way. When he shifts in to 4th he drops down the board so the shifter is in the notch, wedging it against the board that is wedged in the seat. Problem solved.

 

[Crazy Cotton]

That's not cheap that's smart.

 

[Felonious Junk]

You being a roller blader explains a lot.

 

[PineGroveBully]

My dad is so cheap he started out with nothing in this world and he’s still got most of it.

 

[11thEagleFan]

My dad is cheap because there’s no such thing as a trash can liner for the cans in the bathrooms. Used Walmart bags go in there. A tradition that I tried to keep alive in my own house until my wife put an end to it.

 

[campshelbydog842003]

My dad made us pour our undrank orange juice back into the carton. Said it was too expensive to throw away.

 

[dawgdoug1962]

Fantastic stories that are giving this old man of 80 a lot of laughs.....The summer of 1952, dad had sold our dairy herd and we needed a new house. We moved into our dairy barn for almost four months while he and my uncle tore down the old farm house. They used much of the lumber, especially floor joists, rafters because the lumber was so good...(put together with pegs in some places and all square nails). I took roofing shingles off one at a time with great care so they could be used again.

We had folks in our community come to visit us who had never paid us any attention....heard we were living in the barn and curiosity won them over....LOL'

Moved into the new house with black tar paper on outer walls, but at least we had indoor plumbing. Within a couple of weeks he, and a true friend, took two large trucks...went to Wisconsin and bought a new herd of cows...holsteins...we were back in the saddle again....

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

I **** you not. My Dad was so cheap when he bought a package of the premade Christmas bows he only tore off half of the tape backer. Save the bow and use the other half next year. Year 3 and beyond they got the old folded over scotch tape.

 

[kired]

Ok, not my dad but my mother in law. And thing is - they aren't poor. Made at least twice as much money as my parents and only had 1 kid. I have no clue how much money they're sitting on but probably a lot because she's so cheap.

We have to save ribbons and gift labels at Christmas so she can reuse them.
Instead of tupperware she uses old cool whip or country crock containers. And I don't mean to most recent ones - some are years old.
They go by harbor freight every time they're in town to use the coupons for free items with purchase of anything. They have about 100 of those little flashlights.
Speaking of coupons - you better not throw out the Sunday coupons if you value your life.
You also better not throw away aluminum cans. They save & carry to the recycler for maybe $30 once a year or so.
Do not buy garbage bags. Everything gets thrown away in plastic grocery bags.
Do not have and have never owned cell phones or internet.
They do have cable but their TV is a cheap offbrand 32" LCD from about 10 years ago.
Will drive to the next town over to save 10 cents / gallon on gas. I'm like... she just wasted what she saved.

I could go on but it's late...

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

My dad was weird cheap. He had Jaguars and a Corvette when I was younger. We had boats all my childhood including a 27 foot ScottyCraft for a few years. We had a summer home. He took the Month of August off and we traveled across the country in a camper a few times. When it came to things like Baseball equipment I would get the high quality gloves. We would go buy bats in a dozen. Heck he bought us a Curvemaster pitching machine with the two tires when I was 14. Partly to save his arm.

Where he was cheap was at strange times. I also played Basketball in High School and I couldn't get Adidas Superstars, Converse All-Stars or Puma Clyde's. I got some suede Keds. I never got a pair of Levi's growing up. We would go out to a fancy steakhouse that was at the Westchester Country Club and he would always order the London Broil for the whole family (5 of us). They would burn the outside and it was red on the inside and basically impossible to chew. Even later in life I would take him and Mom out and he would order the Chopped Steak.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

My dad has taken a bag of chips from home into a restaurant so we wouldn’t need to buy sides.
He has saved the cups from the fast food restaurants we ate in on the outbound leg of a road trip because we were stopping there on the way home, and he was getting his free refill. “The sign doesn’t say it can’t be a week later.”
Look out if a restaurant adds automatic gratuity based on the total instead of the pretax subtotal. He’s actually a generous tipper and without the automatic adder, he would tip more than 18%, but you better not try and force him to tip on the tax.

 

[mstateglfr]

You being a roller blader explains a lot.

Around me, if you didn't Rollerblade as a tween or teen in the 90s, you were either physically unable to, or...well no thats it- you had a physical limitation that kept you from being like the rest of the school.

 

[bulldogcountry1]

My dad refused to take a car to a shop to get new tires mounted. We did it manually until I went to state. I would hold the bead breaker while he hit it with the sledge hammer. Sometimes, I would lose the feeling in my hands and lose control of the bead breaker. Of course, I got yelled at because I lost the feeling in my hands.

Then, he would take them to the shop in the back of a truck to get them balanced.

 

[Dawg1979]

We walked the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Never got on a boat ride.

at least you were on a vacation. i NEVER went on a family vacation. my only trips were church group trips. my dad used his vacation every year to paint the house. it was pretty great.........

 

[Dawg1979]

Around me, if you didn't Rollerblade as a tween or teen in the 90s, you were either physically unable to, or...well no thats it- you had a physical limitation that kept you from being like the rest of the school.

we played roller hockey at the local Walfare Dept. man they had a new parking lot and you could get it!

 

[Dawg1976]

at least you were on a vacation. i NEVER went on a family vacation. my only trips were church group trips. my dad used his vacation every year to paint the house. it was pretty great.........

We went on one vacation. To Panama City. Our family of 4 drove down in a VW with no a/c. As soon as we got there mom wanted to go to a seafood restaurant but dad took us to a greasy spoon bbq place. My mom was pissed and ate nothing. Ha

 

[HumpDawgy]

My dad wasn't necessarily cheap, but one thing he would do is blow out air filters until they were practically falling apart. He also would take his knife and scrape the buildup off on spark plugs. Took a lot of time to save a couple bucks.

 

[FAFlood]

The one vacation we took as a family was to the Holiday Inn for one night in Brookhaven, MS (ten minutes from our house). They had a swimming pool so Mom and Dad rented us a room so the three kids could swim. Not really them being cheap, just not having the means to do much else.

 

[Seinfeld]

Ha, it was Perkins for us, and you could rest assured that you’d be getting water with no dessert.

That said, I could absolutely tear up one of those tremendous 12 plates

 

[Seinfeld]

Definitely received a few partially used gift cards over the years....

That said, I’m in the same boat as some others in that my parents mostly gave us all they could. They just didn’t have much to give