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This is a question Tightwads

There's saving money, and there's being tight: saving money at the expense of other people, or simply for the miserly hell of it.

Tell us about measures that go beyond simple belt tightening into the realms of Mr Scrooge.

(, Thu 23 Oct 2008, 13:58)
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Duffel coat hell
Growing up poor isn't much fun, especially when you start to notice that you're poor - for example, upon starting at the local grammar school and realising that all the other children there have been conceived on a bed of money under a stocks and shares quilt.

My parents, keen to make sure I fitted in, went to great lengths to acquire the correct uniform for me. It wasn't enough for the school that they had a good academic and somewhat pretentious reputation, oh no. School regulations clearly described not only what one must wear but also from which shop one must purchase it.

And so, at the tender age of 14, at a school where I had been persistently bullied for three years, when my hormones were trampolining around my body and self-consciousness was my favourite past-time, my mother bought me a replacement school duffel coat. A bottle green, wool duffel coat. Floor length. And she bought it cheap - from my best friend's mother.

Yup, I had to go to school every day for two years in a floor length, bottle green woolen duffel coat that my (suddenly ex-)friend was only too pleased to announce to everyone had been hers. Hypothermia looked more and more attractive.

I'm not really accusing my mother of being a tightwad, merely that she might have wanted to rethink her strategy. I'll happily wear secondhand clothes - just not ones that have belonged to a bitchy, snobbish teenage girl whose family were so posh she had chocolate biscuits (chocolate biscuits!) in her packed lunch.

I'm going to write one of those "Miserable Irish Childhood" books about my suffering and make myself a fortune.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:00, 73 replies)
Chocolate Biscuits!
Fucking bitch.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:02, closed)
I'm scarred for life.
I think it might explain the guilt I feel having eaten several packets of chocolate biscuits. They fuck you up, your mum and dad. I have a biscuit complex now.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:04, closed)

*imagines multi-complex of apartments, cinema and shopping mall amde entirely of biscuits*

Ooooh!
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:06, closed)
That would be the best complex in the world!
And it would have paddling pools full of chocolate spread and whipped cream for wrestling in.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:10, closed)
YEAH
But I bet the building inspectors would never allow it.

We'll have to kill them, and grind their bones to make the paddling pool jelly.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:13, closed)
We could
let the lovely b3taladies wrestle on their faces until they decided it was a good idea.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:16, closed)
Not good enough
All building inspectors are c*nts, and should be treated as such.

I say we burn them. With Kerosene.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:21, closed)
You burn cunts with kerosene?
Tell me, do you get much lady fun action?
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 11:41, closed)
Considerably
more than you would think.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 12:41, closed)
Good morning my two favourite people!
How are you both?

I had a grey duffle coat, but mine was cool becasue I used to pretend that Slimer from Ghostbusters lived in the pockets, and he'd scare away girls.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:05, closed)
scare away girls?
I imagine you being exactly the same when you were a wee boy - chasing girls and making them look at pictures of your cock.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:06, closed)
Excuse me, young lady
what are you trying to suggest? I don't make anyone look at pictures of my cock, they do it of their own free will. Even al.

Nope, I was a right ugly, unpopular little kid, I only became arrogant when I discovered women's self-lubricating penis recepticles.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:12, closed)
The self lubing bit
is my favourite.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:13, closed)
Me too
If they bottled it, I'd be a very happy man.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:16, closed)
Did you
put realistic ectoplasm in your pockets then?
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:10, closed)
Nope, I wish.
He was just imaginary.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:10, closed)
I thought
it tasted saltier than normal ectoplasm
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:11, closed)
How much
normal ectoplasm do you consume in an average day then?
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:12, closed)
well,
a healthy couple of teaspoons, usually, but it feels like much more when you've got it in your mouth.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:13, closed)
Ew.
mouth Anus, ears, nostrils and every other orifice you can think of.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:17, closed)
Actually
as an interesting (or disturbing, whichever yuo prefer) side-note. I spluff so often that I can make it so very little comes out, but if I store it up for a few days... well, let's just say we made need to start building an Ark.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:18, closed)
It's definitely
disturbing.

And is that why CHCB is a little hard of hearing, and smelling?
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:19, closed)
CHCB smells?
I like to think that the reason CHCB is hard of hearing, and smells, is because of all the dogging she does on building sites.

Those workmen and their massive tools, but she'll never learn.

EDIT and spell definitely correctly, or I'll bust you back down to 26.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:23, closed)
Ninjad
what is 26? and why would I be busted back there?
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:26, closed)
You're 27, aren't you?
This weekend I discovered that a good way of punishing my little girl for bad behaviour was to tell her that every time she's naughty, I'll knock a year off her age, and treat her as such. So if she's really naughty she'll end up in a nappy with a bottle, but if she's good I'll treat her like a grown up.

I've got this whole parenting thing mastered.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:29, closed)
Sound like a good plan
sadly, at 26, I was much like I am now.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:31, closed)
That's it
You're down to 25 now Mister.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:33, closed)
24

(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:35, closed)

23
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:35, closed)
22

(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:35, closed)
21


I'm going to keep counting down until you reply
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:35, closed)
20

(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:36, closed)
19

(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:36, closed)
18

(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:36, closed)
17
That's your drinking privileges gone
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:36, closed)
16

(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:37, closed)
Oi!
That's not fair, now i'm a virgin again.

Your parenting sucks.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:38, closed)
Insult me, will you?
Right, that's you busted down to 15.

*RAPES*

(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:44, closed)
You didn't shout SURPRISE!
you're a bad man.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:50, closed)
SURPRISE
I'm in your colon.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:55, closed)
stop!

(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:36, closed)
oh
piss wank. Still, I was boozing since the age of 14 and at 17 I still smoked lots of drugs. So that's okay.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:37, closed)
Aww
Damn. I wanted to get you under 16, that way sleeping with you would be twice the thrill.

:C
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:37, closed)
Filthy tart.
There I was, innocently thinking al meant snot. You two are atrocious.

*spaffs*
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:14, closed)
I went to a grammar school with an identical uniform policy
but my poverty-stricken mother solved the problem in a different way.

Back in the early 1960s, she'd won £100 on the pools. It arrived in cash and she invested some of it in my older sister's school uniform.

(Nobody else knew about this windfall until she told me about 10 years ago - my father would've blown the lot on Airfix models and pipe tobacco.)

So, as Sis was 9 years older than I was, the lot was carefully mothballed against the day when it would be needed. In due course I inherited it.

It was all out of date, faded, far too big (as inded it must've been when Sis first wore it) and I had to wear it for 5 years.

The huge hockey boots were probably the worst. I collected many bellowed winter bollockings for NOT TRYING when in fact I couldn't even walk properly.

My own kids were kitted out in the latest, probably not most expensive but certainly the most peer-acceptable school togs.

I still hate all sports with a vengeance.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:34, closed)
I had to wear
green knickers for PE.
We were allowed to wear gym blouses, and socks and shoes as well, but no trousers or skirt, just the green knickers.

And that parent thing of buying things big so you can grow into it... the only thing that ever worked with was my school skirt which lasted me the full seven years but went from calf-length to mid-thigh over those seven years.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:40, closed)
I bet that skirt went
higher than that on occasion.

And i'm creaming myself over the thought of you in green gym knickers.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:51, closed)
here I am
banging on about poverty, and you lower the tone!
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:52, closed)
It is what he's here for
after all.

*doffs cap to al*

Green knickers are about as sexy as me in a vest.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:56, closed)
Mmmmmmm
Bert in a vest

*spluffs uncontrollably*

Oh noes! I got it in CHCBs mouth, nose, ears and anus!
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:57, closed)
My hairy shoulders are on display
when I wear vests.

Still, they could be my love-handles, as I'm too skinny to have proper ones.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:00, closed)
I know
I'm so, so sorry. I've disgusted rachelswipe and now i've disgusted you.

*isn't really sorry*

*is still imagining green gym knickers*
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:56, closed)
You really are a foul, disgusting man.
You're making me want to throw up yesterdays breakfast.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:01, closed)
There's nowt disgusting
about CHCB in green knickers, she's a fine Irish lady, they wear green all the time.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:02, closed)
I just meant
Al, in general, makes me heave.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:04, closed)
Don't insult my woman
She's a beautiful, fine figure of a woman, and i love her.

Or we'll have to have pistols at dawn.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:06, closed)
How about knives?
I'd challenge you to a knife-fight quite happily.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:09, closed)
How about
spaffing cocks at dawn.

CHCB can judge who's is the best.

Spaff that it, not cock. I wouldn't have a chance otherwise.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:12, closed)
Don't put yourself down
When I met Mrs al, I could see from the twinkle in her eye that she was a very satisfied young woman.

Of course, she could be getting that satisfaction elsewhere, but you get the idea.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:15, closed)
Hmmmm
thanks for that. I think that twinkle may have been because she was drunk.

I fear we may have disgusted CHCB away from her own thread.

Or maybe she's working *shudders*
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:23, closed)
CHCB loves us
like illegitimate children, she could never be disgusted by us.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 11:55, closed)
Ok
knives it is. I've got a three inch Kitchen Devil with your name on it.

Not literally, but personalised knives would be a nice christmas present for you.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:14, closed)
That would be a lovely present for me :)
So... a kitchen devil...

I'll use my Fairborne-Sykes Fighting Knife, in that case :)

Five inches, and designed to cause maximum slicing to veins and arteries, with minimum stabbing effort.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:18, closed)
Sounds very efficient
but my kitchen devil can do carrots and cheese... so.. er... if you're made of carrots and cheese I can chop you up into little chunks and make a not very nice sandwich of some sort.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:19, closed)
But
by the simple addition of some Branston Pickle, said boring sandwich would become quite tasty.

Or if you had some corned beef and ketchup I would be tempted to eat Kaol myself.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:21, closed)
Er...
I'm not made of cheese OR carrots, so... *shrugs*
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:23, closed)
What about
Broccoli? are you made of broccoli? Or courgettes? Or peppers of any colour (though green ones are pointless and bitter)?

Hang on, are you made of green peppers then?
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:26, closed)
Yeah,
My heart is a green pepper, pumping bitterly and pointlessly.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:29, closed)
How
poetic
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 11:02, closed)
Yeah
like your mum.

*goes all /talk*
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 11:03, closed)
So's
your face.

...and your Mum's face.

I win.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 11:54, closed)
forced to become a flappy transvestite
We had a similar policy at our school, and my mum had the same idea.

For the first few years I was forced to wear not only a second hand blazar from a different school, with flaps over the pockets which the official ones didn't have (hence my nickname becoming "jonny flaps"), but also I had to wear my elder sister's blouses (the difference being the buttons do up on the other side and there's more space round the chesticles area), thank christ they never noticed that one though, I dread to think what I'd have been called.

I'm over it now though, and only wear my wife's pants at the weekend....
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 13:15, closed)
I think
Angela's Ashes did it very well; the miserable book that is.
(, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 13:16, closed)

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