My Cheap Mother Comes to Visit, Part II

My husband and I (both graduate students at the time) had just spent a significant amount of money treating my cheap mother to dinner (including a beverage). We wanted to go somewhere decent (not Wendy's), and we didn't mind spending a little money since my cheap mother was short on cash. Fortunately for us, she decided to treat us back to make up for her poor behavior of taking advantage of a couple of college students for a free meal. Since she was short on cash, she decided to cook for us. She went to the grocery store and purchased a large bag of egg noodles, a can of cream of mushroom soup, and a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. All of these were generic, despite the higher quality brands being slightly more expensive. I know this because I went with her and said, "Mom, this higher quality bag of egg noodles only costs $.10 more than the generic bag, maybe we should get it." Little did I know that $.10 would be 2.5% of the cost of the entire meal.

The food may have been slightly gross and really cheap, but the story is priceless. Thanks mom!

My Cheap Mother Comes to Visit, Part I

My cheap mother came out to visit my husband and I a few years ago. Right after she got here, we wanted to go out to eat. My cheap mother of course wanted to go to Wendy's because she likes it there and it is cheap. We suggested the Texas Road House, and of course she had brought just enough cash with her to purchase gas and the requisite number of trips to Wendy's (all meals minus breakfast). In order to avoid going to Wendy's for dinner, we offered to pay for dinner. She accepted.

As a child, I was always instructed to order water the few times I was taken out to eat. She ordered soda that night.

Debit Cards

My cheap mother has never owned a debit card. She has never used an ATM. She has credit cards, but probably only because she was drawn in by an offer of a free t-shirt or 2-liter of diet coke for applying for a card. She also purchases cheap computer stuff online, so she probably needs a credit card for that.

So, what possible advantage could not having an ATM/Debit card provide to someone who is cheap? It makes it that much harder to buy anything. Every payday my cheap mother takes her check to the bank, makes a deposit, and gets some small amount of cash back that she keeps in an envelope. This is her supply of cash for the next week, and she will not get more FOR ANY REASON! For example, when she eats all of the hot dog buns, she cannot possibly buy more because she has no cash left, or needs her remaining cash for something more important (probably diet soda that only she is allowed to have).

Composite Pictures

My cheap mother actually liked school pictures, and she would usually shell out some money for the cheapest package, usually while bitching about the price. Those were the days before digital cameras, scanners, and digital picture printing services made it easy to steal pictures. To protect their livelihoods, photographers tend to mark easily copied proofs, making them less desirable to copy. This is not foolproof.

As an undergraduate, I had a formal photo taken for a school organization composite. The photographer, not knowing how insanely cheap my mother is, sent her some proofs with a package order form. This particular anti-theft mechanism was very good as there was a sticky substance on the proofs so that the proofs were easy to see, but copying those proofs produced pictures that looked badly scratched. This was no deterrent as my cheap mother had no problem making several blown-up, scratched copies and proudly displaying them in the house and dispersing to relatives.

CD Burning

By now it shouldn't shock you that my cheap mother would illegally duplicate CDs, DVDs, etc. What might still surprise you is that she would give such illegal copies as gifts. I know what you're saying. Who hasn't given away burned CDs. They're worth like a dime now. I'll give you a whole pile of burned CDs. You can burn my whole music collection. Well, my cheap mother would not, unless you provided all the blank CDs. But she might give you a burned CD for Christmas, or for a birthday.

The best part is that sometimes you'll get a real, original CD, like one that she actually spent money on. But, there's a decent chance it'll be open. That lack of shrink wrap is her little way of letting you know that you did not justify the $15 expense of the CD all by yourself, so she had to open it and burn it for some other people. And you can bet that one of those people was herself.

Hot Dog Buns

My cheap mother really saved money consistently on food, especially when it came to feeding us (remember, she is also selfish). She would only make one trip to the grocery store every week, and some weeks she would buy hot dogs and buns. The ratio of hot dogs to buns would be pretty close to one. Unfortunately for us, she preferred the texture of hot dog buns to regular white bread for eating with hot chocolate. Sugar free hot chocolate and bread (or preferably some kind of bun) is her favorite meal. So, even though she knew we had exactly enough buns to go with hot dogs, she would eat the buns. She would never go buy more buns, she would never plan ahead and buy extra buns (probably too much money), and she wouldn't save the buns to go with the hot dogs. So, how did we eat the hot dogs? We ate the hot dogs on horrible, cheap, disgusting, plain white bread. You may wonder if white bread really absorbs ketchup and gets all soggy and gross. It does.

Collect Calls

My cheap mother hated giving me rides before I got a driver's license. That's why I got to ride the school bus with 19-year-old drug addicts (somehow still attending high school) who would sexually harass me every day. Sometimes I would miss the bus on purpose just for the privilege of walking 2 miles to school, until we moved farther away and it wasn't an option. Plus, I had to make sure my dumb brother didn't get in fights and stuff on the bus.

Anyway, sometimes I had after school activities to attend (though not often--again, my cheap mother hated driving me around, but more on that later), so I needed a ride home. This was especially problematic when I couldn't be exactly sure when I'd be finished. Heaven forbid my mother show up before I was done and have to wait for 10 minutes! Instead, she wanted me to call when I was done, so I could wait for 10 minutes.

Now here's the funny part. I obviously did not have a cell phone. In fact, my mother was too cheap to buy a calling card or give me quarters for the payphone. Instead, I had to call her collect, and use the two seconds in which you say your name to say that I needed a ride. She would then reject the call, and hopefully come pick me up, thereby cheating the phone company out of a free 2 second call.

The good news is, sometimes I actually needed to get in touch with her about something, and having no recourse, was forced to call collect over and over until she finally accepted the charges. So she probably ended up paying more than she would have with the quarters. Sometimes my cheap mother gets what she deserves.

School Lunch

Almost every day for school lunch in K-5th grade, I took my lunch to school. It consisted of generic white bread with peanut butter and the cheapest grape jelly sold in stores, a baggie of some kind of plain potato chips or potato sticks, and one "Mega" brand vanilla cookie (I'm sure you have seen those horrible cheap vanilla, chocolate, and lemon cookies). I liked the chocolate cookies much better, but my cheap mother liked the vanilla better, so we never got chocolate. The only variation in this lunch was that rarely I would get tuna fish (a real treat), and sometimes we would run out of potato snacks and cookies, and then I might get something like two apples plus a sandwich. I don't remember what I had to drink, but I'm sure it was awful and cheap. This carried on every day for 6 years. What changed? I started going to public school and we qualified for free or $.25 lunches, so then I got school lunches, which were great in comparison. Sometime in high school my parents made too much money for reduced price school lunch, and so faced with more peanut butter sandwiches, I decided to buy my own lunch. This cost me $1.40 per day. That's right, my mom refused to pay $1.40 for school lunch because she could put together a lunch for less than that.

For years, I was unable to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Perhaps it was the psychological aspect of being forced to eat the same damn thing for so many years, or perhaps it was because those sandwiches were so cheap and gross. One day I decided to try peanut butter and jelly again, and know what I discovered? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches taste completely different if decent bread and jam are used. I actually like them. I still hate store brand vanilla cookies.

Sweet 16

The year I was finally old enough to drive, what did my cheap mother get me? If you guessed a car, you are clearly reading the wrong blog. No, my cheap mother bought me a bicycle. You may think I'm just a hater, and you would really like to receive a bicycle for your birthday, what's wrong with me? There are several reasons this was a bullshit gift. First, I had been without a bicycle for several years as mine was stolen when I was 11 or 12 years old, so my cheap mother had several opportunities to surprise me with a bicycle that would have been greatly appreciated. She didn't, and I was the only kid I knew without a bicycle. Second, this was the equivalent of giving me a "lovingly made from the computer of your cheap mother" birthday card that said, "Give up any dreams you have of driving, because I am not giving you a car nor letting you drive mine." Incidentally, to my knowledge, she has only let me drive her car once in the past 12 years, so that was true. Also, she obviously was not clever enough to make that card, because that would have been a much cheaper way to let me know I wasn't going to drive anytime soon, and it would have saved her from later explaining that I should not expect a car, access to anyone's (her) car, insurance, or gas money. Oh, and since I had a bicycle, she was no longer going to give me rides.

I showed my appreciation for this particular gift by riding it once down the block with a scowl on my face, and putting the bicycle up to collect dust for the next 7 years. I did eventually ride it when I took it to graduate school, but it was so shitty (referring to both the bike and the gesture) that it was painful to ride, and I ended up giving it to the thrift store. Maybe someone's cheap mother will spot that gem and repeat the cycle. I'll bet that kid hates his/her parents, too.

Soda

My mother is cheap, but also selfish. She obviously buys store brand everything, except sometimes when she buys things that only she is allowed to eat or drink. One time I went grocery shopping with her, and the Diet Coke was on sale such that it was actually cheaper than the Wal-Mart brand diet cola, but she didn't buy it. She said that she didn't want anyone getting used to the Diet Coke, so she would buy Diet Sam's Choice anyway. Her husband used to buy himself Diet Pepsi, which she would hoover and stick him with the Diet Whatever Crap She Bought(tm), so I think he stopped. Now that she's an empty-nester, she just buys Diet Pepsi, and sometimes even the more expensive Weight Watchers soda.

Christmas

My mother is extremely cheap, but do you want to know what is absolutely hilarious? She doesn't want people to think she is cheap. Every year at Christmas time, she must decide whether to cut the tags (prices) off of Christmas presents. Her decision tree goes like this: Did I actually pay the sticker price for this item? If yes, take the tag off. If no, leave the tag on so the unsuspecting recipient thinks I spent more money than I actually did. Note, leaving the tag on only makes it easier to return the gift, and inevitably, the poor sap will eventually find out you were cheap.