Some people take frugality to an extreme, crossing the line from being careful with money to being outright cheap. The children of these individuals often bear the brunt of this behavior, facing situations that range from the awkward to the genuinely damaging.
One person recounts how their father exploited free in-home demonstrations for water filtration systems, not out of interest in the product, but solely to collect the complimentary bars of soap the salespeople used during their pitches. This was just one example of a lifelong pattern of extreme penny-pinching.
Another shares the story of a father who treated household items like precious commodities. His son, now 21, still felt the need to ask permission to use a paper towel. This cheapness often backfired, leading him to repeatedly buy the cheapest, lowest-quality items that would quickly break. The tension culminated when the son's girlfriend used an entire roll to clean up a spilled gallon of milk, causing his father visible, silent anguish.
Other fathers exhibited similarly extreme habits. One refused to use a clothes dryer, hanging laundry outside even in freezing weather, and would sift through his children's trash for loose change or recyclables. He was so obsessed with saving gas that he would drive in neutral downhill and even push the car with his foot. Another father notoriously abused store return policies, once returning a sun-bleached and broken outdoor furniture set after nearly eight years of use for a full refund.
However, these stories of frustrating frugality pale in comparison to one of outright theft. One woman revealed that while her parents lived a life of luxury—buying new luxury cars annually and vacationing in the Maldives—she was left with nothing, not even a phone. They had stolen the inheritance her grandmother had left for her, sending her only a $50 Walmart gift card each year. Her life changed when she received a secret letter while her parents were on a cruise. It was from a man claiming to be her real father, who stated he had been fighting to reclaim her stolen inheritance and invited her to meet him to finally reclaim what was rightfully hers.
