Colorful Personalities

Us Golds are certainly good with money, or at least conservative in how we spend it, if we do. But for a few, it can also cross the line. If you have a sense of humor, here is one Gold who definitely crosses the line:

I had never seen my pal Chris move with such lightning-fast speed, nor with such uncanny agility. Yet, his explosive display of athletic prowess had nothing to do with a sporting pursuit and everything to do with saving money. A fraction of a penny, as it turns out.

Chris had invited me over to his abode so we could watch some TV. As I strolled into his darkened living room, I flicked the light switch to the upright position and plopped into the couch. In that precise nanosecond, Chris flew out of his seat and leapt over the coffee table like some jungle cat. I thought he was going to clock me. The focus of this Olympian-quality hop, skip and a jump was the light switch. Chris whacked it back down into the OFF position with such speed and force it was reminiscent of a Michael Jordan slam-dunk.

So, there I sat in the semi-darkness, somewhat stunned, the only illumination being the eerie blue light emanating from Chris’s 14-inch TV screen. But I didn’t bother asking Chris why he turned off the light. I already knew. Chris is the ultimate cheapskate. He tosses nickels around as if they were manhole covers. And wow, can he scrimp.

I would never make light of folks who must embrace thrift in order to make ends meet. Be it those on social assistance, students, the working poor, starving writers… Living beyond one’s means is a prelude to financial disaster. But Chris isn’t hurting for cash. He earns a six-figure salary. He comes from a wealthy family. And he lives mortgage-free thanks to a tenant who illegally rents part of his house.

Being financially secure, you would think that Chris and his wife, Jan, would live it up from time to time — like shopping at Wal-Mart and Sears. Chris and Jan prefer the pre-owned stuff at Goodwill. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once penned: The rich are “different from you and me.” Cheapskates are not like you and me, either.

And oh, the behavior exhibited by the cheapskate. For example, it must be pitch black before Chris turns on his aged car’s headlights — twilight, fog, and snow do not rate. When making a turn, he will only signal at the very last second. After all, a replacement headlight bulb sells for $8: signal light bulbs sell for $3/pair. The family can easily fit into their economy car because they are so skinny (due to miniscule portions of watered-down food.) They all sport odd-looking hairstyles, too. Why go to a barber when you can cut around a bowl? Hair by Tupperware; diet by C.A.R.E. But wait, there’s more: videos are obtained from the public library (free). Straws and tea bags are reused at least three times. Used plastic milk bags are recycled as sandwich wrappers.

Whenever Chris’s daughters have a birthday party, it is actually a “non-party.” The venue is the playroom at his house as opposed to some kiddy party palace. The showstopper comes with the delivery of a single-topping pizza (no tip for the driver). As is standard practice, the pizza parlor pre-carves the pie into slices. But a knife-wielding Chris likes to further subdivide the pie, transforming a 10-slice pizza into a 30-slice one. The only downside is that guests go home hungry.

Nothing brings out the true colors of a cheapskate more so than Halloween. For shelling-out last year, Chris was elated after obtaining a bag of 150 lollipops for $1.48 — less than 1 cents per treat. And since he did not have 150 trick-or-treaters drop by, Chris needn’t stock up this year. Chris’s solution to UNICEF boxes? He drilled a hole in a quarter and affixed some fishing line to the coin. This allows Chris to plop the quarter into a UNICEF box and then yank it out again.

My family can’t bear to go on outings with Chris’s clan anymore because such events are seldom enjoyable: Chris and Jan’s daughters constantly pester us for a meal or a toy. Chris and Jan, meanwhile, conveniently feign deafness whenever their daughters go into beg-mode. When Chris and Jan go to a movie, it is always on a Tuesday when tickets are discounted. Nothing beats the value of a double feature for just $7. (It’s not an official double feature — Chris and Jan tend to sneak into an additional film at the multiplex.)

His social calendar, meanwhile, is pre-arranged on one basis only: free admission. Skating at a nearby rink is during the last half-hour on Sunday; a trip to the museum takes place on a Friday night. It gets worse. We once went to a delightful petting zoo (free admission). It is expected that attendees will at least buy some feed for the critters. A vending machine dispenses a handful of feed pellets for a quarter. That’s too rich for Chris. The solution? Chris dropped to his hands and knees and actually crawled around, catching pellets falling from the mouths of goats and geese, redistributing the feed into the hands of his kids.

Food was my motivation for penning this story. Recently, I was working late. Most of the restaurants were closed. I happened to see Chris and Jan, on their way home from shopping. They displayed a pair of scrumptious-looking sausages they had obtained from a butcher shop. I was practically salivating. “Oh, I’m so hungry,” I moaned. Nothing. “I could really go for those sausages,” I hinted. (As an aside, we have entertained Chris and Jan on several occasions — unreciprocated, of course.) “Those sausages smell sooo good and I’m sooo hungry, I’d even buy one off you.” Ka-ching!

“Two-fifty,” responded Jan. Chris quickly interjected, speaking in their native tongue. At first, I thought Chris was rebuking Jan for having the temerity of charging a friend for food. I was beginning to rethink my opinion of Chris. “Two-fifty — each,” emphasized Jan. I later visited the butcher shop, I discovered that Chris had inflated the price of each sausage by 21 cents.

The ultimate act of cheapness came recently when I convinced Chris he should obtain a pair of ice skates so he could actually skate with his daughters. Chris spent weeks going to secondhand shops. Eventually, he obtained a pair of used skates for $3. Sure, there’s a downside – namely, the skates don’t fit properly. But talk about perverse irony: The country’s number one cheapskate has indeed lived up to his moniker by purchasing cheap skates.

And no, I am not worried about making new enemies with this story given that Chris and Jan will never see it. After all, what does this newspaper sell for on weekends? $1.50? Don’t be ridiculous.

David Menzies – Financial Post – condensed & used with permission