If our winter boots were leaky, we had to put milk bags on our feet inside the boots.

We were always made to rip the paper towels into quarters for our napkins........

They got me some knock off instead of a Bigwheel

recycled bath water...... and trust me you didn't want to be last

everytime we went somewhere like burger king or a restaurant, my parents would always say Coke... NO ICE i guess the small amount of ice displaces a great amount of soda.

i better ques. for me is what ultro cheap thing my parents DIDN'T DO hehe

my mom made us split the french fries.That and k-mart.

While parents are obligated to put clothes on their kids, that's what we got for Christmas.

We ate grilled Spam for meals...and I do mean ALL meals. My mother thought it was a full service meat. And sometimes we had it with government cheese melted on top. Actually, the shit's pretty GOOD! Um..I'm making myself hungry. I'm thinking about driving out and getting some Spam now (understand they have a "Lite" version nowadays.) Hmmm. Perhaps I will pretend that the Velveeta is government cheese...but it just won't taste the same!

Well first of all there were the handed down clothes through out the years between all my cousins, me and my sister but the harshest thing was when I was about 5 and I just got really fluent with telling what time it was and I wanted this really cool "Barbie" watch. Well my mom got me a watch all right...out of those lil machines where you throw in...i dont know...a buck or two and you push the button for little prices to come out! Ugh that was hard for me to handle I hated that watch y'all it wasnt even pink ROTFLMAO :-)

Our family night of fun was driving to the airport and watching the planes take off and land.

My mom's the really cheap one, she: Takes stacks of napkins from fast food places so we don't have to buy them Buys things just because they're on sale (and refuses to buy them if they aren't on sale unless we really need them) Cuts my hair herself Tries to get my brother into places cheaper by saying he's 9 when he's really 13 (he's short for his age) Eats leftover food so we don't waste it Waits till clothes start getting huge holes in them before she buys new ones Saves every coupon she can find

Among other things, my mom cut my hair herself. And it always turned out way wrong. Like the one time she cut off a whole 6 inches by accident...

"Hot Dog Soup." Take an onion, and brown it a little in the bottom of a stew pot. Add in a few hot dogs, brown them as well. Add milk and water. Serve. Just the thought of it turns my stomach these days. But I guess it was a real budget stretcher.

my mom used my sock as a maxi pad.... damn, maybe i shouldnt post it... oh well... i dunno if she was being extra cheap, or maybe she just didnt know any better

Took us fishing

My brother and I had to share one dessert if we ever ate out.

Bought Mountain Lighting instead of Mountain Dew... xD

My dad actually did grumble about turning off the lights. And then there were the blue formica counter tops.

when the ketchup or salad dressing bottles got down to the very last few squirts, my dad put a lot of water in the bottle, shook it up, had us eating the swill. when the toothpaste was basically squeezed flat by our fingers, my dad took the dull edge of the knife and flattened it till it could be flattened no more. Then he cut the toothpaste tube in sections, so he could scrape out the insides. i had to dress in little girl clothing and wear pigtails (on both sides of my head) to get the reduced price kid's all-you-can-eat meals at Chesapeake Bay Seafood House when I was 15. what did i learn from all the ridiculous cheapness? it's good to be frugal and not wasteful, but if you make enough money, you don't have to live like a pauper. also, time is money. and sometimes it's good to spoil yourself and your loved ones. lastly, watered down ketchup sucks.

for my birthday, my dad gave me this small horse lego. -_-

Rip paper towels into thirds is my most memorable memory. The paper towel ripped into thirds went to the kids and the other paper towel ripped in half went to the adults............

my brothers all got "bowl" cuts

I had to wear my older brothers underwear. Bye the way, I am a girl.

second hand clothes from a kid a year ahead of me in school, which always made it awkward when I saw him and I was wearing his old stuff. Luckily he was a nice guy and never pointed this out.

My mom used to sneak the ketchup/mayonnaise sachets in her handbag when we were out, just so she could save all of £0.85 when she did the shopping. She also used to roll balls of cloth up, stitch them and sew two buttons onto them for eyes to keep me and my brother amused with new 'action figures'. Mine was always called Secret Agent. Gave me the felxible plastic holdings that her underwear came in when she bought them, as opposed to buying me a proper holder for my Pokemon Cards.

They took my presents back after Christmas and birthdays.I had to sleep in the tree house without lights.I had to reuse my diapers and change them myself.For my allowance I got IOU's for future use.When I was four they wanted me to pay $500 rent per month,and I had to form a toddler union for basic rights and won in court.

It wasn't my parents, but my uncle who takes the cake here. He was remarried to a woman who had two young pre-teen daughters, and when they would shower, he had set rules, and was strict about them. They had to first get in the shower long enough to get wet. Then, they had to shut the water off, while they lathered or shampooed. His reasoning there was "It's a waste of hot water and money!" Then, they could turn the water back on to rinse. How retarded is that??? He is so cheap it is disgusting. And, he has always had far more money than anyone else in the family. Maybe that's why? lol What a jerk!

Went to the "dump" (junk yard), to actually bring back stuff. The best fan I ever had came from the dump (the plug had been ripped off, and we replaced it), and every lawn chair came from there (we re-webbed them). Oh, and the garage sales ... okay, that's enuff!

99 cent haircuts at a local barber college, I swear I am still paranoid about my hair 43 years later.

When we didnt have much money(which was most of the time)my mum would cook cods cheek soup and pigs trotters soup,but i think it was more because we had nothing to her being ultra cheap:-)

give us crayons for christmas lol. umm also we had to share the bath water (i went first thank god) lock on the kitchen door to stop us helping ourselves. using duct tape for anything broken. i miss my childhood (not)

Powdered laundry detergent for shampoo. Newspaper for toilet paper. No flushing the toilet if you only peed. We were very broke at that time, tho.

My mom use to split 2 ply paper towels in half, two rolls for the price of one....Actually I just realized I do that samething now :( does that mean I'm cheap.

They took back our allowance during the night. It was usually my lil brother's, I spent mine quick as I could. I was babysat by the relatives who would give out the most food. Obviously we were there a lot. I got second... or third hand clothes from my mother's friend. Not cheap but funny, my grandpa would take me to other women's houses and visit them so they'd change my diaper. :D

Man, after reading these answers, I really appreciate my dad much more (long gone). He was a blue collar factory worker and never made that much money. But he always made sue we had stuff and got our educations (me and a twin sister). No wonder he didn't have any money when he went into the nursing home. He's deceased now but I remember when I was cleaning out his stuff before he went into the nursing home, he had all kinds of crap saved up. He was born in 1917 and was a Depression era kid. He saved everything. There must have been about 500 plastic Chinese containers, 6 Mr. Coffees that no longer worked, nuts and bolts that who new where they belonged...I can go on. I guess besides that the cheapest he was was not going out to the bars when beer got above 50 cents a glass. He'd rather just go to the bowling alley or stay home and have a few. We actually had a beer delivery guy. Oh yeah, he had a meat cutter and made friends with a guy who delivered meats and cheeses to the local delies and shops. The guy would drop off a ton of meat and cheese and he would spend a few hours cutting it up with a buddy, collect from the neighbors and divy it up at wholsale prices. He didn't make a dime off it. The only thing he did was give the delivery guy a shot and a beer. Ah, the good old days. My dad was a good guy.

Chicken was cheap so it was always the meat, driving somewhere [gas was about 29 cents] was the vacation, worn out sheets cut down the middle and resewn at the outside edges [I hated that seam,] one can of pop for 4 kids and one sometimes two plain burgers split four ways [maybe once a year is all though,] pancakes & cornbread often, government issue foods was our life line after my dad left but was actually really good, all of it that I remember. BUT what I took away from this was that if I wanted it better I had to work so I started in the fields picking daffodils, strawberries, raspberries and corn from the day I was old enough [age 9 or 10] and have worked everyday since [my son has it much better but he won't have these memories.]

Growing up in Chicago, IL my parents were always moving. I had one brother and two sisters, myself being the youngest, I think the most cheep thing they did was take back the new bikes they bought for us one Christmas for the money.

I respect my parents too much to see any faults with them.

You know when you have a stick of deodorant, and it gets too low to use? My dad used to scoop that out with a spoon and spackle it under his pits. Matter of fact, he probably still does.

I remember one Christmas we couldn't afford a tree, so my mom blew up [green] balloons and taped them to the walls in the corner in a triangular shape...

There were seven kids in my family, so sometimes my mother would mix 1/2 quart of milk with powdered milk to stretch it. I never thought of it as cheap, more like necessary.

Not a parent, but an aunt... She would wash aluminum foil to reuse. And when she would go to a party, she would dump all the dishes of nuts or mints into her purse to take home. Not secretly, either. Simply get up and walk around, dumping them as she went.

used newspaper for toilet paper

walk along the beach with a lot of hotels and sit down on their lawn chairs and take a free swim.