George Kamel - When Cheapskates Go Too Far (Reacting to Extreme Cheapskates)

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

My team decided to show me some clips of people who are the cheapest of the cheap to see if I approve or disapprove of their extreme money-saving tactics. And what better place to find those penny-pinchers than the TV show “Extreme Cheapskates” - a show that ran for 3 years on TLC and featured people doing absurd things just to save a buck. Start Your EveryDollar Budget Now! Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys, George Camel here. Now it should come as no surprise to you that I love to save money. True story, I once nerded out and compiled an extensive spreadsheet of mattress research just so I could rest easy knowing I was getting a good deal. And also, just so I could rest easy. It's all about the foam, people. Not the foam people. It's all about the foam, comma, people.

And some people assume that because I'm a personal finance expert, I must be super tight with my money. I mean, I do tell people to save more and spend less so that they can have more margin in their life, but there's a fine line between frugal and being a total cheap skate. And what better place to find those penny pinchers than the TV show Extreme Cheapskates? A show that ran for three years on TLC and featured people doing absurd things just to save a buck. Now, before we get to those cheap things, I got something that's surprisingly cheap for you to do, and that's to hit the like, share, and subscribe button.

In fact, it's no cost to you. All it takes is about three seconds up your time, hit like, then make sure you're subscribed, then hit the share button and send it to someone in your life who either needs to save money or maybe who's a cheap scape himself. So I haven't seen these clips. I don't think you have either. Let's jump in and see what we think.

Seriously, let's go. We're wasting electricity with these lights. Come on, chop, chop. Time is money. Hi, welcome my condo. I got pretty lucky. One of the ladies from Zumba said, hey, my grandpa just passed away

if you want to live in our condo for free. In return, I'm supposed to mow her lawn, but you know, you can't beat free rent. This is all from when the guy He passed away, he left it all here. I didn't have any furniture. It worked out nice. These are my roommates. We got Raj and Kevin here.

It's painful bringing women back to the apartment because furniture is everything. It's embarrassing. This place definitely smells like old people. No offense to those guys. I don't know how many women are rolling back up to their joint. Okay? I'm just saying, oh, boy. I don't know how much Greg pays for the apartment, but I do know that Kevin might pay a pretty

fair amount. It's a large three-bedroom condo, so I know. I knew I'd be able to take my roommates with me and charge them rent even though I'm living for free. This is the kitchen. All right, where to begin? There's no point in pain for anything that you should get for free in life. I never spend money on condiments.

Anytime you go to a restaurant, just take extra when you're there. I would never pay for paper plates or any kind of plate, really. I got lucky, I got these for my nephew's birthday party. Okay, that might turn away some women. When they roll up with the frog. with the froggy plates. That might be a big turnoff. Charging rent for the roommates actually kind of a life hack, right?

I mean, there's no rule that says they have to live there for free, and they're not forced to live there, okay? They have choices here, and he's choosing to charge them rent. Nothing wrong with that. I'm actually okay with that part. The rest of this so far are very much not okay with, including stealing all the condiments from the restaurant. Sure, you take an extra or two for the road,

but planning on just living off of those and just collecting them and stealing them from businesses, not cool. I have a fine line there, and he finally crossed it. To save money on cups, I actually reused yogurt cups. I got this from my grandma. This way, they're all labeled. Everybody knows whose cups who's. But if we get a guest, I actually give them the big cup, so it makes them feel special.

I don't put them in the dishwasher because the dishwasher waste way too much money. That is the first and last time he would have a guest over. When he hands them a used empty yogurt cup for a drink. How expensive are cups, do you? Like, what does it call it, 50 cents to a dollar for a plastic cup from Walmart? Like, why are you got to reuse yogurt cups? Like, I love the heart, right? Reduce, reuse, recycle.

There's nothing wrong. But a yogurt cup is not even like a normal cup. It's this big. What do we drinking? There's no point in having a bulb inside a refrigerator. I took the bulb out of the refrigerator. It saves me almost $40 a year in electric. Does he think the bulb is always on?

Someone tell him that the bulb does. turns off when the door is closed. It's only open momentarily. This is my closet. When I go shopping, I always leave the tags on the shirt because you never know if it's going to go out of style. So always keep the tags and you can just return them later. I paid for them. It's not stealing if you pay for it. I'm living the dream. As soon as I'm done living the dream, I just return it. I guarantee you everything in his closet was immediately out of style before, during, and after. Okay, I don't think we have to worry about things going out of style here, especially the Living the Dream shirt. We got to cut that.

Biggest money saver in the whole condo is right here in the bathroom. Greg thinks that he lives a pretty normal life, and most other people would probably think so, too, until they get to know him. That's the best quote of all. This is out of control. Other people would probably think so, too, until they get to know him. He takes showers with his clothes on. Greg, buddy, you really think, like, I'm a normal guy? This is what normal guys do? We just shower with the clothes on. Makes sense. You don't have to get dressed after.

You're just completely soaked. I don't... How is this going to go? By washing my clothes in the shower with me, I'm saving at least $15 a month because I don't have to use a washer, a dryer, soap. When I take a shower, I keep a bucket in there

and it catches all the excess water from me. At the end of the week, when I'm ready to flush the toilet, I take that water and pour directly into the toilet. What was in that toilet? What was that ring in the toilet? Bro! My man goes seven days without flushing the toilet.

Greg. This is disgusting. And honestly, the roommates are just as crazy because they're choosing to live with this guy. They're choosing to be friends with this guy. This man needs an intervention. And I truly, I don't know this show. I don't know if any of it's real.

A lot of it's probably exaggerated, scripted. I don't believe. that Greg's actually living this intense of a terrible life. But it could be the case. Let's move on to other strange folk. Hey, how are you? Hi. How about I try and see which ones I like?

You have a little cup by any chance? Oh, beautiful. We got chocolate, black raspberry. All right, I'll try some. Try what? The samples. One of each, maybe? One of each.

Another sample? How do I know what I like unless I try them? Ma'am, are you with him? Yeah. What are you getting? I got these. I'm full now. So what is you gonna be? What are you gonna do?

I'm a little full, thanks a lot. They didn't pay for nothing. Oh, wow. Hey, Roy's got the Riz, okay? This man is willing to do whatever it takes to save a buck. Now, as the ice cream shop, I don't know that I would have let that slide, personally. but I guess the samples are technically free. They were given freely, and Roy took advantage of said samples.

Ma'am, are you with him? There was a little bit of judgment in that, right? It was more of a, ma'am, why are you with him? And I get it. If I did that, my wife would be mortified. We would be in a fight for a while. It's kind of slimy what he did right there, right? You know he wasn't going to buy anything.

He went into that, knowing full well, he had no plans on giving a dime. And so he took 14 free samples and then just zipped out of there. So the lesson learned here is don't be a jerk. Be kind. These are small business owners running a lot of these shops, and they're trying to survive. And you taking their free samples is taking money out of their pocket.

Okay? The samples aren't free to the business. They cost money. The hope is that you try one and you go, cool, I found the flavor I like, and you give them some money. That's all it takes. Don't be a jerk. Okay, Roy.

Oh, no. $92.28 cents? That's literally all my change. He is going to pay $92 with quarters nickels and dollars. I've been saved for this all year. When Terrence walked in with this huge bag of coins, I wanted to hide under the table. You're thoroughly embarrassing everybody here. I'm not embarrassing anybody.

I saved in Scripps for this money. I don't believe this. 9210. I have never seen anyone pay for them with coins. Never. Let's go. Thank you for appreciating my tip. Okay, that one...

That one just feels mean. With the time it takes just to count out the change, I could go get a side hustle and just pay for that thing with cash, okay? And has you ever heard of a coin star, Terrence? You ever been to a coin star where you drop all the change in and then you can get money back out?

Or, I don't know, maybe just a bank where you roll up your change and you give it to them and they, in exchange, give you something called cash, which doesn't ruin servers' lives while they're sitting there trying to make a living and old Terence shows up with a bag of coins.

That's all I got. You got to have bills, paper money. You gotta pay with these. Look, I said that's all I got. Then you got the no-cats on. Wait, man, I win! If you're going to take that much time, just roll it up, take it to the bank, get cash. Or what I do is I go to CoinStar and I'll just get like an Amazon gift card because there's

no fees for getting gift cards out of those things. And I go about my day. And I just use a debit card or cold hard cash to pay for things like that. There's no need for me to use the washing machine because it just cost too much money. I can just reuse the water right here. There's a lot of wear and tear on your clothes in the washing machine. I'm able to wash my clothes in here.

My clothes last for years. Because my hot top's not going to add any value to the house, I decided to use it for multi-purposes for everything that I can think of. Real talk. He's not okay. We know that from just the fact that he's on this show, right? But there's something else here that I want to point out. Todd is saying I'm going to save a buck wherever I'm. regardless of how it affects my quality of life.

So I love the heart behind it, you know. He's willing to do what it takes and sacrifice. But there's a fine line between destroying your quality of life to save a buck and being out of control. And I think he's out of control. We will move on and hope that it gets better. Right now, I've got some clothes in Ziploc bags. I don't have to put them in the washing machine.

It actually kills the bacteria by having them in here. That way I save on laundry detergent. I save on time. I don't have to use electricity to run my washing machine. I've had clothes since high school. Can you believe that? Okay, this is a pair of jeans. Okay, this pair here, I bought these 15 years ago.

Look at that. Like brand new. Yeah, it's like I just bought them. I don't know that he's worn the jeans. I think they've just lived in the freezer collecting other kinds of mold and bacteria. And to his credit, they look great. Beautiful, beautiful jeans.

By tightly packing his fridge with clothes, cookware, and canned goods, Todd cuts his energy use by nearly 10%. The refrigerator doesn't cycle on as much, and it doesn't produce or consume as much electricity. Just pack up your fridge with anything you can find. I don't care. I don't care that some people might think that some of my habits are over the top now. I don't think the fridge thing works out.

I think clothing is beyond bacteria, and I think you need a washing machine, and I think it's worth the few dollars you pay a month to use said washing machine. But there is a lesson here. Money has three purposes. It's giving, saving, and spending. This man is crushing it on the saving.

I doubt he's, like, super generous, and I doubt he's enjoying much of it. And so when you're too far in one area, you get what's called a flat tire. And you want to be well-rounded in life. If you want to be able to give, save, spend with good balance in each area that doesn't make you feel out of control. Because you've got to have good relationships. You've got to have a good quality life.

And you got to enjoy the money that you're earning. Otherwise, what is the point of all this? I truly, truly don't know. So many things wrong with what's happening in those clips. And I'm pretty sure some of that was staged. But there are really people out there who take frugality to the extreme. And if you're not careful, it can start to affect your health. It can damage your relationships.

And, of course, affect your quality of life. And I'm all for saving money, but you gotta live a little, guys. Yes, make a budget and stick to it. And make sure your budget gives you a little room to enjoy life. Like my friend Rachel Cruz always says, a budget gives you permission to spend. So give yourself permission to buy a scoop of freaking ice cream. Give yourself permission to, I don't know, wash your clothes and dishes like a normal human being. If you're enjoying these videos, be sure to hit the like button, the subscribe button,

and share this with some of your cheapskate friends who may take things a little too far when it comes to saving money. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.