TLC's Extreme Cheapskates: Is it Worth It?

My father has a saying, "If they're giving, you're taking."

As a result, he'll take all kinds of free stuff whether he needs it or not. He's the type of guy who will fill out multiple credit card applications just for the free t-shirt and then wait for the two applications to cancel each other out.

Roy Haynes runs an animal rescue with his wife Lisa in Huntington, Vermont and he has a very similar saying: "If it's free, it's for me." However, he takes saving to a level my father would never stoop to, a level that earned him a profile on TLC's new series, Extreme Cheapskates. (premiering Oct. 16 at 10pm/9pm central)

It's a level that will have viewers screaming at their televisions asking, "Is it worth it?"

(Story continues after slideshow) The Food Moocher

Roy and his wife make money dog sitting and rescuing animals, but such a pursuit can get very expensive. Problem is, Roy's penchant to stretch a dollar goes beyond filling empty ketchup bottles with ketchup packets or separating two-ply toilet paper (though, he does do that) and starts to cross the line into insensitive and creepy.

It starts right away with a move straight out of the 'Chinese Restaurant' episode of Seinfeld when the two are out to eat and Roy leaves to go take leftover food off of other people's plates while they're still sitting at the table. Amid dirty looks from onlookers, most patrons are genuinely creeped out by Roy's approach with the styrofoam container, but they give him their food anyway because well...what else are they going to say?

Roy has no shame, but his wife certainly does, especially when he pulls off the same thing during their 25th anniversary dinner at a burger joint. "It's a little more expensive than I like to pay, but I can make an exception for a 25th anniversary," he has the nerve to tell the cameras, while she bolts for the door with embarrassment at his food grubbing antics on the one night she told him not to take his usual tableside tour.

Grabbing leftovers is surprisingly the only thing Lisa finds utterly repulsive about her husband's cheapskate ways. It doesn't bother her as much that he went dumpster diving for dead roses and a teapot for part of her gift and then hit the liquidation mart for animal crackers, ("because she loves animals") bottled water and the piece de resistance - a squeezable skull whose eyes pop out when you squeeze it. The whole gaggle of gifts for their 25th wedding anniversary was under $2.00. (Seriously, don't break the bank Roy.) Lisa was particularly fond of the skull, but this is a woman who never gets to taste the high life. Although, I guess it's hard to be surprised that she's so willing to settle, when the episode reveals that the whole reason Roy married her was because she had medical insurance and he didn't, but he needed dental surgery and being her husband would make him a co-beneficiary on the plan. (Ouch!)

The worst part is, for all his cheapskate ways, and the utter suffering that his wife must endure because of them, is he doesn't even save that much money. He saves $70 to $80 a year by refilling the ketchup, $6 a month by sharpening his razor on a match book and cutting open his toothpaste tube and $2,000 over three years for reusing paper towels.

Still though, they love each other. It's for richer and mostly poorer, even when Roy is picking up rice that people throw at weddings, so he can take it home and cook it up for dinner.

Lisa's a very compassionate person," says Roy. "Not only does she put up with all the dogs, she puts up with me."

WATCH ROY'S CHEAP WAYS:





The Cloth Wiper

The extreme cheapskates aren't limited to men. There is also Angela Coffman from Kansas City, Missouri. However, unlike Roy Haynes, Angela actually has some great ideas for saving money that people actually did back in the day. After she and her husband racked up $89,000 in credit card debt as newlyweds and then cutting back to pay it off in under a year, they vowed that they would never let that happen again and started making living cheap their lifestyle.
Since then, the Coffman family makes their own cleaning supplies, forages in their community for greens to put in their salads and has joined a babysitting club in their neighbourhood where parents share the child care responsibilities. The club alone saves them $400 a month in childcare costs.

Her frugal ways have a bit of a dark side too, thanks to cloth toilet paper that she makes, washes and reuses once it is clean and her habit of buying expired food, but she still saves more money than the show tells us Roy ever does. She ended up feeding 11 kids that she was babysitting a full meal of four pizzas, one wild salad and four cookie cakes for only $10 -- just don't dry your hands with the rags in her bathroom.


The Goat Head Eater


If the host of Bizarre Foods, Andrew Zimmerman ever decides to quit his job, he only has to look in Accokeek, Maryland because Jeff Yeager will surely make a fine replacement. Together the Yeager's made a pact to never raise their standard of living beyond how they lived as newlyweds. As a result, they have no use for iPads, iPods or other new technologies and five times a year they go on what Jeff calls a week long "Frugal Fast" where they spend no money for an entire week.

Here's where the Bizarre Foods hosting gig comes in. Since, during these frugal fasts, Jeff pretty much survives on what's left in his house and the change he finds at laundromats, in telephone booths and between the cushions at restaurants, he has developed a taste for cheap meats that are hugely affordable because no one else will eat them. At the end of one of his frugal fasts, he buys two goat heads for $7.90 in loose change he found in the neighbourhood for a romantic dinner with his wife. She refused to eat any of it (Luckily, there was enough left in the house that she could make a meal from the side dishes Jeff cooked) but he absolutely loved the sweetbreads found in them both.

Besides his love for the dregs of the butcher shop. He actually has some great frugal tips, like, saving tinfoil and putting it in your onion bag makes a great pot scrubber and if you mix the last little bit of jam at the bottom of the jar with apple cider vinegar, you'll have a great marinade and dip. He also saves dryer lint as kindling for his fireplace and saves the rinds of citrus fruits mixed with baking soda to scrub the bottom of his cooking pot. Plus, he doesn't own a car and bikes everywhere he goes. The meat thing may make you sick, but they only do their frugal fasts five times a year, so it's not like they're totally against spending money and they estimate that over the course of their 28-year marriage, these frugal fasts have helped them save over $100,000.



The Big Man of Barter

Jordan Mederich from Branson, Missouri has never paid for anything during his entire adult life. His mom's a teacher and his dad's a pastor, but they passed on to their son the art of bartering and he will barter for anything: a 70-cent doughnut is worth his rendition of his own improvised poetry right in the middle of the store. It might annoy the deep line of customers right behind him, but this is a guy who bartered for every aspect of his $20,000 wedding and did the same thing for his friend's engagement party.

Though all of these Extreme Cheapskates have some unorthodox methods for saving a buck, and some of them sacrifice their own relationships just to save money, others actually have some pretty good money saving ideas that you could try applying to your own life.

See more stories of extreme savings when 'Extreme Cheapskates' premieres Oct. 16 at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central.