Thank you for all the listeners who sent in their stories about how cheap...I mean, "frugal"...their fathers were. And, congratulations to Dolores, whose father wins for her story about how she had to lie to him about a McDonald's Filet-0-Fish being in the 99 cent menu (then, the next time her dad went to Micky D's, he got into a confrontation with the manager over why the sandwich had "gone up over 300%). Dolores win's for her dad a $100 gift card to Mesa Street Grill, a men's Citizen Eco watch from Johnson Jewelers, golf for 4 at Butterfield Trail AND a helicopter tour of the city from elpasohelicoptertours.com . Maybe we can also throw in a Filet-O-Fish!

Here are some of the other memorable stories we got about cheap...I mean, "thrifty"...fathers:

  • The dad who bought only one set of training wheels for his two kid's bicycles. He put one training wheel on each of the bikes and the kid's learned to ride using only one training wheel.
  • The dad who wouldn't buy a heater for his kids room. He only agreed to get a space heater from Wal Mart when the son's fish tank began to ice over in the winter.
  • The dad who made all the kids pour their leftover cereal milk BACK into a separate container that was just for leftover cereal milk.
  • The dad who got a kiddie pool...but only because the wind had blown it out of the KMart parking lot!
  • The dad who would have his kids find the popcorn bags that were leftover from the previous movie that still had a free refill coming.
  • The dad who, when he goes to a restaurant, orders a water to drink and a side of lemon slices. Then, he takes the sugar packets and mixes his own lemonade.
  • The dad who made all his kids "memorize" a fake birthday and year so they could get children's discounts they were too old for and free deserts.
  • The dad who would pay for his 50 cent coffee by putting a quarter on top of a Mexican peso, which is about the same size as a quarter. Then he'd quickly leave, having paid only about 26 cents for a 50 cent cup of coffee.
  • And, finally, to ME...who would always get food from a fast food joint and sneak it into a movie theater. That is, UNTIL my girls got old enough to tell me they weren't going to any more movies with me until I stopped being so cheap!

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