'Extreme Cheapskates': No good tips here

Meet Roy Haynes of Vermont, who goes from restaurant to restaurant to find ketchup packets, and Dumpster-dives for dead roses as a gift for his wife on their wedding anniversary. Or the mother of six who enlists reusable (yes, ugh, reusable) cloth bits in lieu of toilet paper. Or the gentleman from Maryland who scarfs for pennies -- enough to buy skinned goat heads from a butcher for a very special dinner. Extreme cheapskates all.

They are all minimalists with a maximalist life philosophy: All those dimes saved over enough years will turn into thousands of dollars saved. Live a long-enough life, you've saved a fortune. Of course, the flip side -- which none seem to acknowledge -- is that you've also led a debased one. These nice people of course don't see it that way, and that's the spirit -- if you have the stomach for it -- in which one should approach "Extreme Cheapskates."

Our cheapies here are not victims of the economy; they barely acknowledge it. They simply are reveling in their austerity. Their behavior doesn't harm anyone and is, of course, often funny. But they also take the attitude that the joke's on you. After all -- they have the dime, you don't.