11:10am Friday 9th January 2009
Saving money is high on the agenda as the credit crunch bites, but a Crymych builder taking penny-pinching to the extreme is set to take the title of Britain’s biggest skinflint.
Ieuan Butler has been voted into the final of Channel 4’s The Hunt for Britain’s Tightest Person — a search for the country’s most dedicated scrooges who devote their lives to saving money in extraordinary ways. Ieuan is so stingy that his girlfriend Ruth won’t live with him, despite the couple having a daughter together.
He said: “We are deeply in love, but she likes the good things in life and I just like things to be practical.”
The cost of driving to visit her in Fishguard means they only see each other a couple of times a week, and Ieuan says a compromise needs to be reached so his girlfriend of five years can move in with him.
Dad-of-five Ieuan, who also has two stepchildren, was voted onto the show by his 19-year-old son Daniel, and the 42-year-old is the youngest person to feature in the programme.
His work boots, which started out as ‘smart boots’, have lasted long past their natural life, as he wraps them in gaffer tape each time his toes threaten to come through.
Ieuan told the Western Telegraph: “After the filming I thought to myself, I am slightly different to most people, but I won’t change much, that’s just how I am. I’ve been like this for 20 years.”
He added: “A lot of it is just common sense, people waste a lot of resources. I’m not a scrooge, I’m just very careful.”
The programme airs on Channel 4 at 7.35pm and will be shown on S4C in the next couple of weeks.
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