How Cheap Are Surfers?
Why riding waves encourages an aversion to spending (your own) money.
Anyone driving around Australia in late ‘99/early 2000 might recall Tight Arse Tuesday on the radio station Triple J* as the broadcasting highlight of the week. The show featured members of the public calling in to recount tales of extreme frugality.
One guy snitched his friend’s mum for using the polystyrene dishes that meat from the supermarket comes in as serving plates at a bar-b-q. Another caller was still in recoil at being served a glass of water in a peanut butter jar. And if that now sounds quite forward-thinking, in a modern juice in a jam jar reuse chic — the label was still on… and not all the PB had been washed out.
Australia’s tightwads were inventive, resourceful, but mostly, funny. Surfing’s tightwads, however, are a different breed.
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Sep 15, 2026
