THIS is the woman who cooks lasagne in the dishwasher with dirty plates and reuses pasta sauce to save money.
Stephanie Bennett has a unique way of living with her boyfriend Patrick – and very distinctive way of cooking.
She also claims to use only one lightbulb and won’t let her man shower for more than two minutes.
The couple appeared on TLC's Extreme Cheapskates series nearly eight years ago to reveal the great extents they go through to cut back on bills.
Footage from the episode was shared by TLC to YouTube in March 2020.
Stephanie, who works in a doctors office, walked viewers through her everyday routine.
She even explained how she collects lint from her dryer and uses it to remove nail polish and apply makeup.
And by using a single lightbulb – which she moves around the different rooms in her home – she saves around $60-a-month on electricity.
When it comes to making dinner – and in this case, lasagne – Stephanie explained: "Now to save money, I multitask with washing dishes and cooking meals with my dishwasher.
"I just got to make sure I wrap it really well – or else, the food will get really wet."
Stephanie wraps her lasagne with tin foil before putting it in the dish washer for 90 minutes – which will cook the meal as it reaches 170 degrees Fahrenheit and doesn't use extra gas from the oven.
She admitted to cooking fish, hotdogs, and lasagne in the dishwasher "all the time."
Stephanie also saves money when cooking lasagne by purchasing beef fat to mix with the meat.
She even used recycled tomato sauce.
"By supplementing the meat with the beef fat, Stephanie saved 75 percent on the ingredients for her lasagna," the show's narrator said.
She cooked the lasagne for her boyfriend's guests at a football party they hosted and one man said the meal tasted like water.
Despite the criticism towards her food and cheap mannerisms, the episode closed with Stephanie saying she gets "the utmost satisfaction being the cheapskate that I am."
She continued: "It’s for me and my family. Not anybody else.
"I don’t care what nobody says. It was the Stephanie way, and the Stephanie way is the better way."
Stephanie's boyfriend said his girlfriend has "a lot of money saved up but she doesn't want to spend nothing."
He admitted Stephanie's rules – referring to the one lightbulb – are "ridiculous."
However, Patrick said he follows the rules because of his love for his girlfriend.
Meanwhile, this Texas family saves hundreds of thousands of dollars by not purchasing anything new and cleaning dishes in an inflatable kiddie pool.
Shawn and Melanie O'Brien, parents of two kids, may classify as one of the cheapest families in the United States.
Some of the ways in which the O'briens have saved money is fixing a broken shower head with a plastic water bottle containing a handful of poked holes and using a lounge chair and an ottoman as living room furniture.
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