Woman refuses to use her emergency savings to help roommate pay rent, asks if she's wrong

No matter how close you are to someone, sharing a space comes with its own set of challenges, including dividing groceries, rent, electricity bills and other household responsibilities. This 25-year-old woman, u/hoties_mia, shared her predicament on Reddit, asking if she was right for not allowing her roommate to use her emergency fund to cover rent.

She wrote that she lives with her 26-year-old roommate, Kara, who is also her college friend. "While living together has been mostly fine, Kara isn't great with money. She often splurges on things like designer clothes, eating out and spontaneous trips, and I've always kept quiet about it because it's her life," she shared. However, Kara’s spending habits eventually impacted the woman’s own finances. "Last week, Kara told me she's short on rent this month because of a 'surprise expense.' When I asked what happened, she admitted she went on a weekend getaway with friends, thinking she'd be able to 'figure it out later.' Now 'later' is here, and she doesn't have enough to pay her half of the rent." Kara then asked if she could borrow money from her, "specifically from my emergency savings," the woman revealed.

She, of course, said no. "Those savings are for emergencies—unexpected car repairs, medical bills or losing my job—not for covering her overspending. I told her she should reach out to her family or look into short-term loans," she explained. Predictably, the roommate got upset, "[She] said I was being selfish and 'not a real friend.'" Kara also argued that since the woman had extra money, lending some shouldn’t be an issue. She promised to pay it back, but the woman stood firm, replying, "I'm not your safety net when you decide to blow your budget."

She asked the Reddit community for opinions, and most users echoed their support, agreeing that her roommate's financial irresponsibility was not her responsibility to fix. To begin with, u/Brilliant-Car-2116 wrote, "If she's bad with money, you may want to find a new roommate because if she doesn't pay, you'll still be on the hook." u/Knickers1978 suggested not encouraging such a habit, saying, "You do it once, it will never end. She'll use you as a buffer for her bad spending habits all the time." 

Meanwhile, others suggested she should let Kara's other friends bail her out of this trouble. For instance, u/SignificantJob6825, commented, "These friends you say who are telling you that you should have just lent it to her, why don't they lend it to her then and save themselves from hearing the drama?" u/CarolineTurpentine asked to leave Kara alone, "You should let her struggle; it's the only way she'll learn."

Inconveniences are bound to arise when your roommates refuse to cooperate. In a similar story, a woman lived with people who created all the mess but didn’t hold themselves accountable. So, she came up with a clever response to spare herself further headaches. u/6cheddar6 shared with the Reddit community that she lived in an apartment with three other people who blame her for the mess.

So, what she did was leave the apartment with all her belongings, including some communal items like a $100 trash can, a $150 Wi-Fi router and a $150 metal shelving rack, which, according to her, was the biggest loss for her roommates.