One of the keys to a happy living situation between roommates is equally distributing responsibilities.
Making it so that chores, grocery shopping and bill payments are equally divided among roommates.
Though it isn’t uncommon for one roommate, who might be slightly more secure financially, to possibly contribute more when it comes to rent and groceries.
But even so, the other roommates should find a way to compensate for this generosity, as a way of avoiding any future conflict.
Redditor minifridgethrowawa found herself increasingly frustrated when her roommate ate the majority of the food she bought.
This led to the original poster (OP) to find a solution as to making sure she would have a chance to eat the food that was rightfully hers.
But when her actions greatly angered her roommate, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**Hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA for buying a mini fridge to stop my roommate from eating my food when she has no money to buy any?”
The OP first explained how she was considerably better off than her roommate, so initially she grudgingly accepted when she ate the food and groceries that she bought.
“I (19 F[emale]) go to a really expensive college.”
“I’m lucky because not only did I get a scholarship but my parents are wealthy and I can get money whenever I want.”
“My roommate on the other hand isn’t as lucky.”
“She comes from a poor background and has to work because her parents can’t pay her tuition and she doesn’t even have a partial scholarship.”
“She often takes my food because she wants to spend most of her spare money on makeup/clothes/decorations and paying for her monthly payment to the school, so I allowed her to eat the food I bought.”
“The issue was that she started eating too much.”
“I understand eating 3-4 times a day, but my roommate literally ends a whole fridge full of food in less than 2 weeks and I got to eat less than 25% of what I HAD BOUGHT.”
“It got to the point I had asked her to cut it down a bit and she got offended asking me if I was calling her fat, to which I replied ‘no I’m calling you a binge eater’.”
“She said she’d stop but she never did.”
It wasn’t long before the OP lost her patience with her roommate’s behavior, leading her to take matters into her own hands, much to the resentment of her roommate.
“Last week I got fed up because I had bought my favorite cake from a bakery 30 minutes away and it costed me $120 and I put a little note on it that said ‘you can eat some but please leave me half! :)’.”
“And when I came home that same day, she had eaten the whole cake and the note said ‘sorry hope you didn’t mind I was hungry and stressed.”
“I ordered a mini fridge from Amazon and it arrived at my house 4 days ago and I immediately went shopping for things I would eat and that could last me at least 1-2 weeks.”
“I’d lather have less food supply than paying for more and having less.”
“It’s in my room and my room is always locked when I’m not home.”
“Yesterday, I was laying in bed when she barges in and says ‘hey the fridge is kinda empty, when are you going to buy more food?'”
“I told her ‘I’m not’ and she got mad and told me I knew her situation and I should be a ‘real friend’ and buy food for her.”
“Then she saw the mini fridge and she started losing it.”
“Really don’t even remember what she said.”
“Now her friends are texting me asking me why I decided to stop buying food for us when that was the ‘agreement’.”
“I’m sure she’s telling them a twisted side of the story but I still wanna know AITA?”- minifridgethrowawa
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
The Reddit community agreed that the OP was not the a**hole for getting her own fridge so that her roommate wouldn’t eat her food.
Everyone agreed that the OP’s roommate was taking advantage of her, particularly as she chose to use what little money she had on makeup and decorations, rather than buying her own food.
“NTA.”
“It isn’t that she doesn’t have the money to buy the food.”
“It is that “she wants to spend most of her spare money on makeup/clothes/decorations.”
“NOT…YOUR…PROBLEM!!!”
“She is telling her friends that you AGREED to pay for her food?”
“I mean, who DOES that???!!!!”
“If her friends are so concerned, tell them that THEY can buy her food.”
“That should be the last you hear from them.”- patjames904
“NTA.”
“I had rich roommates in college while I was poor as heck.”
“Worked TWO jobs and an internship while taking classes.”
“I was able to feed myself but I often had to forgo buying any luxury items/non essentials.”
“If she didn’t have any money at all and needed some help with groceries that’s one thing.”
“But it sounds like she has enough to buy non necessities and instead is using you to buy her food.”
“Even at my poorest, if I had the money to buy food rather than makeup I went with food and didn’t rely on my roommates to feed me.”
“They helped me out here and there but I never demanded it from them.”
“Don’t let people use you.”- Lizzy54090282
“NTA.”
“Your friend doesn’t respect you or she wouldn’t have eat an entire cake but ‘stress, you know’.”
“She think you owe her.”
“I would try to have a talk with her, but I think it has to stop anyway.”
“Next time her friend say anything ask them to pay if they think paying for ‘friend’s’ food everyday is okay.”- Lilithex47
“I make sure my roommate has enough to eat every day as I gave birth to him it seems part of the deal.”
“Your roommate is a legit freeloader.”
“NTA.”- Sidneyreb
“NTA.”
“She can twist whatever she wants, but it’s your money and your food.”
“You were more than cordial with it, to begin.”
“She took advantage.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“Let her whine.”
“She needs to learn how to budget and move her money to necessities.”
“Not wants.”- slythercon
“We have a term in Filipino language called ‘patay gutom’.”
“The word literally means Dead Hungry.”
“It is hard to really contextualize it in English but this post is the best example of that.”
“It is a type of being a glutton but with added features of being so greedy, entitled and having complete lack of social grace and etiquette around acquiring and consuming the food.”
“You are such a glutton that you could die so you eat and eat that all the social graces and consideration for others have left out the room OP is NTA.”- Enough-Feed-3153
“NTA.”
“She has money, she just spends it on non-essentials.”
“She’s stealing your food that you pay for and leaving you with a small amount.”
“She’s greedy and selfish, she can moan and pout all she wants but now she has to stop wasting money and pay for her own food.”
“Her friends can deal with her eating them out of food, not your problem anymore, they can deal with the problem.”
“If they harass you just block them.”- EpitomyHD
“The simple fact that they are gaslighting you and other people with this ‘agreement’ you two had is awful.”
“NTA.”
“They should respect your boundaries, since they didn’t you took steps to protect yourself.”
“That is fine and fair.”
“If they can’t control their binge eating compulsions, that is a call for some external mental help and can’t be solved by a communal fridge, on your dime.”- LeftLeafOnly
“NTA.”
“You are not responsible for feeding her.”
“If you want to help, you can point her to some places to apply for scholarships to lessen the financial load of paying for school.”
“But, you are in no way responsible for buying her food.”- Emotional_Fan_7011
“NTA.”
“As a fat person that loves cake, I don’t know how in the hell a body can handle eating a whole as cake in a day.”
“I eat a slice, maybe two, and I am done.”- Rubberbandballgirl
“NTA.”
“If you want to say anything tell her friends you agreed to let her eat some, not all and then block them.”
“I’d be passive aggressive about it and buy $20 worth of macaroni, the generic sh*t in a bag, and a block of cheese to leave in the kitchen.”
“But the only roommate I ever had was fantastic.”
“I can’t entirely relate, I was a very underpaid single mom and she was a first year teacher so nobody had money.”
“We went splitsies on basically everything.”
“She had a dog, I had a kid, it evened out.”
“Still friends.”-bethsophia
One certainly wants to sympathize with the OP’s roommate, as she wasn’t dealt an easy hand in life.
But why she thought it was remotely fair for the OP to do all the grocery shopping, and then hardly ever leave any food for her to eat is shocking, to say the least.
Here’s hoping she might learn to balance her budget a little better, and will stop relying on the OP to feed her.