They say if you lend money to friends or family you shouldn’t expect to be paid back.

If they do, it’s a nice surprise but it if they don’t, your friendship will remain intact.

This woman wanted her $100 back, though, even if it took her 30 years to recoup it.

Read the whole story below!

I refuse to tip my cousin.

I grew up in a small town with around 150 people.

As a 17f, I got my first job working at McD’s for $3.35 / 4.25 an hour when minimum wage increased. (1992).

Goodness, that’s not a lot for the hard work fast-food chains require.

I drove a truck my Dad gave me with bad gas mileage.

I had a younger cousin who grew up two miles away. She was 14 at the time this happened. (This was back in 1992.)

A rock band we both liked was going to play in a large town about 3 hours away.

This was pre-internet, so to buy the tickets, we had to drive to mall 60 miles away where Ticketmaster was located.

Ah yes, IRL — those were the days…

My cousin begged to come with me, got permission from her parents, and I agreed as long as she could pay for her tickets.

About a month later, we drove to the mall to buy tickets and she admitted she hadn’t been able to earn enough money babysitting money, but she had plans to get a job in a few months when she turned 15.

Ok, so she’s pursuing more money and paying back the favor.

I agreed to buy her ticket, $65, give her enough for an official t-shirt at the concert (about $12 or $15) and she would repay me $100 to help cover a small portion of the gasoline from the two drives.

The concert was a couple of months after that (around St. Patrick’s Day), and we had a good time.

I bought us drinks at the gas station and fast food on the way home.

Her birthday was in April and she promised to start job hunting soon, with plans to start work early June.

By the time June came, she announced being pregnant at 15.

Well, that’s a curveball.

We talked about the money, but she said the morning sickness was debilitating, and she couldn’t work.

The next summer, I reminded her again, but she had to stay home and watch her daughter plus babysit for a cousin.

She got next to nothing in child support (the boy was her age with no income), and she couldn’t pay me again.

Christmas rolled around and someone gifted her $500 but she had to buy all this baby stuff.

She probably really needed that $500 if the child support was lacking.

The summer she was 17, she was pregnant again, different Dad, and they got married.

Thirty years later, she’s had 3 marriages, 5 kids, her oldest son and her second ex have both spent time in jail for meth.

But thirty years is a long time to figure out a life plan, right?

Her kids are out of the house but come back frequently to do laundry and mooch groceries.

Someone gave her a single wide, the family helped her fix it up, and it’s now placed behind her mom’s house so she lives rent free.

She drives a late model, used minivan.

I quit asking about the money 5 or 6 years after she borrowed it from me. I resented it because I earned that money working on my feet.

I’d come home at the end of an 8-hour shift and my feet would be swollen, and I’d be mentally wiped out from being nice to jerks all day long.

At $3.35/$4.25 an hour, this represented several days’ worth of hard work.

It’s true. Making $100 on that hourly wage takes some time.

I live in another state now, but my parents are older and have early Parkinson’s and diabetes.

I’m visiting from another state, spending six weeks, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s.

My cousin now works at the Feed and Seed. This is a gas station where you can buy bags of horse and cow feed, dog and cat food, and a few basic grocery / home items.

There’s a grill with basic food — burgers, corn dogs, potato logs, made-to-order breakfasts, nothing healthy, nearly everything fried.

It’s not exactly like a restaurant — you order at the cashier and pay, then make your own drink, and when the food is up, the cook passes it through a window to you.

There are 2 mason jars with the names of the 2 cooks and about half the people don’t tip. I usually tip $3 on a $10 meal.

I’d say that’s pretty generous, considering it isn’t a restaurant.

Once you have your food, there are four indoor booths to sit in (Plus picnic tables in the back with some metal loops for people to tie their horses to. Very, very rural.)

I don’t tip my cousin. If she’s the one who made the food, I don’t tip her.

Ah, I think I see where this is going…

I’ve been there maybe 6 times in the past month and about four of the times I was there, she happened to be my cook, so that’s about $12 I would have tipped if it was anyone else.

She obviously noticed and asked me about it. “Remember the $100 you owe me? I’m taking it from that.”

There it is! Good thing she’s not factoring in interest…

My cousin didn’t say anything, but she went home and complained to her mother (late 60’s f).

Her mother complained to my parents (75f and 78m).

My mother promised her I would “make it right” and chewed me out for not letting go of something that happened about 30 years ago.

I pointed out she never once tried to help me get the money back.

She bought them expensive baby gifts, takes those 5 kids and some of the cousins to the mall, camping, and even on some road trips to the beach.

It seems like this is about more than money.

They’ve never once bought gifts for my daughter (this was a low blow because she died 4 years ago and it is a sensitive topic for all of us) and that they never bought gifts for my nieces.

She’s easily spent a few thousand dollars on their family over the years and the money only flows one way.

That it’s okay for my parents to voluntarily make this choice, but I never consented to simply “give” her a week of my part-time salary, and Mom should have stood up for me.

Right, speaking on the daughter’s behalf on anything with finances does not seem fair.

I also pointed out that Mom knew what a terrible track record their branch of the family had for not repaying debts because they “borrowed” money about once a year from my parents and didn’t pay it back often enough, but Mom hid that information from me until I was in my 30s.

Ah, so this little “habit” is passed down throughout the family.

At 17, I had no reason to be on guard but Mom knew all kinds of red flags.

Dad thought I had a point and told Mom to stay out of it. He said I could handle it however I wanted.

When I went back to the Feed and Seed for breakfast this morning, my cousin had a smug look on her face when she passed the food over and looked annoyed that I dropped nothing in her jar.

Is justice served 30 years later? Let’s see what Reddit has to say…

One commenter had advice on how to tip.

Another commenter said, “Buyer beware!”

Another Redditor saw the silver lining with this cousin’s track record.

And finally, another user complimented the level of pettiness this tale provided.

This entitled cousin shouldn’t expect a dime until she pays what she’s owed for decades.

You can tell it’s a big deal to her, though.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.