Helping out family is one of the great joys and responsibilities in life.

However, there have to be boundaries, and knowing what those boundaries are can be tricky.

AITAH for not helping my sister with her rent anymore even though I could technically afford to?

My sister (28F) asked me again, if I could help her cover rent this month.

She’s between jobs right now and said it would “only be this one time.”

But here’s the thing: I’ve already helped her with rent four times over the past year.

Every single time it’s been some variation of “just this once” or “I’ll pay you back when things settle.”

Spoiler: she never pays me back.

That alone is a pretty good reason not to keep “loaning” money.

I (30M) recently got to a better place financially and have been trying to get my own life in order.

I’ve been chipping away at stuff I’ve been putting off forever; rebuilding savings, fixing up some stuff in my apartment, some wins here and there on Stake, trying not to feel like I’m always treading water.

It feels good to finally not be stressed about money every second of the day.

Contrary to popular belief, money DOES buy happiness. Sort of.

Money makes a person’s life better up to the point that a lack of it is no longer causing stress.

Beyond that, expect severely diminishing returns.

So when she texted me again asking for help, I told her no.

Politely, but firmly.

I said I’ve helped her multiple times, and I just can’t keep bailing her out like this.

She immediately got [angry], said I was being selfish, and basically made it sound like I was hoarding money while she’s struggling.

She even told a couple of our cousins, and now I’ve got people hinting that I should “step up” for family.

Seems like you’ve already done a fair amount of stepping.

I don’t know, maybe I could’ve been gentler about it.

But I’m just tired of being her backup plan.

She doesn’t budget, she always thinks things will magically work out, and I’m the one who ends up footing the bill.

I want to teach her a good lesson about life, its just ******* hard and you must handle it and not always rely on someone.

Now she’s conflicted.

What if I can’t help her, or I’m in a worse situation than her, it would put me on a lot of stress and bad feelings while I might be already dealing with mine??

Do I make sense myself?

AITA for finally putting my foot down even though I technically could help her again?

Let’s see what the comments say:

Many have been in this situation before:

Her situation is clearly unsustainable.

If others want to take a turn, that’s their decision to make.

Clearly something needs to change long-term if the problem is this frequent.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.