Nothing destroys roommate harmony faster than money…especially when someone suddenly develops financial amnesia the second repayment is due.

After moving to Mexico for work, this woman thought she’d finally found a better living situation by sharing a room with a younger coworker. To help secure the room, she even negotiated a payment plan for the security deposit and agreed to temporarily cover part of her roommate Amma’s share. The arrangement was simple: OP would front an extra 1,000 pesos each month for four months, and Amma would start paying her back once the deposit period ended.

For months, everything went smoothly. Then repayment time arrived and, shockingly, the excuses started immediately. Suddenly Amma “couldn’t afford it,” was “waiting on her uncle,” and apparently “hated talking about money.” Which is funny, because people rarely hate talking about money when they’re the ones borrowing it.

So OP decided she was done playing roommate banker altogether.

AITA for taking back money my roommate owed me and telling her to handle the rent herself?

I recently moved to Mexico for work. The first apartment they arranged for me was honestly a nightmare. Almost every night around 2–3 AM I’d get woken up by loud music, neighbors, or even chickens outside. After about four months of barely sleeping I decided I had to move.

A coworker suggested I share a room with another girl from work. I’ll call her Amma. She’s younger than me and works as a cleaner where I work. We found a house where the owner rents rooms to several women and we agreed to share one.

The rent for our room is 8,000 pesos each (16,000 total). The owner also wanted a deposit equal to one month’s rent (8,000 each), but I managed to negotiate paying it in installments of 2,000 per month for four months. So for the first four months the total payment for the room was 20,000: 16,000 rent, 4,000 deposit.

Sounds fair enough.

Amma told me she couldn’t afford the full deposit amount and asked if I could help by covering 1,000 pesos a month for those four months. She said starting in month five she’d start paying me back 1,000 pesos a month until it was paid off. So basically she would owe me 4,000 total. I agreed.

Because of our schedules she would send me the money electronically and I would withdraw it and pay the landlord.

For the first four months everything was fine. She sent 9,000 each month (8,000 rent + 1,000 deposit from her side) and I paid the landlord the full 20,000. Then month five came, which is when she was supposed to start paying me back.

Anddddd…?

I asked her to send the usual 9,000. Hours went by and nothing. Later she told me she could only send 8,000 because she was waiting for her uncle to send the other 1,000.

She sent the 8,000 right away, but the other 1,000 never came. When I asked again she told me to relax and said she hates talking about money.

That annoyed me because for four months she had no problem sending the full amount, but the moment it was time to start paying me back suddenly there were delays and excuses.

Yeah, not ocol.

The next morning she sent me a “good morning” message apologizing with a cute sticker.

At that point I was frustrated. Since I had covered 1,000 pesos for her each month for four months, she owed me 4,000.

So I sent her back 4,000 from the 8,000 she had sent and kept the other 4,000, which is exactly what she owed me. I also told her that from now on she can deal with the rent herself because I don’t want to be involved with money between us anymore. I didn’t take extra money, just what she owed me. AITA?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an apartment tenant who is being called petty for blocking her parking space with trash cans.

Reddit largely sided with NTA, with many commenters pointing out that OP didn’t actually “steal” anything, she simply recovered money she was already owed after her roommate immediately started dodging repayment. A lot of people felt Amma’s behavior was especially suspicious because the problems only appeared once it was time to pay OP back instead of the landlord.

Many commenters also thought OP made the smart decision by removing herself from future rent handling altogether. Shared finances between roommates can get messy fast, and several people noted that Amma’s “I hate talking about money” comment was a huge red flag considering she was perfectly comfortable discussing money when she needed help.

The general consensus was that while the move may have felt abrupt, OP had already done Amma a favor, and once repayment excuses started, trust around money was pretty much gone anyway.

This person has a funny comeback.

This person makes a great point.

And this person says never again.

Funny how “let’s not make this about money” usually happens right after someone owes you money.