Pexels/Reddit

Six months of disciplined saving on a tight budget is exactly the kind of sacrifice that’s supposed to open doors to more opportunities, not into more drama.

One 24-year-old worked hard to finally pay off a laptop she’d been saving for specifically to pursue work-from-home opportunities, only to have her mom decide it should become her own full-time work computer instead.

When she mentioned she’d need it soon for her own job hunt, her mom responded with more guilt tripping, framing the request as selfish and warning that losing access would leave her without income entirely.

Her mom even told her outright not to bother job searching, since the laptop needed to stay available for her.

With future plans to return to college also depending on that same flexibility, the young woman is left wondering if holding her ground really makes her the unreasonable one.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for telling my mom she couldn’t use my laptop for long time for work?

I (24F) have been saving up for 6 months to buy myself a laptop which will then be used to apply for a work from home setup.

Every month I’d pay 5000+ pesos. It has been my plan to save up for my own computer so I could find myself work that I don’t have to travel to every day.

But soon her family started getting in the way of her goals.

Now that it’s fully paid, I can apply for a part-time/freelance WFH job. But my mom wants to use it to work full time.

I told her I’m okay with her using it for now since I still haven’t started looking for a second job and that I would need to use it anytime soon.

But her mother wasn’t going to let this go.

She called me selfish and guilt tripped me by saying, “Okay, you can have it back, but that means I can’t work and I won’t have money, so you should support me.”

She also told me to not look for a job because she needs to use the computer. This is frustrating.

One of the reasons I wanted a WFH and flexible setup is because I’m also planning to go back to college. Am I really being selfish?

Sounds like her mother is putting her own needs before anyone else’s.

What did Reddit think?

This user doesn’t feel much sympathy for the mother and her selfish actions.

Why can’t her mother just buy her own computer?

Just because her family is asking for something doesn’t mean she has to give in.

“Manipulation” is the key word for this user.

Calling someone selfish for wanting to use property they paid for entirely themselves really doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny.

The math here isn’t complicated: she saved for six months, paid the full amount herself, and offered temporary access to her mother as a courtesy. But this courtesy doesn’t extend to a permanent transfer of ownership.

Her mom can guilt trip and whine all she wants, but at the end of the day, nothing is going to change the fact that she has no legitimate claim to this computer.