u/Flat_Chicken6222

6 years ago I was dead broke, literally $20 left in my bank account living in San Jose doing a startup that wasn’t paying at all. My card got declined at the grocery store and I didn’t have a car or license to go to the bank to withdraw cash. A kind lady covered my groceries that day and I was able to scrape by until I got my first paycheck. Since then I’ve been going to food banks and trying to get the free meals from rewards apps when I can. Every time I have a few hundred in savings, something comes up some medical bill or my bike gets stolen.

Startup recently got acquired and got my payout. First thing I did was go to my Walmart where I’ve shopped and couponed for the last 6 years. It’s a slightly rougher neighborhood but it’s where I’ve lived since I moved here. And I was able to buy groceries for two other people today who were using EBT!! I swiped my card and started crying again because I’ve never been able to comfortably afford groceries. And today I was able to afford groceries for myself and two people. Still very much in the scarcity mindset but I made it to the other side!!! And I hope I can continue this for the rest of my life

This may not be useful to most people but Safeway sometimes has free items on their app and those items are frequently energy or sports drinks (in my area at least). I find that when I go in late during the evenings when they are restocking, some of the sports drinks have coupons on them like $2 off or $1.50 off. They’re like collars on the bottle with a coupon. My safeway lets me stack the coupons, so I can get the free energy drink and then scan 4 of the coupons I take from other drinks and use that on my other groceries. I used to do this a lot, now I’m in a slightly more stable place so I don’t take the coupons anymore

It’s very niche so may not help a lot of people.

I usually always host dinner parties with a rotating guest list of friends of both mine and my husbands. We have a few friend groups we are a part of and generally they will either host us occasionally or take us out on their boat etc.

I generally don’t host expecting anything in return other than people having a good time, but I’m noticing that there is one person in the friend group (Alice) who has never hosted and also always comes empty handed or with the cheapest item from the store just for herself to eat. She has also on occasion brought her bf who eats like a black hole and also comes empty handed. One time she brought a bag of oranges to the party and noticed that I also had oranges out for snacking. Her boyfriend and her dug into my oranges and then when they left they look the bag of oranges she brought.

I’m now at the point where I don’t want to host this friend group anymore because of this one person. Everyone wants me to host because I have a pool and backyard and I generally go all out for dinner parties. Oysters, short ribs, lamb, lobster, the works. I truly do enjoy hosting, but have adamantly said no the past few times when people ask. Alice asked me why I’m not hosting 4th of July and I want to tell her she should host/im not inviting her over until she hosts a party. WIBTA?

A relatively close friend of mine had been dating her bf for close to 3 years and are on again/off again. She recently started getting close to a male coworker of hers and they eventually slept together (I was unaware that they slept together until she showed up at my door because her bf kicked her out when he found out). Her bf took her back and they started getting couples counseling.

My grandma passed away two weeks ago and I’ve been going through a hard time. My friend texted me saying that she will come over and spend the night with me and drive to the funeral with me. She never showed up. When I texted her why she didn’t come over after the funeral was done, she freaked out and called me. I was put on speaker and her bf was there and asking me if I made a mistake because she was supposed to be at the funeral with me.

Apparently, she had sent a screenshot of our text messages to her bf to assure him she was spending the night with me when in reality she was hooking up with her coworker again. When I was on speaker, I froze up and mumbled “sorry I must be confused” and hung up. Afterwards I told her I didn’t want to be friends anymore. She’s been a close friend for over 10 years and she thinks I’m not supporting her and judging harshly while she’s going through a hard time, AITA?

Edit for context: I’m not sure what age the kids were..but they were about 3 ft tall. The rescue does allow for some private events! They have some animals that do really well being pet. It’s also massive covering over an acre. We did not bring all the food out at once, only two buckets (one for me and my husband) and one bag of extras. The rest was in the car. And on Google they said it was a good place for dates and to ask what foods to bring as it changes based on which animals/donations they have.

My husband and I made an appointment to an animal rescue farm with lots of llamas, horses, cows, goats, etc. There also happened to be a kids bday party there at the same time. Before we went, I asked the volunteers if I could bring food to feed the animals and they said yes and provided a list. I spent $70 on produce (washed and cut up) for feeding.

The kids automatically swarm us asking if they can also get some to feed the animals. There’s ~14 kids and some parents. Some kids have stopped asking and started going into my bags and taking fruit. I told the kids to stop and had to pull some hands out of my feeding bucket. The parents who were there were upset, saying that the stuff I brought was relatively cheap and I should share “because it’s X kids birthday”. They even asked the volunteers to distribute the food I brought. The bday kid started a tantrum and was inconsolable unless he got his own bucket of food to feed the animals. I gave his parents some apples, but refused anymore. AITA for not sharing?