u/Internal-Catch-5252

I’m 18 years old and currently living with my mom and my 6-year-old brother. We just moved into a two-bedroom apartment in August, so we’ve only been here for a short time.
I want to start by saying that I understand that $300 might not seem like a lot of money to some people. But $300 is a lot of money to me right now.
There was a time when I was only making around $75 a week. I would literally have to save my money until I had enough to pay my car insurance, phone bill, gas, and medicine. I was struggling to cover basic expenses.
I even started doing Uber and DoorDash on the side to make extra money, while knowing my car has transmission problems and could potentially break down at any time.
So when I finally get $500 after working for three months without getting paid, giving $300 of that away is a HUGE amount of money to me. That would leave me with only $200, and I still have bills, gas, school expenses, medicine, and a car that needs around $3,000 worth of repairs.
I’m not saying $300 is a huge amount of money to everyone. I’m saying $300 is a huge amount of money for me based on my current situation.
Before we moved, I had my own bedroom, my own bed, and my own furniture. When we moved, my mom took her bed and my brother’s bed, but she told me to leave my bed behind. The weird part is that my bed was actually the newest one, and I kept asking her if I could bring it, but she kept telling me no.
My grandma had also given me a bedroom set, including my bed frame and dressers. Now my brother is using the furniture, and my mom has basically arranged the room around him.
While I was gone taking care of my grandpa, my mom rearranged the bedroom. She made the room mostly to my brother’s liking and put his dressers, toys, and other things everywhere. There is basically no room left for me to have a bed.
So now my clothes are in trash bags, and I sleep on the couch every night. My mom told me that my options were basically to sleep on the couch or sleep on the floor.
I’m also 18, but my mom still gives me a curfew and expects me to be home at a certain time.
Now here’s where the money situation comes in.
My mom recently decided that I need to start paying her $300 a month.
I honestly don’t understand how she thinks I can afford that right now.
I pay for my own phone, car expenses, and car insurance. I’m also in college working toward becoming a nurse. I have a 2017 Chevy Impala that has transmission problems, and I need to save around $3,000 to get it fixed. If my car breaks down, I won’t have a way to get to school or work.
I also have an issue with my phone bill.
I’ve always paid for my own phone. My dad originally got me my phone, and I’ve been responsible for paying my phone bill myself.
My mom has two phones. Her boyfriend pays for one of them, and I agreed to let her add her second phone to my phone plan because I was trying to be nice and help her.
Because her second phone is now connected to my plan, my phone bill went up significantly. So now I’m responsible for paying for both lines, even though I was already struggling to pay my own phone bill.
The frustrating part is that my mom is now using the phone bill against me.
She told me that if I can’t give her the $300 she’s asking for, then she won’t give me money to help pay the phone bill.
But the reason the phone bill is higher in the first place is because I allowed her to add her second phone to my plan.
I don’t feel like it’s fair for her to add another phone to my account, increase my bill, and then use that bill as leverage when I’m already struggling financially.
I’m honestly thinking about removing her second phone from my plan because I don’t want to keep being responsible for a bill I can’t afford, especially when she’s also asking me for another $300 every month.
I currently have two jobs. One of them is IHSS, where I’ve been taking care of my grandma.
I’ve been working for about THREE MONTHS and haven’t gotten paid yet because the whole IHSS process takes so long.
So imagine working for three months without getting a paycheck.
I’ve also been helping take care of my grandpa on the side.
Recently, I watched my grandpa for six days, and my aunt paid me $500.
This was basically the first decent amount of money I’d gotten after working for months.
The moment I finally got that $500, my mom told me she wanted $300 of it.
That’s what really upset me.
I’ve been working for three months and haven’t gotten paid, and the first time I finally receive some money, she wants more than half of it.
I told her that I would be willing to start contributing once I actually start getting paid from IHSS and have a stable income. But right now, I genuinely don’t have the money to give her $300.
At first, she called it rent.
I told her that if I’m paying $300 in rent, then I should at least have some of the normal freedoms that come with being an adult, like being able to stay out later sometimes.
She said no.
Then she switched it up and said it’s not actually rent because I don’t have a bedroom. She said it’s for utilities.
But I’m confused. $300 just for utilities seems like a lot to me, especially when I don’t even have my own room or a bed.
Another reason I’m uncomfortable giving her the money is because my mom has a gambling problem. I’m worried that if I give her $300, the money isn’t actually going to go toward utilities or household expenses. I’m worried it will end up at the casino.
I also have other financial responsibilities.
I owe my college around $500 because I failed one class. I took five classes and passed four, but I failed one, and now I have another bill to deal with.
My mom also expects me to help with my little brother.
She knows I have to work early in the morning, but she’ll wake me up and ask me to take him to school.
His school is in the complete opposite direction from my job, so I have to use extra gas and spend extra time driving. When I asked about gas money, she basically told me that she doesn’t need to give me gas money because she’s letting me live with her.
That’s another thing that frustrates me.
I understand that she’s letting me live with her, and I’m not saying I don’t appreciate that.
But I’m also paying for a lot of my own expenses, I’m working, I’m going to school, I’m helping take care of family members, and I’m currently sleeping on the couch because I don’t even have a bed.
And now that I’ve finally gotten $500 after working for months without getting paid, she wants $300 of it.
I’m also planning to move in with my dad soon. This isn’t something I want to stay in permanently, and I’ll be leaving within the next month.
That’s part of why I’m struggling to understand why I should suddenly start paying $300 a month when I’m going to be leaving soon anyway.
I don’t want to create a huge conflict with my mom. I just want her to understand that I genuinely cannot afford to give her $300 right now.
I feel like she’s calculating how much I should be making based on how many hours I work, but she’s not considering all the expenses I have.
Yes, I work. Yes, I’m 18. Yes, my mom is letting me live with her.
But I’m also trying to build my life, stay in college, keep my car running, pay my bills, and save money.
I don’t want to be ungrateful, but I also feel like I have to think about myself because nobody else is going to pay my bills or fix my car if it breaks down.
So am I in the wrong for refusing to give my mom $300 a month right now?
Am I being selfish and ungrateful because she’s letting me live with her, or is it reasonable for me to say that I simply cannot afford $300 right now, especially when I’m leaving soon and don’t even have my own bed?

I (18F) work two jobs. My full-time job has me waking up around 7:00 a.m. every day, and I leave the house around 9:00 a.m. I also have a part-time job, so depending on the day, I either come home for a few hours before leaving again or I don’t come home until around midnight.
Here’s the issue. My mom doesn’t currently work, so when I wake up in the morning, she’s asleep. I don’t wake her up just to say “good morning” because I don’t want to disturb her. When I get home around midnight, she’s usually asleep too, so I don’t wake her up to say “good night” either.
Tonight, she got really upset. She said she’s tired of me coming into “her house” without speaking to her. She called me ungrateful, said I don’t pay any bills, and told me it’s rude that I don’t say hi. She banged on my bedroom door, cussed me out, and said a lot of hurtful things.
The thing is, I’m not intentionally ignoring her. My little brother runs up and hugs me when I get home if he’s awake, and I’m always happy to see him. I just don’t see the point in waking someone up just to say good morning or good night. If she’s awake, I’ll speak to her, but most of the time she’s sleeping because of my work schedule.
Now I’m wondering if I’m missing something. Is it really disrespectful not to wake someone up just to greet them? Or is my mom overreacting?

I (18F) am in my first ever relationship. Growing up, I wasn’t really allowed to date, so most of my interactions with guys happened online through games like Roblox. Looking back, I know that wasn’t the safest thing.

Before I met my now boyfriend (19M), I was talking to a couple of guys online who lived in different states. I had never even seen most of their faces, and it wasn’t anything serious to me.

Then I met my boyfriend in California. At first we were just friends, but he actually took me on dates and we spent time together in person. Eventually he moved to Texas for a while, but we still talked every day and FaceTimed constantly. During that time, I was still talking to one other guy online.

He later decided to come back to California and worked really hard to get flights to come back. During the time he was coming back, I was still messaging that one guy online.

The thing is, he never actually asked me to be his boyfriend or made things exclusive. In my mind, I was still single and thought it was normal to talk to more than one person.

When he got back, he saw the messages on my phone. He got very upset and yelled at me for hours, calling me a disappointment and saying I was “for everybody.” A couple weeks later, he officially asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes.

Now we’ve only been together for about two weeks, but we keep arguing about it. He says he forgives me, but he still brings it up and says he feels like I’m going to hurt him or go behind his back. During arguments, he’s also said hurtful things like calling me sneaky, a disappointment, and recently commenting on my body and telling me I need to stop eating so much.

The situation before we were official was never meant to hurt him, but now I feel constantly guilty and like I’m being treated like I cheated. At the same time, the comments and arguments are starting to affect me emotionally.

AITA?

I’m 18F and my boyfriend is 19M. We’ve been dating for a little while.

For context, I weigh around 187 and he weighs about 150. I’ve been thinking about losing some weight for myself and have mentioned it here and there. He also suggested we go to the gym together, and we both talked about our fitness goals—he wants to gain weight and I want to lose some.

Recently, while we were talking about it again, I mentioned that I feel like I spend a lot of money on food for both of us and need to be more careful with that. During the conversation, he said he thinks we should “swap weights,” meaning he should eat more to gain weight and I should eat less to lose weight and go down to his weight.

He also told me I need to stop eating as much.

I don’t think he meant it in a controlling or mean way, but it really hurt my feelings. It made me feel like he wants me to lose weight or is unhappy with my body, even though he usually tells me he loves me no matter what.

I was actually the one who brought up losing weight first, so I’m also wondering if I made it normal to talk about my body like this.

AITA for feeling hurt and uncomfortable about what he said?