u/KaleidoscopeFit3109

I (29M) was flying home last month, window seat, aisle and middle across from me. I'd booked this seat three months ago specifically because I get antsy on planes and wanted to see the sky.

About ten minutes before boarding finished, a woman asked if I'd swap so she could sit with her husband and toddler, who were scattered in a middle seat two rows back and an aisle seat further up. She was holding the baby and looked frazzled. The seat she wanted me to take was a middle seat in the very back row, next to the bathrooms.

I said I was sorry, but I'd rather keep my seat since I chose it on purpose and get uncomfortable in middle seats for long flights (it was a 5-hour flight). She got visibly annoyed and said "it's just a few hours, can't you be flexible for a family?" I offered to ask the flight attendant if there was any other solution, but I didn't want to just hand over my seat.

The flight attendant ended up finding another aisle passenger willing to switch with the husband instead, so it worked out for them without me moving. But the woman glared at me the rest of boarding, and her husband made a comment loud enough for me to hear about "some people only caring about themselves."

My sister thinks I should have just sucked it up and swapped since it was "only a few hours" and family separations are stressful. I feel like I paid for a specific seat for a reason and shouldn't be guilted into giving it up, especially for a downgrade to a middle seat by the bathroom.

AITA?

Hey everyone, looking for some perspective on prioritization.

My situation:

• Take-home pay: ~$3,400/month
• Rent + utilities: $1,300/month
• Other fixed expenses (car, phone, groceries, insurance): ~$900/month
• Credit card debt: $8,000 at 22% APR (minimum payment ~$200/month)
• Emergency fund: $3,000 in a savings account
• 401k: contributing 4% to get full employer match, nothing more right now
• No other debt (no car loan, no student loans)

After fixed expenses I have roughly $1,000/month I could put toward either extra debt payoff or savings.

What I'm trying to decide:

• Should I throw everything at the credit card debt since 22% APR is brutal, even though that would leave my emergency fund pretty thin?
• Or should I build my emergency fund up to 3-6 months of expenses first, then attack the debt?
• Is there a middle-ground approach that makes more sense here (like a smaller starter emergency fund, then debt, then building the fund back up)?

I've read a bit about the "debt avalanche" vs "debt snowball" methods but most of what I find assumes you already have some kind of stable emergency cushion in place, and I'm not sure how that changes when the fund itself is small.

Would appreciate hearing how others have approached this trade-off, or any math I should be running that I'm not thinking of. Thanks in advance.