32-year-old employee spends $100 of her own money on Halloween candy for an office Halloween party, refuses to donate the leftover candy to another department: '30 year old fighting over candy is so funny'

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Oct 30, 2025 4:00 PM EDT

When your friend has you over for a party, it's expected that you bring over something as a thank you for them hosting. Sometimes that little something is a bottle of expensive wine and sometimes it's a bag of chips, depending on the occasion. It's a basic courtesy to thank your friend for the effort it takes to make their home ready for company, and the time it takes to clean up afterwards.

There's a big difference between buying a pizza for a movie night with your friends and buying pizzas out of pocket for an office party. You expect your office to be able to shell out some cash to pay for the catering and decorations for office parties, but that's not always the case. It's extremely common for teachers to pay out-of-pocket for supplies for classroom holiday celebrations and pizza parties. Most employees who aren't teachers are totally unwilling to use their own personal money to fund an experience for their coworkers, and that's the way it should be. Unless you really want to buy Jeff from IT Tootsie Rolls for the Halloween party, you shouldn't be expected to do so.

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  • Nobody expected the woman in this story to buy candy for her office Halloween party. But when her coworkers asked if they could use the leftover candy for another event in another department, they were understandably surprised by her response. After all, they didn't know she was the one who bought the candy with her own money.

  • A red bowl filled with lots of candy
    via Douglas Clark

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Am I the bad guy for not giving away the rest of the Halloween candy?

    My job had a Halloween event recently that I (32F) purchased $100 worth of candy for. No one asked me to do it, but since | knew that we did not have the budget for the candy, I took it upon myself to purchase. I did
    via u/Weird-Radio-1719
  • make it clear to my co-workers that if any candy was left over from the event, I would be taking it home. Well, the day of the event came, and everything went great until we were packing up to leave, with a bag of candy left over, when another department asked if they could have any leftover candy for another event
    via u/Weird-Radio-1719
  • Office workers dancing and celebrating
    via Sebastian Herrmann

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • they were having the day of Halloween. Apparently, a lot of other departments had donated their leftover candy. I politely declined, no reason given, just said “no, that's okay” and finished cleaning up our area
    via u/Weird-Radio-1719
  • The other department seemed surprised, and one of them made a cringy face before walking back to their table
    via u/Weird-Radio-1719
  • A man posting for a picture with his hands on his chest
    via Pablo Merchán Montes (Unsplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • I mean, I paid for the candy, and Halloween candy ain't cheap, shouldn't I be able to determine what happens to the rest ?
    via u/Weird-Radio-1719
  • Angelblade92 NTA - But it's foolish of you to use your own money for a workplace expense.
    via u/Angelblade92
  • hypotheticalkazoos exactly because of this! that person now thinks OP is hoarding company resources. OP did you tell THAT person you bought that vandy with your own money?
    via u/hypotheticalkazoos
  • crackerfactorywheel I politely declined, no reason given I'm gonna guess OP did not say that they bought the candy based on this line.
    via u/crackerfactorywheel
  • Spare-Article-396 Why are you personally paying $100 for candy for a Halloween event your job hosted? What is the point of having a Halloween event without having a candy budget? I mean, you're obvs NTA, but I can't understand this at all.
    via u/Spare-Article-396
  • driveonacid Teachers pay for everything out of their own pockets. I don't think OP is a teacher, but plenty of people pay for things for work. That is something that needs to be changed
    via u/driveonacid
  • Reasonable_Patient92 NAH. They aren't AH for asking if it's company culture for departments to do this. You aren't because you paid for it and it is your candy. The only thing I would have done is when you declined, you should have informed them that you personally paid for it and it was not a communal/department purchase.
    via u/Reasonable_Patient92
  • StAlvis NAH one of them made a cringy face OK. So what? That's fine. They can have their feelings. I don't see where anyone in here said or did anything in response to your declining that would make them an asshole.
    via u/StAlvis
  • Zombie-MountedArcher YTA, not for keeping the candy, but for not telling them you bought it. I know this sub is huge on "you don't owe anyone an explanation for anything!" but we all know at work, perception is reality. You don't want to get branded as the stingy a-hole that wouldn't donate leftover candy to
    via u/Zombie-MountedArcher
  • another department when the company paid for it - and it's reasonable of your co-worker to think that it was the company that shelled out. You could have just said “Sorry, I actually bought this myself & I promised the leftovers to my kids/neighbors/spouse/whatever" and it wouldn't have been an issue.
    via u/Zombie-MountedArcher
  • yappmaster 30yo fighting over candy is so funny, usually when you buy food for a party you should consider it a total loss but in this case I do see your point, they're not actually eating it, they just want to take it for themselves to supposedly reuse it for another party in their name. Fuck em, they can buy their own candy if they need it.
    via u/yappmaster

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