Single mom makes her 16-year-old pay back her own overdraft fees after catching her on a TikTok spending spree: '[She's] expecting me to waive a magic wand and pay if off'

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• "WIBTA for making my daughter pay back her own bank overdraft?"

  "I am a single mom working two jobs just to keep things stable. My daughter, Sophie (16F), has a part-time gig at a local bakery, which is supposed to be her "learning experience" for the real world. I cover the big stuff, but she has a student debit card for her personal expenses. I have lectured her plenty of times about how banks work and why you never, ever spend money you do not actually have in your account."

• “Yesterday I caught her looking at bank notifications on her phone and she looked like she wanted to vomit. Turns out she went on a massive TikTok-inspired shopping spree for high-end serums and makeup she saw some influencer pumping. She knew the money wasnt there, but since the transaction didn't decline immediately, she just kept tapping the card. Now she is sitting on a two hundred dollar deficit plus about sixty dollars in overdraft fees because she waited a few days to tell me.”

• "She came to me crying, expecting me to just wave a magic wand and pay it off because she is "just a kid" and "made a mistake." I am planning to tell her no. My plan is to make her use her entire next two paychecks from the bakery to zero out the account. I will cover the immediate balance so her credit isnt ruined before she even turns eighteen, but she will have to pay me back every single cent."

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• "This means she will have to miss a concert she has been talking about for months because she wont have a dime for the ticket or even gas. She also needs a new backpack because hers is literally falling apart, but if I go through with this, she is going to have to keep using the ripped one for the next semester. My mom thinks I am being a tyrant and says I should just let it go as a "scary lesson" without actually making her broke. She says being a teenager is hard enough without your mom acting like a debt collector."

• "I feel like if I bail her out now, I am just teaching her that someone will always be there to clean up her financial messes. But seeing her so stressed makes me feel like a total monster. If I stick to my guns and make her spend her whole summer pay on "makeup debt" instead of fun, would I be the buttface? I am exhausted from being the only person in this house who understands that money doesnt grow on trees. I dont want her to hate me, but I also dont want her to be thirty and still expecting a handout every time she overspends on credit cards."

  via 2VantaRipple

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• ChaoticCrashy

  NTA It’s critically important that she has consequences for her actions now, if she doesn’t then she won’t learn anything.

  You’re doing the right thing OP.

• 2VantaRipple OP

  Thank you. I needed to hear that because the guilt is real.

• Organic_Start_420

  NTA even if you don't but loan her the money for a new medium quality backpack. She needs to pay you back as soon as possible but letting her walking around with a damaged backpack isn't a good idea. If it rips she can lose documents, money, things etc

  She needs to miss her concert unless she can be return the items

• Katcar2007

  I think you are doing great, Momma! I work with a woman who has an 19 year old (was 15 when I started there) and she is 100% unable to function as an adult in any way. She can’t do money, failed out of college her first year because she either didn’t go to class or turn in assignments, and is now crying because the 24 hours a week she works in a coffee shop is more than she can handle. If her Mom had done what you are doing, her daughter would be so much better off! That said, I would go to a thrift/second hand store and get her a used backpack.

• Gleam_4Rook

  Better she learns this now with a couple hundred bucks than at 25 with thousands in credit card debt. Missing the concert [is a bummer], but thats just how reality works.

• 2VantaRipple OP

  That is what i am thinking. It hurts to see her sad but i cannot just pay for her tiktok addiction while i work two jobs.

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