Aunt and cousins refuse to pay 16-year-old niece for doing their acrylic nails, leading niece's mom to confront them: ‘They read her messages without responding’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Aug 3, 2026 8:30 AM EDT

When someone gives you a service, you need to pay them, no matter who they are to you.

My 14-year-old niece loves to spend time with my dogs; they are her absolute favorites. Most of the time, she would come to hang out at our place and simply ignore us for hours. She would take the dogs out for a long walk, play with them, and even do her homework while lying on the floor with them by her side. She is their best friend, and they love it when she visits, and I love to see it.

After a while, though, it felt like I needed to pay her back for all the work she was doing. I knew she saw it as a privilege and not a job, but she came to my rescue so many times when I couldn't take my dogs out or was stuck at work and couldn't feed them in time; it felt wrong not to give back for all the time and work she was giving me and the pups.

A dog walker can get decent pay from this type of job, and my niece should not be treated differently just because she's my niece. So now, whenever she comes to take care of the dogs when I can, she gets a nice hourly rate that she can use however she likes. Everybody wins.

The fact that the niece in the story below told her aunt and cousins her rates for an acrylic nails job, they agreed to it, and still didn't pay after she finished, is outrageous. She has spent time, effort, and material on giving them her absolute best, and they now act like she's overreacting for wanting her hard-earned money for it. 

It doesn't surprise me that the niece's mom wants to get involved and ensure her daughter gets the money she deserves, but it is a shame she has to fight actual family members for it…

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  • Blond Girl Painting Her Aunt's Nails with Brown Nail Polish.
    via Karola G

    Blond Girl Painting Her Aunt's Nails with Brown Nail Polish.

    Subjects are models.

  • My 16-year-old daughter did her aunt and cousin’s acrylic nails for $25 each, and they never paid her — how should I handle it?

    My daughter is 16 and has been learning how to do nails for the past few months. She has been practicing and recently started doing full
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  • sets of acrylic nails for family and friends. Since her aunt and cousin are family, she didn't want to charge them much.
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  • For context, this is her dad's side of the family. Her father and I no longer speak, but I've always stayed on good terms with his family(her aunt), and we still keep in touch.
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  • When they asked my daughter to do their nails, she told them ahead of time that the price would be $25 each. They even responded,
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  • "Really, that's it?” and agreed to pay. She did her aunt's nails first and then started working on her cousin's. Her cousin wanted a more
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  • detailed design, which took my daughter even more time and effort to complete.
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  • While my daughter was doing her cousin's nails, her aunt said she was going to run to the gas station to get cash from the ATM and would be
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  • right back. She left and returned a few minutes later. Instead of paying my daughter, she gave cash to
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  • her own mom and her brother because she owed them money.
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  • At the end of the visit, my daughter still hadn't been paid. Her aunt said she couldn't get enough cash
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  • from the ATM and promised to stop by the next day with the money, but she never did.
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  • Nail tech doing a customer's nails.
    via Getty Images

    Nail tech doing a customer's nails.

    Subjects are models.

  • My daughter reached out to both her aunt and cousin several times. They apologized and said they would get to it later, asking if
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  • they could send the money through Venmo, Zelle, or another payment app. This went on for several days.
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  • They would read her messages without responding, and eventually they told her they couldn't pay her right now but would try to get it to her sometime.
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  • My daughter was really upset. She spent a lot of time on both sets, used her own products, and was planning to use the $50 for back-to-
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  • school shopping. I ended up giving her the $50 myself because I didn't want her to feel like her hard work wasn't worth anything.
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  • I feel like my daughter deserves to be paid for the work she completed after they agreed to the price. Would you bring it up to the aunt, or would you let it go?
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  • Trin_42 Absolutely bring it up and tell the aunt you don't appreciate your daughter being taken advantage of. "I hope you like
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  • your nails because she's never doing them for you again you cheapskate."
    via Trin_42
  • swbarnes2 Now you have an excuse to never do anything for those. people again. "Sorry, I can't. BTW, remember that $75 you owe my daughter?"
    via swbarnes2
  • Sure-Initiative6001 100% would bring it up!
    via Sure-Initiative6001

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Tags

nails work nail tech niece aunt family mom nail art money cousins entitled people
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