'My girlfriend left me over a cheese wheel. AITA for my reaction?' UPDATED

"My girlfriend left me over a cheese wheel. AITA for my reaction?"

I (27M) and my girlfriend (26F) were saving for a house down payment. I work, and she is unemployed. I have saved 32,000 and she has saved 4,000 so I feel like I bear the brunt of the financial decision making here. I was doing the Oxford county cheese trail, and found a “vault release”. They were selling a 140 pound wheel of 21-year-old cheddar.

It was aged using a traditional cloth bound method/.That's practically extinct here in Canada, and with over 21 years it is extremely concentrated. 21-year-old cheddar often sells for $120 a pound. The farm was selling the entire wheel for $18,500. If I cut it into 200g wedges and sell it at $60 each I can make $38,000.

I bought the cheese wheel, and brought it home in my truck. When I rolled it into our apartment at first she was excited, when I started to explain the financials and investment potential she turned sour. She didn’t yell, but expressed she wasn’t happy about how I spent MY share of our house savings.

She is now staying with her parents. I think she’s overreacting because she doesn’t understand the Canadian housing market. Our savings is not enough for a down payment without a ridiculous mortgage, and we need to take these opportunities. AITA for my reaction? Or am I the only one with ambition in our relationship?

TLDR; my girlfriend is staying with her parents because I spent my share of our savings on a cheese wheel which can be cut into wedges and sold for a sizeable profit.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

Amonitordarkly wrote:

You spent $18,500 on cheese with no actual plan on how to you’re going to recoup that outside of “Yeah I can totally sell this!!!” 140 pounds equals 63,500 grams. You’re talking about selling 200 gram wedges. That would require you to prepare, package and sell 317 units without any kind of market presence.

Incidentally, your math is WAY off. Selling 317 wedges at $60 each comes to $19,050 which nets you a whopping $650 for what will surely be weeks of work on the completely off chance you manage to sell everything. Enjoy being the human equivalent of a Kraft Single.

lonely_space241 wrote:

How in the hell are you going to find enough buyers for this niche cheese? Don't you need a license to sell food? What regulations do you have to follow?

After you cut the cheese, how long will the wheel stay fresh? Can you store it appropriately to preserve it for that length of time? Even a supermarket would have a hard time going through an entire wheel of niche super expensive cheese. I don't think you thought this through enough for it to be a good idea.

You would probably be lucky to recover the amount you paid to begin with, and are probably going to be skirting the law to sell it unless you are already licensed to do so. Your girlfriend essentially moving out because of this seems extreme, but to be fair this seems like you really didn't think things through.

teatuk wrote:

OP the only post on your profile is of your gym bod progress. How you gonna keep these gains with that much cheese in the house??! If this is serious, and you do live in South Eastern Ontario, you'd best look up the regulations regarding the sale of dairy products.

There are VERY strict rules about selling dairy in some cases and you could find trouble. Either way, as a fellow Ontarian, I'll keep an eye out for an expensive cheese listing on marketplace.

Also, if you were my boyfriend I would be pissed. It's not about cheese, it's about shared goals and communication. It's your money, but I'd seriously question your judgement in making such a rash decision without discussing it if the plan was to be life-partners.

PA2SK wrote:

You say this cheese "often sells for $120 a pound", yet you actually paid $132 a pound for it. In that case it sounds to me like you overpaid and could struggle to turn a profit off it. Next you say:

"If I cut it into 200g wedges and sell it at 60$ each I can make $38,000."

200 grams is 7 ounces. You could get a maximum of 320, 7 ounces slices out of a 140 pound wheel, assuming zero waste. At $60 each that would get you $19,200, not $38,000. Your math is totally off for one thing, and I suspect you're going to struggle to find hundreds of customers willing to pay $60 for 7 ounces of cheese, so most likely you will lose money from this venture.

That said, your money is yours to do what you want with, but if you have a partner you are planning a future with it's a bad idea to make big decisions like this without running it by them first. It breeds distrust, resentment, instability, etc.

You're supposed to discuss things together and make decisions together. That's how partnerships work. In this case maybe your partner could have checked your math and explained how far off your numbers were and saved you from a costly mistake. YTA.

holiday_trainer_2657 wrote:

Info: how many people do you know who will pay $120 for a pound of cheese? Do you know how to safely store it until sold? Do you know the health laws for selling cheese? Do you know the tax laws for this business you are starting? GF is probably tired of your harebrained schemes.

Sea_Milk_69 wrote:

Start slicing and selling and then come update us lmao.

OP made sure to come back with an update:

I have taken some of your feedback into consideration from my last post. For those curious: my girlfriend is no longer in the picture. She cracked due to low risk tolerance, so I’ve decided to go all in on the business. I initially tried to return the wheel to the distributor to recoup some capital, thinking they’d have some pity.

They were actually considering it until they came out to look at it in my truck. Apparently, the minor heat damage I caused to the paraffin wax while trying to open last week compromised the wheel which was already non-refundable in the first place. Since I’m now stuck with a 140lb, 30,000+ asset, I had to pivot to asset protection and keep what I still have.

I went out and bought a True TBB-2-HC 59” solid door back bar cooler, a professional digital temperature humidity controller, an industrial humidifier, a vacuum sealer, and ripening mats. Total cost was about 8.5k after taxes. Expensive, yes, but I wasn't going to let $30,000+ investment depreciate value.

The delivery was difficult. My apartment door is narrow, so I had to take the door entirely off the hinges and shimmy the cooler into the living room. I had maybe a millimeter of clearance between the frame and the unit. I was exhausted and excited so I started researching installation on my phone before putting my front door back on. That’s when my landlord walked in.

Apparently, he believes my door being off the hinges somehow removes my reasonable right to privacy. We already have a strained relationship because of my own use of the unit. He still holds a grudge because I was doing some light metal fabrication with a CONSUMER plasma cutter in my kitchen a few months ago.

He saw the cooler, the vacuum sealer, and the wheel of heritage cheese and started crying about commercial operations and fire hazards. I told him very clearly: The cheese is for personal consumption. There is nothing in my lease that limits how much dairy a tenant can own.

The next morning, I found an eviction notice in my mailbox. it’s riddled with spelling errors as if written in a haste. I’m already preparing my defense for the Landlord Tenant Board. AITA for my reaction? I’m being evicted over dietary preferences as far as the landlord is concerned and I feel like this is an unlawful action

EDIT: Added a + to the valuation as it is possible to increase my margins depending on the quantities I sell in. Also, please bear in my mind that I have sold ZERO cheese so I feel like this is premature action. Thank you.

Here's what people had to say to OP's update:

PepsiAllday78 wrote:

I'm glad your GF left. You don't have the sense God gave a goose.

CWoww wrote:

I feel like this post will go down in infamy. This is absurd. I hope you prove us all wrong, but dropping over half your net worth on a product you have no experience selling, which also has a shelf life to it, was a very bad idea. You lost yourself in the “what if” instead of making a rational choice.

Again, hope you prove everyone here wrong and at least make your money back. But idk man. As a consumer, I'm not buying a pound or cheese from a random dude who doesn’t even have a storefront or any sort of guaranteed practices to make sure the product is responsibly maintained. Good luck, hombre. Wild post.

Correctadhesiveness9 wrote:

“She cracked due to low risk tolerance” my dude, she’s the only one in this relationship who has any sense.

Madwordlx1 wrote:

YTA. Brother, wtf? This is some manic bipolar stuff. You spent nearly your entire savings on a wheel of cheese with zero equipment for it, knowledge of it, or distribution network. You think some grocery store is gonna just say "sure thing boss, we will buy cheese from a rando?"

Are you even licensed to sell a food product? And your landlord is correct, you are trying to skirt the leasing rules and you know it. If he took you to court, they would definitely side with him when they hear your defense of "I bought 25k of cheese and equipment cause I just like cheese that much."

Seriously, if you are feeling like you don't need much sleep right now, are in pretty good spirits, feel like everyone but you is wrong, etc...you may be having a manic episode. Talk to a doctor please.

Edit: Forgot to change to YTA after I typed this and talked myself into it.