Woman stops sharing food with picky 'broke' roommate, gets called 'cheap a**hole.'

Living with a roommate can get really awkward really fast if you don't have a mutual understanding of boundaries and how to communicate.

Unfortunately, agreeing on basics like whether to share food can quickly get tense. Especially if one roommate has a sense of entitlement.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she's wrong for no longer sharing food with her roommate.

She wrote:

AITA for letting my roommate go hungry because they cannot understand how food works?

My roommate, Tammy, and I are both on fairly limited budgets. I get a little help from my parents so I have a little bit of a buffer in my income.

I tend to make meals for myself where I will have leftovers so I can skip making myself lunch or dinner later in the week. Tammy on the other hand makes each meal as precisely as she can so she doesn't waste money.

Just two different ways of looking at meals I guess. Just after Christmas last year Tammy was very low on money and asked if she could please have some of my leftovers. I agreed.

Instead of serving herself a small portion to see if she would like my food she just took a full portion. She are about a quarter of what she took and threw the rest in the trash. I didn't say anything.

Almost the exact same thing happened two weeks ago. This time I asked her to please just try a little before she took a full portion. She said she was really hungry. Almost an entire meal in the trash.

Two nights ago she asked for my spaghetti. I said no. It isn't really going to affect me for her to throw away a meal. But it means she is wasting not just my money I spent on the food but also time I spent getting the ingredients and preparing the food.

She isn't talking to me but she is complaining to other people about me being cheap and letting her 'starve.' I'm not. I actually gave her a box of generic mac and cheese for her to eat. I'm just not going to watch my hard work literally go in the garbage.

She thinks I'm being an a**hole because I won't share my food. I would share if she wasn't wasting it.

People quickly weighed in with their thoughts.

SecretJealous4342 wrote:

NTA. You tried to be kind and help her out when she was in need. Then she threw your help in the trash. She is the a**hole. Plus Holy crap you even gave her food she could make for herself.

KronkLaSworda wrote:

NTA

She's wasting food and you're not her mother.

Infamous_Control_778 wrote:

NTA 'Don't take what you won't eat' is an easy rule most kids learn.

fanofpolkadotts wrote:

You know you're NTA, Tammy knows you're NTA, but she's trying to manipulate you. By trying your food & then rejecting it, she's suggesting that you should offer her something else.

What she wants is for you to start making what SHE prefers~for the win. You buy it, prepare it, and she gets the food she likes + you pay for it. Make the food she doesn't like & eat your own leftovers. She's not gonna starve!

Fenix_Glo wrote:

NTA. Tell Tammy to take herself to Costco and get a box of ramen noodles. Unfortunately, you might have to start cooking single portions if she’s being an a**hole about it.

I had a roommate who had tons of canned food. Dude ate my food anyway. It got to the point where I had a deadbolt on my door and I microwaved my meals in my room.

It seems crystal clear that OP is NTA and Tammy is a manipulator.