My roommate and I have a housemate relationship and a landlord-tenant relationship. I will separate the good things she has done for me to our housemate relationship (and whatever bad things that I can forgive) and then our responsibilities of money in our landlord-tenant relationship. I cannot let her off the hook anymore, and I cannot just let things go just because she happened to be nice to me recently. I have to firmly say that when things are wrong, they are wrong and not let it slide. I cannot mix housemate and landlord-tenant items together and just forgive her, because then I would be doing myself a disservice and I need to help myself more than other people this year.
My roommate asked me for rent early again this month because she was flying out to the Caribbean for a slew of conferences. I told her I didn't get paid till the 1st so I can't pay her because I don't have enough money. Then she asked me to deposit it on Monday and I said I could try ... which I regret a lot. So that makes her kind of happy, because she will have "extra" spending money to help her out. Does she really have such money issues that she has to keep doing this to me? This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time unless I do something about it. This is the fifth time she has asked me for rent early and I counted.
I think I am going to make a copy of that agreement again and highlight that clause which gives me a grace period of three days and I am not going to do anything special regarding the rent, because everyone has been giving me a hard time about it and wondering why I have been so stupid about it. I am not even going to deposit the rent this time, because I will be really busy at work and cannot leave until 5:45 that day and by the time I got home, the bank was already closed. I am not making a special trip on Monday for her. I refuse. Some people need to be taught a lesson and I cannot let her walk all over me with this money issue anymore. If she has financial problems, then she should learn how to budget better not rely on me.
I am just starting out in my career and my life, I should be the one having money issues not her. And even if I am down to just $500 left in my checking, I don't say anything about it, because it was my poor management that made it this way. You don't see me asking my bosses for an advance so I can pay my rent, or asking my roommate to give me an extra copy days after the grace period interest-free to not pay until I had more money. I suck it up and deal with it. I manage my money this best I can and if I only happen to have $500 left, then that is what I will work with. I don't beg my parents for help, or anyone else, because managing my money is my responsibility, just as her inability to have extra spending money is not my problem. She cannot use that to make me feel guilty, because I am great at managing my money and I don't understand why a woman who is almost 60 cannot do so.
Also, my responsibility with the rent ends with me handing her the check on the 1st or within three days after, it does not include me making special trips to deposit it for her. No other person out there has ever had to do what I do, I have only heard the opposite of people who are late on rent because they are so bad with managing their money that they can't pay so they don't honor their contracts and agreements. I honor my part of the agreement and I want her to do so too, so I am going to copy that page and I am going to highlight it. I am going to show her that she can't mix our housemate relationship with our landlord-tenant one and that she cannot exploit me anymore.
Everyone around me has been telling that she has been exploiting me and I have let it go each on way too many occasions to not see their point anymore. I am not going to do this anymore. We will have to see what the outcome will be on Tuesday.
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