A 23-year-old woman recently lost her temper with her mother after years of her mom snooping at her card payments and telling her what she should and shouldn’t spend her money on. The mom was a bank employee and could easily access her daughter’s transaction history at work, and the pair later also had a joint credit account.
Here’s what the daughter had to say.
“My mom works at my bank and has for ten years. She’s the one who opened my account when I was 13. And she’s always watched my spending from work and would tell me or make a comment about it whenever I spent more than she thought I should or didn’t approve of what I bought,” the younger woman said.
Although the daughter was okay with this when she was younger, she asked her mother to respect her privacy once she went to college. However, her mother continued to monitor her spending even after she graduated and moved back home.
After many arguments, the woman managed to remove her mother’s access to her debit card. However, her mother still had access to her credit card, which she had applied for herself.
She said, “I kept this card because I admit to having a spending problem sometimes. And this card has a limit, so I don’t overdo it. It’s handy.”
Now living independently with her boyfriend and paying her own bills and rent, she recently received a message from her mother criticizing her spending on an app game.
The woman responded angrily, questioning why her mother was still monitoring her account. Her mother said frivolous spending could affect her own credit if the woman didn’t pay.
The daughter pointed out that she had never missed a payment, had a good credit score, and wasn’t using her mother’s money. She asked her mother to respect her privacy and stop causing arguments, as they had a good relationship otherwise.
The woman continued, “my mom then told me if it was such a big deal, then cancel the card and get a new one from a different bank. I said yes, that’s what I’m going to do because I’m tired of her snooping and lecturing me on spending MY money.”
After the argument, her mother stopped texting her, and the daughter remarked, “I’m just waiting for later when dad calls to defend her like always.”
The daughter later wondered if she was actually in the wrong for yelling at her mother and threatening to cancel the account to prevent her from seeing it.
She acknowledges that the situation could have been avoided if she had switched banks earlier, but she had always been worried about the potential fallout and hadn’t wanted to damage her relationship with her mother over the issue.
She recently asked for advice online, questioning her anger and decision to immediately close the account, despite this obviously upsetting her mom.
One internet user said, “NTA. If you want mom out of your business, then cancel the card; your mom is not going to change. I’m not even sure what she is doing is legal.”
Another posted, “you have a joint credit card with your mother, and your mother is absolutely correct that a missed payment could negatively impact her since she is also on the account. She has a vested interest in this account and monitoring it. Instead of snapping at her like a child, you should have moved your bank account to a separate bank and canceled the joint one.”
A third commented, “YTA for not getting your own card. While your mom is annoying, she is allowed to worry about her own credit, especially since you admit you have a spending problem.”
Have you ever had to deal with a parent’s opinions on how you spend your money? Do you think the mom, in this case, was right to be concerned?
Source: Reddit
