The Moneyologist: How would you cope if you lived with the most entitled millennial in America?
The Moneyologist will check in with six of the most popular letters of 2016 over the next six days. Each letter-writer sought answers to very different problems.
MarketWatch readers usually have a lot to say about Moneyologist dilemmas. Quite a lot, in fact. So what happened next? Did the letter-writers take the Moneyologist’s advice? Here is the first of that batch of updates:
This millennial decided to break up with her entitled roommate
The Moneyologist labeled this 20-something San Francisco resident “the most entitled millennial in America.” She vacationed in Hawaii, but expected other people to buy her food. She even stole other people’s soda from the apartment’s refrigerator. The letter writer, who wished to remain anonymous, was fed up playing mother to a peer. “What do I do? Do I just ghost her? Do I tell her she’s a financial idiot? Help!”
The column’s advice was stern and advocated a break-up: “Sometimes, we experience the most stress by not speaking up and standing up for ourselves. She doesn’t have to change her lifestyle, but at least you can mark her card and, if your friendship fades away, you know that you have been honest and upfront with her as to why.”
And now?
She made a change and did the unthinkable, managing to move into an apartment on her own, even though she is still in her 20s and living in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in America. “After reading both the Moneyologist’s advice — and reading the real talk from the comments section too — I ultimately decided to move out and let the friendship fade away.”
It wasn’t an easy decision, but the anonymous letter-writer knew that sometimes you can’t take everyone with you on your life’s journey, especially when some adults want others to take care of them. “In the time between graduating college and now, I’ve learned that while it’s not easy to lose friends, it’s a lot easier than keeping people in my life whose priorities conflict with mine,” she added. “Life is too short to mess around with the people who pilfer your Diet Snapple!”
The next Moneyologist update comes from the woman who wanted to evict her sister — who has a learning disability — from the family home. Did she take the advice to think twice about selling and dividing the home 50/50? Find out here.
Do you have questions about inheritance, tipping, weddings, family feuds, friends or any tricky issues relating to manners and money? Send them to MarketWatch’s Moneyologist and please include the state where you live (no full names will be used).
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