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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

It's only a fiver but..........

173 replies

Taikoo · 03/12/2020 11:49

I'm being an arse maybe, but anyway.....

A few weeks back, I helped a friend, let's call her Jane, to move flat.
Went to her place at about 5:30pm after work on a Friday, expecting her to be ready to go move then. She said she'd be ready to go at 5:30pm.
She wasn't ready. No problem. I waited about 90 minutes until she was ready.
Another friend, I'll call her Bella, joined us to help Jane move, in the meantime.

We helped Jane to bring her heavy suitcases and other stuff down the stairs, in the lift and out to the building entrance to wait for the taxis.
Jane had booked two taxis.
She was moving from one furnished flat to another so we didn't have to hump furniture, luckily.

Jane took the first taxi and some of her stuff to the new flat.
Me and Bella waited 30 minutes more for taxi number 2 and took ourselves and the rest of Jane's stuff to her new place.
It took about 30 minutes to get to the new flat.
We live in a very large city.

I paid the equivalent of 5 pounds when we got near the flat. The taxi could not enter the housing compound and drive right to Jane's flat. And we couldn't find Jane's flat anyway as we had never been there before.
So me and Bella got out on the street, took the stuff to Jane's flat and I presumed that Jane would pay me back. Jane came out on the street to find us.

We had been promised food for giving up our Friday evening to help Jane move. She said she'd get takeaway.
Two other friends turned up and one of them had brought milkshakes and 5 little boxes of french fries and cheese dip, which were stone cold.
No other food was forthcoming. Jane didn't offer us anything.

By 9pm, Jane was making signs that she was tired so us 4 all headed off home. I was starving so I went to my favourite burger place for food at about 9:30pm.

A few days later, I Whatsapped Jane and asked her for the money back. She said she give it to me but she hasn't yet.
We work in the same place.
I see her a lot.
It's now two weeks later.

Will I ask her one more time for my money tomorrow, or not?
It's not much money, only a fiver, but i'm annoyed because i gave up my Friday evening to help her and now i'm down a fiver.
And I don't think it's her right to expect me to pay for her taxi after we've helped her move.

OP posts:

GrannyRoberts · 04/12/2020 19:20

(but I am most likely autistic so some of these unwritten rules don't make sense to me)

CrankyFrankie · 04/12/2020 19:53

She sounds like an entitled little wazzock. Accost her at work and tell her she can treat you to (eg) lunch to cover the 5er and imaginary takeaway. Or join her on a wander down to the coffee shop and order a big frothy coffee on her. It’s the principle! I’ve no time for tight people as it ends up making you (up)tight around them, and where’s the fun in that?!

Justbrutallyhonest · 04/12/2020 20:23

Just ask her for it, I used to run the office fund and numerous people would not pay, until I would just leave my dignity at my desk and ask them, then next level I’d stick 20 post it notes all over their computer, then I’d literally ask them and eventually shout across the office until they paid up, in the end anyone that was b hind with their money would be hassled by everyone as they’re by sick of me harping on about it

33goingon64 · 04/12/2020 20:52

I would just leave it but don't offer to help her like this again. If she was a friend I wouldn't mind paying for the taxi anyway, I'd see it as part of the favour. The food thing would bother me more but I'd have just left earlier saying I was hungry rather than waiting for her to show signs of tiredness.

ILoveYoga · 04/12/2020 21:44

What I don’t understand is why on the Friday evening, after you finally arrived at the flat with her things, you didn’t say you were hungry, when would she be ordering the take away.

I can understand, be in £5, £10 or more, you should be reimbursed. I’m sure had she provided dinner, you would have felt a bit different about paying for the taxi,

nancybotwinbloom · 04/12/2020 22:08

Well Jane isn't your mate is she.

To find that out now it's the best fiver you have ever spent so just don't do her anymore favours.

StillCoughingandLaughing · 04/12/2020 22:13

As for giving up your evening... Isn't that the kind of thing friends do for one another? Maybe I'm living in a parallel universe but I can't believe you and other posters are so grudging about this!

Again, it’s a two-way street. I wouldn’t expect friends to charge me an hourly rate to help them move, but would I recognise they’d done a nice thing for me and think the least I could do to say thank you was buy them a takeaway. Why is it only the OP who’s supposed to be the perfect friend?

GYNisaliarWTF · 04/12/2020 22:55

From personal perspective from Jane’s POV.
I had five friends help me move in December last year. They were all paid fuel and bought food that evening. I didn’t think twice because I was eternally grateful for their help.
Had you and your friend not helped her, that would be £15 in taxi fare she’d have paid to do three trips which is equal to her trip plus what you and friend did to help her.
The £5 isn’t the issue here, it’s the promise made to feed you and you’d assume as a normal human that she’d just give you the taxi fare when you walked through the door lugging all her shit.

hopeso · 04/12/2020 23:56

I call people like Jane energy suckers. I've had enough of them in my lifetime, and sometimes, you just have to let them go. You did her a huge favour and she took advantage of the friendship. Forget the fiver now and move on. I know what you mean re the fiver. If I owe someone money, even it's 10p (my local market trader!), I make sure I always pay back. What does Bella think of all this?

Original poster

Taikoo · 05/12/2020 02:00

@WinterWhore

You dont sound like friends

I'd never ever ask my friend for £5 back but that's upto you I guess. You helped her and it was like you wanted rewarding for helping? If you are friends you should want to help out. You sound so petty and I seriously envy your life if this is all you have to worry about.

It's hardly a reward for helping WinterWhore. What is wrong with you? Can't you read properly or are you poor at comprehension?

I gave her 4 hours of my time, after a full 11 hour day at work. Because Jane asked for help.
Humped her suitcases and other stuff down and then up stairs.
Stood around in the cold to help her.
Paid for her taxi.
Didn't get fed, which she promised verbally and in a Whatsapp message.
And given the way the 5 of us wolfed down our mini box of cold french fries, bought by someone else, not Jane, I think its accurate to say we were all starving after a long evening helping Jane.

Like I and others have pointed out - you're not covering yourself in glory here WinterWhore and you come across as fairly typical of some of the individuals on here that are often deliberately circling for an argument and are downright contrary .

OP posts:

Original poster

Taikoo · 05/12/2020 02:09

@hopeso

Bella asked me to pay for the taxi. She didn't have any cash and her cash flow is limited, at the moment.

Haven't brought it up with Bella since, as I'm trying not to be the asshole.
Bella did say on Thursday that Jane has slipped her way out of an important and highly visible work project that they are supposed to share.
The responsibility is now on Jane to complete it and show it to clients and she's very nervous about it, because she has never done this type of project before.
Jane has done this type of project before but it is now left to Bella to sort out.
I can't help as its not my field at all and I haven't been trained in my career or at uni to produce this type of work. I work in an entirely different area.

OP posts:

sadblackcat · 05/12/2020 17:16

I once lent a work friend a fiver to as she was hard up. She never paid me back I did ask her a couple of weeks later but she kept stalling. In the end just wrote it off and thought I will never lend her anything again. Fast forward 2 years and she was going to sandwich shop so I asked her to get my lunch for me. Soon as she got back she asked me for the £6 I owed her before she would hand over my lunch. Lesson learned some people take and some people give.

FeeLock28 · 05/12/2020 20:40

The cost of moving is some hundreds, depending on your house/flat size and the location. Even doing it all yourself will include the cost of hiring a van. By asking you and your friend she's saved herself a great deal of money, and the least she should have done would be to have paid for your taxis to and from, as well as paid for your dinners.

Depending on how much you want to maintain your even distant relationship with her, suggest you tell her that you require the money back, having asked for it already - not paying it back is not an option for her. Then suggest keeping a discreet distance from her in future so that you don't get sucked into being used like this again. As the others have said, she's definitely a CF!

Carolbetty · 07/12/2020 11:00

She's either a CF or just completely unreliable. Either way, maybe think of it as £5 spent to learn the lesson about her, for the future.
Don't think you'll be seeing the cash any time soon.

PrincessConsuelaBanana · 08/12/2020 07:07

Dontforgetyourbrolly · 08/12/2020 07:16

I'd let the fiver go .... along with the friendship. Just let it fizzle out and no more offers of help .

Original poster

Taikoo · 08/12/2020 11:02

I didn't get her name for the Secret Santa, which was drawn yesterday.
I got someone I don't know, as always.

I did get my fiver back though.

OP posts:

PuffyChuff · 08/12/2020 11:25

That's good @Taikoo did she offer or did you have to ask again?

Original poster

Taikoo · 10/12/2020 09:46

I asked for it, face to face.
She was caught off guard by me definitely, but she coughed up then.

I've just had cashflow problems myself, as I'm abroad, so I'd prefer to have my own money back.
I can put it towards the secret santa gift for another colleague.

OP posts:

pickingdaisies · 11/12/2020 09:09

Good work, OP!

GRAK · 11/12/2020 09:19

With all her other actions, I would cut my losses and just not class her as a "Friend" anymore

Original poster

Taikoo · 12/12/2020 10:16

Just occurred to me that she might be my secret santa.

Although that would be very unlucky because there are more than 60 of us in on it.

OP posts:

fitzwilliamsquare · 12/12/2020 20:24

YABU, it is a fiver-let it go. I wouldn't even ask for a fiver back.

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