AITAH for not paying for my brother to come home?
I (18F) have an older brother Tom (30M) who lives about two hours from our hometown. He wants to come down for Christmas but has recently lost his job and is taking a major pay-cut working elsewhere. We heard from our little sister (13F) that he's been trying to reach out to me and my other brother Sam (24M) about trying to get us to pay for his bus ticket as a Christmas gift. This would be $50 each way because of Christmas inflated prices.
Problem is I've been saving up for university which is starting in a few months and I'm not really giving anyone Christmas gifts because I've been really stressed about saving. Sam can afford to pay for it all but doesn't want to because Tom has been giving him shit for having to move back home recently even though Tom had to move back home during COVID.
Tom has been trying to organize calls to talk about Christmas which has been difficult because of Sam and I's work schedules. I work 5.30am-2.30pm and Sam works 6pm-3am so we are barely home and awake at the same time. He's been harassing our little sister about it because she's the only one who picks up his calls (because she's 13 and unemployed) even though she has no money or influence and can't help him at all.
Our mom tried to step in and gave Tom $100 for Christmas. He claims this is his Christmas present and NOT for the bus ticket. Mom told him to ask grandma and she'd buy his bus ticket. Now Tom doesn't even want to come to Christmas because he's just going to be pissed at us the whole time. He's been texting us long paragraphs and calling us out on social media which we don't care about but still.
Anyway AITA for not just giving him $50?
Posted Dec 9, 2025, 8:58 AM UTC