Did I make a mistake?

[Nior2008]

My grandparents gave me and my sister $1000 to share to get new phones, the money was split $500 each so we could each get a phone. 

My oldest brother's gf gave me her old Samsung S20fe so I'm using that phone and I'm happy with it. I was thinking of using my share to get a Nintendo switch lite and a few games, but my sister says since I already have a phone she says I should give her my share to her so she can get a iPhone. I told her No, since it was my share. She says I'm being selfish since I have a phone I should give her my share. 

[Marcii]

No, you didnt do anything wrong she wouldnt even have gotten the money if you spent it + it your money you grandparents gave it to YOU to spend it.

[aDoomGuy]

Your sister is being selfish wanting all the money to herself.

[mr moose]

I don't think you technically owe her anything, but seeing as you have benefited from another family member being generous to you and your sister did not, you could show her some of the same generosity and offer her a 100 or so. 

 

These situations are rarely about the money but about the perception of fairness,  from your sisters point of view you got $500 plus a good enough phone that you don't have to buy one, While she got $500 only.   If there is nothing else to take into account (other money/things being lent, spent or gifted or needed) and I were in your shoes I'd offer her something to help get her a better phone.  Happy/supportive siblings make life a lot easier when things go bad.

[Needfuldoer]

It's your money, and she wants it now!

 

If she wants any part of your share so badly, share the Switch.

 

I can't believe flagship phones cost a thousand dollars now... Yikes.

[Avocado Diaboli]

She can get an iPhone for her $500 share: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se

 

Who cares if it's fair that you got a phone from your other sibling's girlfriend and she didn't? Would she have taken that S20FE if your brother's girlfriend would've offered it to her, or is she someone who just has to have an iPhone because it's an iPhone? If it's the latter, this is a good lesson to not be blinded by brand hype. 

[Shadow_Storm56]

13 hours ago, Nior2008 said:

My grandparents gave me and my sister $1000 to share to get new phones, the money was split $500 each so we could each get a phone. 

My oldest brother's gf gave me her old Samsung S20fe so I'm using that phone and I'm happy with it. I was thinking of using my share to get a Nintendo switch lite and a few games, but my sister says since I already have a phone she says I should give her my share to her so she can get a iPhone. I told her No, since it was my share. She says I'm being selfish since I have a phone I should give her my share. 

Haha no you owe her nothing, maybe help her pick out a phone? Besides Iphones are garbage so she should get a better phone anyways . You used intelligence to find a phone to not have to spend that money, it dosen't mean you now owe her the money. 

[Virus__]

10 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

I can't believe flagship phones cost a thousand dollars now... Yikes.

They aren't even that cheap. An entry level iPhone 14 Pro is something like $1800, A Glaxay S22 is almost $1500 & The Pixel 7 is $1000 in Australia. I remember when these phones were half those prices for the top tier ones, not the entry level flagship from these brands.. Pretty sure my iPhone 13 Pro Max 256gb was something like $2200..

[Nior2008]

20 hours ago, mr moose said:

I don't think you technically owe her anything, but seeing as you have benefited from another family member being generous to you and your sister did not, you could show her some of the same generosity and offer her a 100 or so. 

 

These situations are rarely about the money but about the perception of fairness,  from your sisters point of view you got $500 plus a good enough phone that you don't have to buy one, While she got $500 only.   If there is nothing else to take into account (other money/things being lent, spent or gifted or needed) and I were in your shoes I'd offer her something to help get her a better phone.  Happy/supportive siblings make life a lot easier when things go bad.

 My brother's gf did offer it to her first before me, she said she doesn't like android 

20 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

By pure chance I have a consulting fee of $500 per post. So this resolves the situation perfectly.

 

Did you do anything to earn the S20FE or was it just a gift while your sister got nothing? What's the value of a used S20FE? $200? IMHO it seems fair to attribute the honest value of the S20FE to the total and split it equally (be the bigger person). Your sister gets $600 to spend on a phone and you get $400 to spend on a Switch and a $200 phone. This is plenty for the Swiitch OLED and a game or two. So you both get a piece of the cake, you can mathematically show it's fair and you don't have the drama.

Nth, she was upgrading to S22 ultra, it was going to the trade in or either my sis or me. Since my sis didn't want it I took it. 

17 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

She can get an iPhone for her $500 share: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se

 

Who cares if it's fair that you got a phone from your other sibling's girlfriend and she didn't? Would she have taken that S20FE if your brother's girlfriend would've offered it to her, or is she someone who just has to have an iPhone because it's an iPhone? If it's the latter, this is a good lesson to not be blinded by brand hype. 

She wants the iPhone 14 pro, 

[Avocado Diaboli]

26 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

Because you both got offered the S20FE and your sister didn't take it, you should treat the $1000 and the S20FE as a combined pot. Since you took the S20FE from the pot, you should split the rest accordingly.

That's conflating two unrelated things. His sister refusing something offered by his brother's girlfriend does not automatically carry an entitlement to his share of the gift form their grandparents, these things are not part of the same transaction.

 

2 hours ago, Nior2008 said:

She wants the iPhone 14 pro, 

If she can't afford one without the monetary gift, she can't afford it with it. That's just a basic rule of life, if you can't afford something at least twice without draining your funds, you can't afford it at all.

[Chiyawa]

22 hours ago, aDoomGuy said:

Your sister is being selfish wanting all the money to herself.

So does mine, but, well, we learn to get along. I was still using Nokia 1600 when my sister bought her first iPhone 4.

[Chiyawa]

23 hours ago, mr moose said:

I don't think you technically owe her anything, but seeing as you have benefited from another family member being generous to you and your sister did not, you could show her some of the same generosity and offer her a 100 or so. 

 

These situations are rarely about the money but about the perception of fairness,  from your sisters point of view you got $500 plus a good enough phone that you don't have to buy one, While she got $500 only.   If there is nothing else to take into account (other money/things being lent, spent or gifted or needed) and I were in your shoes I'd offer her something to help get her a better phone.  Happy/supportive siblings make life a lot easier when things go bad.

Agree. But for me, I usually offer half of my spoil to my sister. She has the best of the best usually while I get her stuff once she grew tired of it, so in the long run I would get the stuff in the end. Good old times.

 

Now that she is working, she usually return the favour by giving me gifts even when I don't request it. 3 or 4 years ago She bought me a Nintendo Switch while I get her iPhone 12. To be fair, she paid half of the iPhone 12 and helps paying the telecom bill for 6 months. She even gets me Pokemon Brilliant Diamond recently.

[Avocado Diaboli]

28 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

No, these two things are definitely related.

His sister taking a pass on a phone she has no use for should be considered later on when other resources are distributed. Otherwise you're setting the precedence that every transaction exists in a vacuum and you should always maximize your personal gains on each and every one. Which would have led to his sister taking the phone and selling it because she was offered it first while he is standing there empty handed. That's terrible advice for any form of communal life. And in this particular case it's even stupider because adding the phone to the pot still leaves him with a Switch. I don't know how much more you could want.

No, they're unrelated because guess what: Communal life does not preclude private property and financial independence. Besides, nothing would've hindered his sister from taking the offering and turning it into money and leaving OP empty handed. Would you even argue someone who makes demands in the current situation would've been altruistic enough to voluntarily give up part of their gift if the roles were reversed? To say that this is acceptable just because the money minus the split would still let him have a Switch is a dumb statement, because it still posits that any gains made by the commune must be shared entirely, even if one member voluntarily declined a free gift that could've been turned into cash. That indicates that OP's sister clearly doesn't understand how money works and is even less suited to make financial decisions. So no, keep the cash and buy some games for the Switch. That's the "more" I could want, more games thanks to savvy financial decisions.

 

And as I said, communal life does not mean pooling 100% of the resources and their gains. I earn quite a bit more than my partner. We still keep separate bank accounts and pay for stuff we'd like out of our own pockets. That means that I can sometimes buy myself stuff that's quite a bit more expensive than what she has. And she's ok with that, because she's not a gold digger and I'm not a charity.

[Avocado Diaboli]

Seriously, if your only means of tackling an argument is to respond to it sentence by sentence and not as a complete argument, just admit you have nothing of merit to add.

 

Case in point:

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

Cool story, bro. Is your partner also your sister or how does this add anything to the problem at hand? 

I live with my partner. Therefore we live communally. Your argument stems from communal living, not being related by blood. So either you admit your argument about sharing communal funds was bullshit or you have to accept my example as valid and come up with a sound rebuttal that would present a meaningful difference. But you wouldn't understand that by just quoting this sentence in isolation without how it relates to the rest of the argument. That's why you don't respond to individual sentences.

 

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

Not acting counter-social and getting a Switch seems like a big fat win on all ends. But from an counter-social egoistical point of view it's clearly dumb.

So tell me then, do you equally share everything you get with all your loved ones? Do all of you share your income, gifts you get, do you all pool that stuff and everybody gets an equal share?

[Sarra]

Just invest the $500 in something that is NOT crypto.

 

Get a new phone and a new Nintendo in a few years.

[Nior2008]

6 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Because you both got offered the S20FE and your sister didn't take it, you should treat the $1000 and the S20FE as a combined pot. Since you took the S20FE from the pot, you should split the rest accordingly.

I did, I split the cash equally I gave her$500.but she said since I got the S20FE I should gi ve her the cash to get the iPhone 14 pro. 

6 hours ago, Chiyawa said:

Agree. But for me, I usually offer half of my spoil to my sister. She has the best of the best usually while I get her stuff once she grew tired of it, so in the long run I would get the stuff in the end. Good old times.

 

Now that she is working, she usually return the favour by giving me gifts even when I don't request it. 3 or 4 years ago She bought me a Nintendo Switch while I get her iPhone 12. To be fair, she paid half of the iPhone 12 and helps paying the telecom bill for 6 months. She even gets me Pokemon Brilliant Diamond recently.

I wish I had your sister, I want to get the switch lite because mine wouldn't let me play her switch (red). So I thought I get my own to play pokemon and smash with my friends

[Nior2008]

1 minute ago, Sarra said:

Just invest the $500 in something that is NOT crypto.

 

Get a new phone and a new Nintendo in a few years.

Lol too young to invest, only 14 yrs old

[Sarra]

11 minutes ago, Nior2008 said:

Lol too young to invest, only 14 yrs old

Never too young to invest.

 

Or just buy a Switch and some games and have fun while you're still young, it's all the same.

[WhitetailAni]

Two separate events happened.

 

1. You received an S20FE.

2. You received $1000 to split between you and your sister. You took $500, she took $500.

 

The S20FE came from a different person, and she turned the S20FE down.

 

She just wants the money. You did nothing wrong here, the $500 is rightfully yours.

[Avocado Diaboli]

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

You pulled something I never said from under a stone and wrote an essay to argue against it. Why should I bother with your imaginary counter-arguments? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I honestly thought "quotation needed" was a good hint that you are completely arguing out of the blue in a direction that only makes sense in your head.

You really forgot you referred to "communal life" earlier? I suggest you start re-reading this conversation again.

 

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

Good for you. Your urge to point out that you earn more than your partner has what relevance to the problem at hand? Neither OP nor his sister earned anything, we are talking about gifts.

What relevance does it have that these are gifts and not earnings? Money as a gift is not tied to specific purpose. That's what makes it money, it is fungible and tradable for literally everything else. If you want to tie money to a specific purpose, either buy a gift-card for exactly that or buy the thing it's intended for. If someone gifts me money for a specific purpose, I reserve the right to use it for anything I please. I can't believe I have to explain the concept of money and its uses.

 

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

Since they got money for new phones and A was gifted a new phone which B didn't take, it would be only logical to include the value of this phone while splitting the $1000. That's my point.

Only in your clown world would that be logical. Let's spin your train of thought a bit further: What if OP hadn't received that free phone and instead decided to settle for a $100 phone. What should be done with the remaining $400? According to your logic, it's tied up in the purpose of buying a phone. Since OP already bought one, "logically" speaking, the remaining amount should go to his sister to buy a much more expensive phone. I'm sorry, but making statements around what "you could argue", two completely nonsensical and one logical (mine, for the record being the logical one) and calling them equivalent is just intellectually lazy. 

 

Also, you haven't answered my question.

[tikker]

I see three aspects to this story, but ultimately it all depends on what the $500 was for exactly:

1. You were offered money for a phone. How specifically tied to purchasing a phone is this money? If you both agreed on the $500 split and it was mostly, but not really only for a phone, but also just a general gift, then you don't owe her anything in my opinion.
2. Your sister was offered a phone by someone else, but refused for luxury reasons (doesn't like Android), while you accepted. She is facing the consequences of her actions.
3. How was the offer of the S20 related to the money offer? If it wasn't intentional to help you save more of the money then I would say find a way to remedy the situation. Otherwise, I don't think something unfair happened.

If the money was really meant for a phone, then you could also solve it differently: your sister gets $500 and you return your $500. Anything not spent from that $500 would then also be returned of course. This would be completely fair in my opinion, because from what I gather you both agreed on a 50/50 split to $500 each.

 

2 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

Or you could argue, that it was foolish from B to not take the phone and they should now be punished and receive only $500 (wasn't that you point?) .

Well yes, in a way. I don't see this as punishment as much as experiencing the consequences of your decisions. It would be pretty convenient if we could quicksave before every decision, but alas that feature has not been implemented. As you point out, the money was labeled for a phone, so I think finding out how strict that label was meant to be is the most important point. I think it is also important to consider that both OP and sister seem to have agreed on a 50/50 split and that both were offered the phone, but that one refused for luxury reasons.

 

OP said that their sister refused because they don't like Android. That is completely fine, but on that aspect they looked a gift horse in the mouth and now have to deal with the consequences. Refusing one offer does not entitle you to (more of) a different one. If OP accepting the phone is unfair to his sister and needs to hand over part of his budget to her, then you can also argue that his sister now having more money for a phone is unfair to OP. After all, he only got a "$200" phone now (or whatever the S20's value is) while his sister would be able to get an $800 (or $1000 minus $S20) phone. If OP had known that they could have refused the phone and taken the $500 to get a better one.

[Bitter]

Ask your grandparents opinion since they gifted the money. You'll score some maturity points with them and your parents, probably get awarded some of the money directly by your grandparents, and your sister still gets a phone out of the deal. You come out on top, if you care about that.

 

On the other hand if your sister is the kind of person to remember kind acts and reciprocate the you can score some good graces by acquiescing, however since you're asking it sounds like she is not that kind of person.

[Avocado Diaboli]

9 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

No. You understand the concept of a discussion? You have my statement and you can now argue why the disputed part of this statement is in your opinion wrong. Then it's a discussion. But you once again create an imaginary statement and argue against that.

Let's get to the disputed point. I count the S20FE as a part of the pot. You are not counting the S20FE as part of the pot. My arguments were "it was offered to both of them", "it fulfils the purpose of the money given by their grandparents" and "there is still plenty of money to spend on a switch factoring in the S20FE". Your point was "It's a different transaction" (IMHO not a very good point).

Maybe we should cut a corner here and just agree that the S20FE is part of the pot, but you value it with $0 and I value it with roughly $200 (could be less, could be more, but that's not really relevant). So it becomes a question of which value you would attribute to the S20FE in the situation at hand and why.

You don't just get to make up rules as you go along to not have your notions challenged. I'm not just gonna agree with your assertion that it's part of the pot as if we've already resolved that step of your cavalcade of assumptions. You understand the concept of a discussion? 

 

11 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

I think we all noticed that you don't follow normal social conventions. Some would also argue that if I say "here is some money for a new dishwasher" and you spend that money on anything but a dishwasher you broke an oral agreement.

You understand the concept of a gift?

[Avocado Diaboli]

26 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

You're missing the point. I'd merely tried to condense the problem into a value discussion instead of having it derailed once again in another direction.

Not adding the phone to the pot and adding a phone with a value of $0 to the pot can be considered exchangeable.

No, and here's why this is just another attempt at moving the goalposts for you: You admit yourself that the rest of the money could easily be appropriated to buy a Switch, regardless of how the transaction concerning the other phone is considered. So what happened to the fact that those funds were still intended to go towards a phone and not a Switch? See, you first try to discount my notion that these are totally separate transaction on the basis of the facts that they involve entirely unrelated people, but you try to duct tape them together with your insistence that since both concern a phone, they're to be treated as one while at the same time still arguing from a position that would ensure the purchase of a video game console. 

 

You're not condensing anything, you are stripping away the context that reveals that your arguments have no legs to stand on in a feeble attempt to save face. And you still haven't answered any of the questions I posed to you, don't think I haven't noticed. 

[TetraSky]

Sister sounds like an entitled brat.

She snubbed the S20 and now thinks YOU are selfish because you don't want to give what is rightfully yours to her?

You owe her nothing, that money is yours. You didn't look a gift horse in the mouth when it was offered to you. So now you have a phone and $500. It could've been her. But she decided she wanted the latest iPhone. Probably because all her friends have iPhones too and she wants to show off.

 

Just from this interaction, I can guess she will have a lot of trouble with money later in the future. I pity whoever ends up with her.