Cut Off: My Mom Controls My Wallet / Chapter 1: Allowance Cut—Chicago Survival Mode
Cut Off: My Mom Controls My Wallet

Cut Off: My Mom Controls My Wallet

Author: Amanda Reyes

Chapter 1: Allowance Cut—Chicago Survival Mode

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New semester, new rules: Mom just slashed my living expenses from $200 a month to a brutal $65.

It hit me like getting dumped over text—first the shock, then the slow ache when you realize it’s not a joke. Suddenly, the world felt a lot colder. The radiator hissed like it was mocking me, and even my hoodie couldn’t keep out the chill. I sat in my cramped off-campus studio, the kind with radiators that always hiss, scrolling back through her text, hoping I’d misread it somehow.

And that $65 isn’t even given all at once—it comes in four weekly installments of $16.25 each.

She’s got it set up on Venmo, too. Every Monday at 10 a.m., $16.25 pings in. The kind of money you burn just walking into a campus Starbucks—one drink and you’re done. I looked at the notifications, feeling a little like an adult and a lot like a kid on a short leash.

Every time I get my allowance, I have to send her a detailed account of every expense, down to the last penny.

I’m talking receipts, spreadsheets, and apologetic texts about why I bought toothpaste instead of the generic brand. I started to get paranoid she’d ask for proof I even needed to use the bathroom. It was like she’d appointed herself as my personal IRS agent.

She calls it “teaching me thrift and gratitude toward my parents.”

She says it with this moral-lecture tone, like she’s the hero in a family sitcom, but it lands more like a punchline. At least, that’s how it sounds when she puts it in the family group chat with all the aunts chiming in about how kids today don’t know hardship.

So, I turned around and posted on my Instagram story:

A little rebellion, Chicago-style. We snapped the photo in the student center, right under that ugly mural everyone loves to hate, the Starbucks cup front and center. I was wearing my favorite thrifted flannel and UChicago beanie, arm slung around a blond guy whose name I barely remembered from Econ 101, holding a tall iced caramel macchiato in my right hand. The caption: “Only a man willing to spend money on me is the best.”

I made sure the cup’s green mermaid logo was front and center. It felt risky and stupid and exhilarating—just a touch of drama for the digital peanut gallery.

The next second, Mom’s FaceTime call popped up.

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