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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/djevel6 on 2026-07-17 12:25:31+00:00.

So today i went to a nearby city to do some pre-vacation shopping. A woman around my age came up to me and asked in broken English if i could help her. I decided to listen to her request, she needed food for her and her kids. There was a grocery store on 2 min walking distance, so i told her i could help her with some food.

She told me she was Bulgarian and was waiting on starting her new job. This takes place in a large city in the Netherlands.

Once in the grocery store, she just kept grabbing things, stuff I don’t even get myself because of the price (cheese, ground beef, eggs). Mentally I was adding up the price of things and it kept going up and up. She was also not grabbing store brand stuff, but brand name goods that are a lot pricier. Slightly panicked i tried telling her that i also do not have that much money, she then said she just needed to get oil and then we’re done.

Eventually i paid for €41 in groceries to a total stranger. After leaving the store, she also asked me to pay for her hostel, luckily i had enough courage to say no.

This has been a giant lesson for me, i really need to work on saying no to people and that it’s okay to change a said ‘yes’ to a ‘no’. This is 100% my own fault, I do feel kinda sour about impulsively losing that money.

TLDR; I tried to help a stranger with feeding herself and her kids, but then didn’t have the courage to stop her as she kept filling her basket, resulting in me losing my own grocery week budget to a stranger.