Little bit of background, it’s an academic competition that I am competing in with a group of people (namely my sister and another set of sisters). (Yes this is a high school thing, I am a senior in high school). My sister and I were cut off from competing through our own region because our original partners told us we couldn’t work with them the day the project was due (so we couldn’t have time to even put something together). So we joined forces with these other two girls we met through this competition who live in a different region to compete through their region. However, this meant that my sister and I would have to pay for everything on our own- registration fees as well as travel expenses. Our parents were not willing to help as they felt it was unimportant.

Initially, we thought the finances would be an issue. We even told them we couldn’t do the project because we couldn’t afford to pay the fees out of pocket, but we convinced ourselves and each other that we could make it work through getting jobs and making the money ourselves. At this point, we didn’t know exactly how much this competition would end up costing. We were just determined to make it happen. 

Later on, after we had registered for the competition, our partners told us that the registration fee would be $60. At this point it was too late to back out, so we decided we needed to find a way to raise that money ourselves. 

Fast forward to tonight, one day before the competition, the girls tell us we have to bring 60$ checks to the competition tomorrow. My sister and I can’t write checks (I mean we know how to we just don’t have checkbooks) so we had to ask our parents, who freaked out when they realized they’d be having to cut checks for 120$ for both of us... and eventually if we moved on, it would be even more. They basically told us that we couldn’t afford to go on with this competition even if my sister and I raised that money ourselves, as we need that money for college. 

So I told the girls the situation and they got pretty upset. For now, I’ve told them we would do whatever we could to make sure we could pay that 60$ each and show up to the competition tomorrow, but we told them we might have to drop out for further levels of competition. Long story short- they’re pissed. AITA here? 