I hate how differently my sibling and I treat our parent’s money

I am completely open to objective feedback, and understand and part of the problem is me having to accept that people are different, and should focus on oneself to truly be at peace.

Since a kid, intentionally by my parents or not, I learnt to be frugal with my parents money. We come from a country/culture where kids can’t work, so my first paying job was once I was in university, and depended on my parents till then. They still pay for both of our tuition, and I am grateful and intend to pay them back, even though they object to that thought.

My sibling (S) is 2 years younger than me. It was when I was in high school that I noticed that S had begun being more frivolous with spending money for hangouts with friends, asking/talking about with my parents only after spending it. Meanwhile, my memories are of objecting against ideas that my friends bring up that might be not cheap, because the few times I had asked my parents, they had only rarely said yes.

When going to uni, my parents would support both of us completely. I went far away from home, and travel back was expensive, and happened once a year. I strived to save every penny, even if my parents sometimes suggesting taking it a little easier. I worked a part time job during my second year, and supported my parents by covering my rent and other expenses that year.

S was supposed to leave for uni the same way, but my parents ended up accompanying S for the first trip to drop S off. S’s uni was relatively closer, but much costlier. The difference was based on our different courses (engineering vs finance). I was already jealous, but it was understandable because during my time covid would not have let them join me anyways.

However, I felt annoyed when S basically begged to visit home 4 months later for S’s first 2 week break, cuz S was homesick, sad, and all friends had also gone home. My parents gave in because they missed having their kids home too. I understood at the time, because even though I felt like shit during those breaks where I couldn’t come home, I sucked it up because I didn’t want to put that load on my parents. Part of me was glad my sister could get that support.

However, I do see S being more frivolous in S’s expenditure in their uni country too through social media. I know S has a fixed monthly budget, so I guess it’s fair. I don’t have a budget, I get an annual amount thar I use to make ends meet. I save so I never have problems, and I never check whether how much more or less it is than S’s budget. Apparently finding a part time job was hard there, so S couldn’t do that till recently either.

What ended happening afterwards is that S would come home every 4 months (2 weeks in dec, and 3 months in the summer), while they could only afford my 4 months in the summer (because I don’t push to come back in dec). I can’t ask them to bring me in Dec because the difference in tickets is huge, and I can’t ask them not to bring S.

Some further differences: - I had to get good grades and ask for gifts. S could ask and get said objects, which I think is good because incentives shouldn’t exist for us to feel like we deserve things, but I still felt hurt. - I learnt to be frugal at a young age, S spent on whatever, and would get mad and yell at my parents if they made a big deal about it. - I spend what I earn to support what my parents have to send me. S uses up S’s earnings on themselves as “extra pocket money”. - Anytime I bring up how often S gets to come home, my parents get sad, and S mentions the tickets. I try to bring up the difference in tuition, but by then I feel bad for my parents hearing about all this. I don’t resent anyone, and I am grateful for what I have in this world, it just hurts to feel that anything I do to save and help my parents, is in vain, because that surplus goes to whatever my sister does anyways. When I say I should also start being frivolous, my family jokes about us going broke if both the kids are like that. I know my parents are adults who can spend their money like they like, and they’re allocating it based on what is needed, and I shouldn’t look at numbers. But am I resentful and the asshole for being open about how I feel treated unfairly?