His roomie causes overdrafts and tension

DEAR AMY: My roommate and I had been friends for years before he moved in with me. We get along well in all respects, but money is becoming an issue. His hours and his income have been cut. He is used to making good money and has expensive hobbies. The past several months, he has been behind on his part of the rent and utilities, which I have covered. Some of these payments are on automatic payments, so I'm charged overdraft fees when there isn't enough money in the account. These fees now add up to several hundred dollars. He regularly travels out of state, spending for airfare, motel, meals, etc., even though he is behind on his share of our household expenses. He gets caught up but has never offered to help with the overdrafts. Am I wrong to believe that he needs to cover these fees, too, since the overdrafts are the result of my account being short the amount he owes?OD'd on ODs

DEAR OD'D: If you are paying the rent, etc., from your account, it is your responsibility to have enough money in the account to pay these bills, regardless of the money your roommate owes you.

Think of yourself as a small-business owner. You are still responsible for paying your bills -- even if your vendors owe you money and don't pay on time.

In your small business, if you had vendors who were perennially late paying their bills, you would charge them a surcharge for each month they were late.

You might be able to dun your roommate for late charges, but you still have the responsibility to cover all payments made from your account.

My suggestion is that he is the one who should use overdraft protection.

His monthly checks to you should clear, and if he is borrowing money from and paying fees to his own bank to ensure that his checks to you are good, then that's his business -- and his problem.