If you're sharing the cost of the meal there's certain things you don't go for

Even if it was an unwritten rule, hes taking no notice, so why are you?

When out with BIL decide at the outset that you will all pay for your own meals - no splitting.

I prefer to pay separately so that I can eat what I wish.
If forced to split the bill, or shouted, I will only look through the cheaper side of the menu. Any drinks, bar one beer, wine or soft drink, I always pay for myself.

You have to be fair and not exploit friends, elderly relatives etc..

I would order what I wanted to eat and then if it was something that was significantly more expensive than anything else on the menu, offer to pay slightly more.

Next time try ordering something really expensive yourself and see what happens.

If they say anything there's your perfect opening to say fair enough, let's all agree to always pay for what we've had in future.

Tbh I'd just tell them I'm on a budget so I'm going to just pay for my own meal instead of paying for my meal and putting a bit towards yours as well

and if they want to sulk about it then that's up to them. You can't be a doormat because you don't want piss takers to be cross with you that you won't let them carry on being piss takers.

Every time I've gone out, we've brought cash

Each one of us has a budget, we stick to that and each pays for their own and we also cover the birthday celebrant (coz, you know, birthday)

Even then, there are issues, with people trying to get away with paying less than their share

The this is why this is annoying you.

It’s not about the mixed grill. I am pretty sure you wouldn’t care if everyone round the table ordered something slightly more expensive than you, pushing your bill up.

I think you acknowledge that yours was a bit more expensive and chuck an extra bit in or offer to cover the tip - you don’t need to grind it down to the minutiae of who had what but an acknowledgement is helpful.

Reminds me of the time SIL announced her and BIL were only paying for what they ordered because they were saving money…proceeded to order the surf and turf and then was more than happy to split the bill 🤣

Usually at Wetherspoons, pubs etc, you can easily order and pay separately, so start doing that. Just order for your own immediate family and BIL and DSis order theirs.

Therr are so many posts on here about bill splitting drama that I don't understand why people don't just pay for what they ate and drank.
We eat out with different groups of friends and families frequently and there's never any question of doing anything else. Guess what? No one has ever got tetchy about the bill!

I think people should be able to order what they want to eat and drink - but when I am out with friends, although we roughly split and don't actually count the exact pennies, we all keep an eye on what we and others are buying and those with more expensive tastes, add in extra before the rest is split

If BIL doesn't do that, just say next time you don't want to split it like that

So do the same, order the most expensive thing you feel like on the day, and the most expensive drink you fancy.
When everyone is doing that, no one looks greedy and you all actually get a meal you want, rather than something from the standard menu.

We usually just split the bill unless there’s a huge difference. Which there is with one group I go out with. One doesn’t drink and picks everyone up and drops them home, saving a fortune on Uber’s …. the other two think the bill should be split evenly, I always suggest adding up the booze separately and splitting by 3. Not fair for her to sub our drinks and bloody drive us about, piss take.

Well if you're well off enough to pay for a mixed grill while eating a vegetable pizza and one drink without worrying, @CriticalThinker that's all good for you, but you can't assume that others are the same.

Many people have thought that 'I'd love to go out with the group, but I don't have much spare money, but if I just have a pizza and one drink, I can afford it'. So that's what they do. But then the bill comes and the people who had three courses and wine say 'lets just split it' and suddenly the person who purposely stuck to a more modest meal finds that it's cost them more than twice as much for a blow out that they didn't even get to enjoy themselves and then they find themselves short for other essentials later in the week.

This 100% 😅. Major nostalgia vibes. A mixed grill indeed!! I need to know what it was, what was included!

I'd always order what I wanted. With the expectation everyone would also. Assuming we all drink a similar amount, then splitting the cost is fine. If someone's on a budget, then they can just state they'd rather just pay for their own.
I certainly wouldn't go out to eat with a view to spending/eating as little as possible and policing what others order. That really would spoil the fun.

We have a weekly meal and none of us would ever consider paying anything other than what our own personal food and food and drink came to, plus share of the tip.

If you're all too lazy to work that out, there are apps for that.

@SauviGone reading that has given me the rage, the rude cheeky cow 😡

Not anymore, we just work out what ours cost and they come round with the card machine. So they don’t need to issue seperate bills, just take individual payments

I usually order a vegetarian option and hardly drink, but don’t mind what others do!

I find it much more tiresome when someone wants to pedantically dissect the bill and extract the items they ordered and just pay for these. This sort of behaviour usually means they accidentally forget to add the service charge, forget an item, forget their drinks etc and leaves a short fall in the bill which everyone else absorbs.

I would only have steak if the person I was with suggested it, as I do like it but I eat out quite often and wouldn’t want to buy it everytime. If I’m with one or two friends we usually split the bill, but with my walking group we just pay individually

Seeing as this is your family, I don't see why you can't say that if BIL is having a far more expensive meal, he has to put in extra to pay for it. He/they can't have it both ways by splitting but also having expensive choices. It's one or the other, no argument, unless the whole table agrees.

Because otherwise. if the person who makes the most expensive choices doesn't put in extra to pay for it, they're effectively saying that they're expecting the person who had pasta and a soft drink because they're on a budget and that's what they can afford to pay for, to pay for most of the mixed grill eaters meal as well.

My sister is a nightmare for this- if it’s a cheap set menu she’ll get from the a la carte, goes for surf n turf etc and she never quite pays for it, so is always subsidised. I don’t go for meals with her now as i find it really cheeky but not enough to fall out over.