Not going halves with friend on lunch

If anything she's the tight one. You've done nothing wrong

Yes, your mistake was deciding to go out for lunch when you were in overdraft. You could have met her at home and still had coffee and a catch up.

She is also UR for being so childish and petty.

For a special occasion, I absolutely agree with you - no-one should miss out because of a temporary financial shortfall. It would be covered.

For a casual lunch? No. Do something else that everyone can afford without getting a calculator out.

Well obviously her friend is the transactional one . Your remark about the op saving was patronising .

Decent friends wouldn’t even consider having extras knowing op was struggling, and then expecting to split! What kind of friend even does that.

For me, it’s not about the transactional quality - it’s the total absence of genuine concern for a friend’s financial predicament, and the disregard for her position.

If anything the onus in my circles would be to offer lunch, and pay for it if someone is struggling not the other way around.

She has chosen to lose a friendship over a few pounds, not you.
Drop the rope, step back.
Stop chasing her OP.

We’re all different. That’s not how I see it - lunch with a friend for me is not transactional, it’s a social event. If I had a friend who was skint, we’d do something else together.

I guess these two friends see ‘lunch out’ differently and it looks like it has, temporarily at least, fractured the friendship.

Don’t be ridiculous. Op is entitled to go out and spend what she feels is reasonable on herself to still have a social life. She paid her way and is being called tight because she didn’t pay some of her friend’s way. Absolutely ridiculous. If she were going out whilst broke and expecting others to pay for or subsidise her then that would be out of order. This was to the people saying she shouldn’t have gone out if splitting the £7 of her friends extra expenses was too much.

I fully agree with this.

You can still see your friends.
If you're already overdrawn and seven quid makes such a difference then you learn to say no.
Invite a friend round and buy a packet of biscuits and make coffee.

Don’t get why she wouldn’t speak with you over something so petty. She’s making it a big issue, which suggests maybe other things at play? Maybe other stuff she has been annoyed about previously involving money, and this was the final straw for her?

Do you even want to go? Sounds awful.

Nothing saved , just avoided subsidising somebody else’s lunch . Her friend would’ve been the one that ‘saved’ had she split .

I don’t understand the offence people
take at others suggesting to pay for what you had. If people take that as a judgment on a friendship then how shallow is the friendship in the first place? Why is it penny pinching to pay for what you had? Why are people shaming OP for having a boundary and trying to take financial responsibility/ownership over her own spending? (Yes she’s in her OD, but she still is trying to make choices right for her and some people are flaming her for this).

Your friend is acting like a cheeky brat - is this a person you really want to be friends with?

I'm heading towards this quandary soon with our works Xmas do. Single parent non-drinker (me) to wealthy heavy drinkers. Fixed price for the meal plus drinks on top. I fortunately have quite a thick skin and have already set out my stall re splitting the bill - I'm not subbing anyone else's drinking when I can barely afford my own meal.

my meals usually cost less than others because I dont drink much and don’t usually have pudding .
Ive started saying at the outside- shall we pay separately? Easier than when the bill arrives.
if the difference is really small I might just split, bill but worked out once I was paying around £10 extra , felt that was a lot to sub someone

Why should that be the solution? Why do people always say 'you shouldn't go out' instead of doing what she did, by picking cheaper options to limit the cost.

Should people only go out if they can pay for themselves and half their mate's food as well?

Some people always order more and more expensive food and love others to fund them. It drives me insane. You should not have to pay for part of her lunch. If she ends the friendship over this she was never a friend.

What kind of friend stops talking to another for not subsidising their lunch? How does that make OP the right one? No consideration for whether OP can afford to be subsidising others. Some people have to watch the pennies and really don’t have enough to be spending a few quid on others and they shouldn’t have to stay home because of it.

OP YANBU unless you both have history of splitting the bill and you have had your share of being the bigger spender.

Rubbish . She knew what she could afford and spent accordingly . Maybe her friend was the one that needed to do that , instead of expecting someone to pay for her share, who now is sulking!

Why are you blaming the OP and not the friend? Surely that would apply to her as well? OP, your 'friend' is really nasty, I think. If a friend told me they were skint that month, I would just have paid the whole bill! I certainly wouldn't have gone on a strop. I can't believe all the people making excuses for her.

She’s your friend so ask him f it’s because of that, she’ll explain or deny because she knows it’s silly and stop sulking

What on earth does being Irish have to do with anything!? OP's friend was a CF, end of.

If £7 made such a difference to your finances, you shouldn’t have gone out for lunch.
Make a sandwich at home.

Not unreasonable OP. I used to lunch with a small group of friends. We always had to go to the same restaurant that was in walking distance to one of them. (This person could drive). When there most of us would be on water or soft drinks as we were travelling further and had driven. The local woman would then proceed to order whiskies, and doubles at that! Guess what? We were then asked to split the bill. A few of us now go out separately and pay our own bills.

I'm sorry that you feel this way and while not knowing your history of this friendship, but seriously, she has shown you what she is.