How would you split this meal costs?

[SplitTheMeal]

3 adults, 1 child. All related.

A (60s) orders main no starters or puddings. Cost £12.

B (late 20s) orders a starter, and a main and pinched a bit of Ds pudding. Starter was £6, Main £12 so total without the bit of Ds pudding was £18.

C (early 30s) orders a starter and a pudding. Starter was £6, pudding was £5. Total was £11.

D (under 7, Cs DC) has a childrens main and a childrens pudding. Main and pudding were on a deal for £8.

Everyone got one drink free with their meal apart from B who paid a bit more to have an alcoholic drink which added a £. C and D had an extra drink each which where £2 each.

Total meal cost was around £54. I’ve rounded meals up to nearest £.

So how would you split it?

A says adults pay for their own meals and drinks, all put in £3ish for Ds meal and drinks. So A pays £15, B pays £22 and C pays £16.

B says we split it between 3 adults and all pay £18.

C says we split it as per own meals; so A pays £12, B £19, and C £23 (as they pay for Ds meal).

We did resolve this and I am one of the adults. But not saying which or who we went with. I am curious to see how you'd split the meal.

As A is the parent/grandparent and is being nice, I’d do what they wanted without argument.

FFS: I lost it at "pinched a bit of Ds pudding."

I refuse to calculate per bite what me and my family pays for a meal out.

Either someone picks up the bill or you all split it equally. In the latter case, if B got more food than anyone else (don't forget the bite of your kid's dessert) and feels self conscious about it, then she can pop in some money for the tip.

But it really is a matter of a few pounds one way or another. Life is far too short and family too dear to make a fuss over it.

When I'm out with my friends we do B (one of my friends has a 5 year old) as one time somebody might have a pudding when nobody else does but the next time i might have a cocktail while the others have a soft drink. We figure that over time it will work itself out.

C. Parents of children always pay for their meals unless someone offers to pay.

First choice I’d try to grab the bill, but so would younger and faster relatives. Otherwise, definitely B.

If out with my family we set up separate tabs before we order as one member of the family will not pay a penny more than for what she actually consumes.

If our with friends I’d take off kids and split adults/drinks and parents pay for their DC unless everyone has kids in which case just split, life’s too short to worry about a few pounds here and there (which is how I felt even when counting pennies to get through the month!)

But it really is a matter of a few pounds one way or another. Life is far too short and family too dear to make a fuss over it.
You put it perfectly, Nancy.

None 🤣 50:50 per household, assuming GPs live together.

3 ways equally, if at all. Life is too short.

It depends if anyone is financially finding things hard. Personally for that price I'd just pay the £60 incl. tip. However, if it had to be split I'd do it 3 ways, end of.

With family, one of us would usually pay it all and we usually end up roughly even with people paying at different times.

With friends etc, we'd just pay for what we had (parent would pay for their own child).

In my family A would pay the whole lot without blinking, regardless of the financial situations of B and C. Sometimes B or C would sneak to the bar and circumvent them by paying early. None of us would be quibbling about the odd pound here and there or who had a bite of whose pudding (seriously, that’s just weird to note as an issue in this).

I get annoyed by blatant pisstaking - expecting someone who had one vegetarian course and water to subsidise someone else having steak, pudding, wine and multiple brandies. I wouldn’t allow my poor student sibling to end up out of pocket for my family of four’s meals if we went out together. But the amounts and relationships you’re talking about I wouldn’t bother splitting, and if someone else wanted to split it I wouldn’t care how it was done.

If I was out with friends or siblings id pay for my child's meal then split the rest equally...it usually evens itself out over the year even if someone has steak or someone only has a starter...
If I was out with one of my parents I'd not get a look in as they always want to pay...occasionally DH or I manage to be in super stealth mode and manage to pay the whole lot first but it doesn't happen very often tbf 🤣

B

Oops, I may have misread relationships, unless GP has a v young spouse...

A or C but definitely not B... In B's scenario, A & C are subsidising B's meal!! That's CF territory.

If I were A, whom I assume is the grandparent of the child, I’d pay it all.

FFS: I lost it at "pinched a bit of Ds pudding.”

This! How is this relevant?!

I’m in the ‘life is too short for this sort of quibbling’ camp.

In our family, we'd take turns paying. We'd never really split the bill (unless it was £££), it would just come out in the wash.

If out with friends, I'd pay for my meal and my DC's.

We'd play competitive trying to pay. But none of us is skinny and that changes things significantly.

In this case, everyone pays for themselves and I pay for my kid.

I'd go with C. A clearly doesn't want to subsidise B's alcohol, B doesn't want to subsidise C's child. So it has to be C.

I'm pretty sure if A was my DF or my DFIL, they would offer to pay for their DC and DGC or the siblings would share the bill and pay for DF 's and DC's meals.

@SplitTheMeal

Added context, A is the parent of B and C and Ds grandparent. Retired but has a good income.

B and C both work and have a good income but C is a single parent to D.

Bearing that in mind, if I were A then I'd pay the lot. It's not expensive if they have a good income. Unless this was a twice weekly thing, of course!

I’d pay the whole lot. We don’t split bills when it’s immediate family.
In practice that means that my Dad always pays for us and our DD. But I’d happily pay all too.

We split bills equally amongst friends normally.