Do you pay for only what you eat when you go out with friends?

[heartbroken22]

Sorry to the other poster who is asking but I'm glad they bought it up. Does anyone have any stories where friends have been a bit shocked because they had to pay for what they ordered? I have! Luckily a friend of mine spoke up and said how about we pay for what we've ordered (she mentioned how I at the time just had water with my meal whereas everybody else had a drink). I was quite depressed at that moment in my life and would just go out and pay together. Some of the other friends in the group would take advantage and order the most expensive meal and drinks. I think they found it hard to swallow their next bite when told they'd be having to pay for what they had.

The bit that boggles me is all the talk of calculators. How many things are you each ordering (how much are you drinking?) that a little adding up is beyond you?

What do you do if you are meeting a friend with 2 children. We met and split the bill 50/50 however afterwards I felt hard done by having only eaten 1/4 of the food but paid basically double vs what I ate

When I was younger and strapped for cash I went out for a meal with two close friends, friend 1 and I ordered pasta at £10 while friend 2 order steak at £20, she also had a bottle of wine while me and friend 1 drove. At the end splitting the bill was suggested I pointed out that the friend 2 bill was more than double ours so said we should pay our own. We did it but friend 1 (with lower bill) said I should view the bill as the payment for attending the meal rather than itemise it. Leaving me feeling a bit cheap.
Years later friend 1 is very rich earning significantly more than friend 2 and I. We go out for a meal where we order a similar amount of food each but at the end of the meal friend 2 and I have a baileys each at £4 each. When the bill comes friend 1 makes a point of saying she will pay £4 less due to our Baileys.
Obviously I'm not bothered if she pays £4 less but the irony that she lectured me on tightness when I was a cash strapped student. Yet she has genuinely since become rich become one of the tightest people I know.

Depends on the scenario. Most of the time I go out with just one or two friends, we eat and drink similar things and so just split the bill. But in a bigger group I would tend to just pay for what I ate and drank. No need for calculators, just go to the till. But yeah, I don't eat out with anyone who takes the piss. Been there and got stung for £60 when I was expecting to pay £20 and endured some really unpleasant drunken antics from two of the group who then expected everyone else to pay for their large quantities of booze. For once I found my voice and said I wasn't covering their alcohol. You want to get stuck into the port and whisky, you pay for it.

But better to agree before you order imho. Discourages shabby behaviour.

Definitely split it and make adjustments for booze, but go out with 1 group where 1 person always orders the most expensive item, unnecessary side orders, desert even if not everyone having one etc .
She doesn't do it to be CF but is just used to being extravagant, I always feel I need to read the room , is anyone else having starter? Desert? and if others having pizzas then order similar cost main not steak etc.
Maybe I'm being too sensitive and should just order what I fancy if I can afford it? (She never offers to put more in and is tight with tips too)

Usually split the bill unless someone isn't drinking, then we'd reduce accordingly.

I dont understand that either. Plus, why would you even need to calculate it yourselves? In my world thats what the waiter/cashier does. Either from top of their heads, or on paper in a split second or they do it at the till.

No, we always split as my friends don’t take the mick and we all tend to order the same amount of courses and share bottles of wine.

@WibbleBibble oh ffs I'm not Pearl clutching 🤣 why do people on mumsnet make such exaggerated takes on things other people say. I don't care whether people want to only pay for what they order, that's no problem.

I think you've made assumptions - where I live, only a few restaurants have the type of tills where you can do that. The majority are (absolutely divine) curry houses that tend to have very old fashioned tills. The drinks orders are even usually written on the bill by hand. We add all the bits and bobs up ourselves as a courtesy to the waiters. If we don't, then the waiter has to do it for us!

Pay for what you've had. It's not difficult for the server any more as you just tell them what you've had and they input that amount in the card machine.

I used to have friends who I went out with once a month. We'd ask for the bills to be split and only paid for what we ate.

Pay for what we ordered.

I don’t drink alcohol and I’m sure as shit not subsidising anyone else to.

When I was about 19 a large group of us went out and when it came to paying one girl put in £10 as her meal came to £9.99, nothing to cover the 2 drinks she'd had. When quietly challenged she said others would pay more so that would cover it. So I've been on guard for free loaders ever since and only ever experienced it when on work lunches. My friendship circle is nothing like this.

One guy we used to go to lunch with regularly would check everyone had cash, get them to pass the cash to him and he'd pay the whole thing on his credit card that accumulated rewards for spending. Not a CF but it did make us laugh.

I do remember also years ago my sister and I taking our parents out for Sunday lunch. I was solo but my sister came with her husband and two kids. When the bill came she paid half leaving me to pay the other half. I didn't speak up but I'd presumed I'd pay for 2 meals. Was skint at the time.

It depends to be honest. If I go out with a group we always pay for what we have had. It is only fair. I usually have water and never a dessert so would be paying much more if we didn’t. Certain close friends. We tend to treat each other when out. We are close as in very close and none of us would ever take the P—s out of it. Last week my friend drove so I paid for lunch. I know next week when we are of to a show and my DB is dropping us off and collecting that she will pay for the meal. It is just the way we have always been

Different circumstances are treated differently. Sometimes it's a straight split (with adjustment for any non-drinkers or bigger spenders) and sometimes it's pay what you've had, sometimes if it's people we go out with often either we or they will pick up the whole bill.

Depends on who we're with, what the occasion is, where we are, whether we've all had roughly the same or not.

I don't know that anyone has ever deliberately taken the piss, nor got arsey about splitting (oh except a friend of a friend at a birthday dinner, expensive restaurant, 2 of us had had one course and 1 glass of wine each, the others had had 3 courses, wine and cocktails. Lots of sighing about having to split our amounts off the bill, but we absolutely weren't budging so she eventually shut up).

Paying for what you've had just saves a whole host of issues. I don't think some people would be comfortable announcing financial issues etc, some people might go along with it but feel they've over paid behind the scenes etc etc.

I prefer to pay for my own, but I can see why it's easier to split the bill I'm big groups.

I would hate to think that anyone I went for a meal with was struggling and ordered based on what they could afford and ended up subbing others. To many, a fiver doesn't seem like a lot of money, but when things are tight, it counts.

We always just split the bill and usually not much in it. If someone has had some extra drinks or something they'll usually leave the tip.

Varies, usually split because I am not friends with CFs. A lot of restaurants I go to with groups are BYO wine (much more common in Aus I think) which makes life easy as often the inequalities are around alcohol. I have a few friends I go out with one on one who are less well off than I am so I will often pay or cover drinks and we split food.

@Lunabun I think you're the one exaggerating - poor people working in the local curry house arent able to get a calculator out and divide up a bill, despite it being a part of their job so you become their saviour and do it for them .... 🙄

No.

Not brilliant because I tend to eat with carnivores who are eating steak whilst I have pasta, and announce that they haven’t eaten all day and have 3 courses (I rarely even manage a main and desert). At least the one person I tend to go out with who could drink for England always insists on paying his share of the bar bill.

I think they found it hard to swallow their next bite when told they'd be having to pay for what they had

this is horrible. If it’s true then they are no friends of yours, people who order expensive stuff so you can pay. If it’s not true then it’s you who is horrible and no friend of theirs.

for us, we just split equally, but no one takes advantage.

With my main group of friends we usually do sharing foods and wine by the bottle so it’s always appropriate to split, unless someone is pregnant and then we would make a rough adjustment so they’re not subbing the booze. If friends had vastly different ideas to me of what they wanted to consume at a meal, to the point where it made a significant difference to the bill, we wouldn’t make good dinner companions so would probably plan other non restaurant stuff with them!

@WibbleBibble haha here we go again - that's not remotely what I was trying to say and you bloody well know it 🤣 why has me simply stating what me and my friends tend to do, without making any judgement on what others do, upset you so much?

We split it but are mindful if we have ordered more especially with certain friends where one party doesn't eat much and can't drink - we'll have a quiet word with the other couple (usually 6 adults total) and cover couple 3's cost between us as we are aware of the situation