3 families on holiday- how to bring up splitting the bill?

[Downnotout]

We are going away in the summer with 2 other families. They will both have 2 children each. We will have one child with us.

DH is only out for one week at the beginning. Leaving me and DD for 2nd week.

One of the families has an older child who eats adult meals (and I mean fillet steak), dd only has a child portion, the other family's DH is a wine connoisseur and orders v expensive red wine (and can get through a few bottles) which neither DH or I drink.

Normally we just split a bill, no questions, but I am thinking that over the course of 2 weeks, eating out most nights, we will be subsidising a huge amount of their bill.

So how do I broach this or do we shut up and pay up?

YANBU

I think the suggested email is good. You are not being tight - it is fair enough that you and your DC will eat less so a kitty works against you. Over one or two meals it's okay to let it slide but really unfair on your over a whole holiday. I would also be tempted to pay my own bill separetely in that situation.

I am not too keen on the "kitty" idea generally as I recently went on holiday with a large group of family, including my DB, SIL, parents, SILs mum, her friend etc... who all had totally different expectations of what they wanted to order, so there were people who only ordered the cheapest thing and others who thought nothing of ordering loads of oysters and champagne, people starting to resent others choices, some people constantly ranting on about what should and shouldn't be in the kitty, others bossing people about and nosying into their finances. Bloody nightmare!! I suggested from the start I wanted to just pay for myself to avoid all this, as I wanted to eat out more but I do order cheaper stuff e.g. salads not steaks and my parents wanted to get grocery shopping in to cook, and my dad was offended by it so yeah, sometimes it is not the best way!

Actually, you might well find that they will be grateful if you raise it as given the change in the party the friends might be worried about how to raise it without being patronising.

Just say that you will be paying for what you order.

We are a family of 5 and I much prefer paying for what we order as I would hate anyone to subsidise our extra dc and my wine habit. I can order whatever I like knowing we are paying our own iyswim?

I see your point Gnome but it's always been planned that way and I'm there for a few weeks. DH will be out again a week after he left IYSWIM. I also have DS and his GF coming out for a week in amongst all this. We would be the first to say we've got 2 extras so we must pay more. I can't stand being worried about not paying our fair share.
I'm just worried about it all getting a bit messy and think its best, all round, to just have separate bills for that 2 weeks when we're all out together.

I agree with you Downnotout, raise it early and it will be done and dusted. Just dont sit on it or allow it to fester with you. Better to raise it early before anyone looks back and thinks 'did I do something wrong?'.

I am sure that the other families would far, far rather that right from the start you said 'we would rather keep things separate this year'. They are grown ups and will know that things change.

Really, dont worry about it just say now that you want to do things differently this year.

We are a family of four and often go away with a family of three. We are also greedier!

We always ask for two bills (one per family) at meals and it has never been a trouble.

Then for things like coffees, ice creams, a drink before dinner we do the sharing / offering / generosity thing.

Works fine.