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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To object to paying seventy quid for a couple of sandwiches?

145 replies

Sarah2506 · 11/08/2013 21:31

So we go for lunch with a big bunch of friends and kids. We are vegetarians and order sandwiches and chips at 6 quid each plus a couple of soft drinks. Everyone else orders meat dishes. The kids all have children's meals. The bill comes and someone divides it up equally and says thirty five quid each. DH just pays our share while I'm in the loo and I explode when he tells me later- I would have gone mad if he'd told me at the time but he doesn't think there is a problem with it.

I am annoyed because the bill was split between all the adults, which means we've paid for the kids food. We have a baby who didn't eat. Shouldn't the parents of the kids who ate pay for them? Also someone had the best part of a 45 quid bottle of wine to themselves. Shouldn't he have paid for that?

I'm on maternity leave and not being paid. It's not like we can't afford 70 quid but it will be at the expense of something else and our lunch came to 20 quid max. And so I'm furious that the bill wasn't divided up a bit more fairly. DH takes the view that it wouldn't be the done thing to object and that 'you win some you lose some'. No we don't, non drinking vegetarians never win some!

AIBU?

OP posts:
frogspoon · 11/08/2013 22:16

But in general I would have to say if the bill was a more reasonable split and somebody complained every time we went out because they were a 'non-drinking vegetarian' so didn't want to split the bill. Well. Lets just say I can't see them being very popular.

I'm one of those 'non-drinking vegetarian's, I've never had any problems. We usually spit the food bill equally unless there was a big difference in price, and drinks we do separately. I obviously have nice considerate friends Smile

LynetteScavo · 11/08/2013 22:23

Next time you go out with these friends, order the most expensive things on the menu...order a bottle of Champagne for your friends and insist they all have some. Then split the bill equally.

helenthemadex · 11/08/2013 22:24

I would be feeling very hurt that so called friends had taken advantage in this way not nice at all, as someone else said agree before hand that you will pay for your own in future

SofiaVagueara · 11/08/2013 22:27

If someone made a big issue every time you went out about not splitting the bill because they are a 'non-drinking vegetarian'. Well a) it would remind you that they were a bit of a joyless old git and b) it really is a pain in the arse having to tot everything up and then divide it and it always ends up with someone who isn't making a fuss having to overpay for a shortfall from the divvying up.

In this case where bottles of £45 wine were being drunk and it was somewhere expensive I agree the OP shouldn't have had to shell out like she did. But at the same time if this was an issue with someone every time I went out with them then I would find it a pain in the arse.

ExitPursuedByABear · 11/08/2013 22:30
SofiaVagueara · 11/08/2013 22:34

I should admit though, my husband is a vegetarian and I find it a massive pain in the arse. Having to muck our friends around because we can't go to the restaurants suggested because there isn't a vegetarian option, sometimes having to miss out on meals out with friends if they're going to a fish restaurant or somewhere like that (don't want to go on my own with all couples), massive problems when we go abroad, can't eat out in France at all and I miss out on that experience on family holidays.

All the family meal budget has to arranged around him and his food preferences. I have to cook two meals. If we have a dinner party and I just give him pasta he gets the hump and thinks I should have done a fancy meal for him as well as the meat eaters.

And we have these friends who have people round for dinner and are apparently the most wonderful cooks and everybody talks about the great food they've had there, the duck and chicken, and wonderful seafood. But what do we get when we go to a friends for dinner? Pasta and fucking pesto every time. I have to suffer through the vegetarian stuff and miss out on the good stuff because they'll just do the one vegetarian meal.

So I am biased. I generally find vegetarians irritating. Other than that my OH is great. But he is a massive pain in the arse as far as food is concerned.

SofiaVagueara · 11/08/2013 22:35

And he sometimes moans about splitting the bill because his veggie option is cheaper and I find it really embarrassing.

bellablot · 11/08/2013 22:36

YANBU, get each if them on the phone and tell them how much they owe you each. £45 for a bottle of wine for one person and they expect everyone to foot the bill, what utter tosh. I'd be fuming! Shock

ExitPursuedByABear · 11/08/2013 22:36

LTB

cleolaineonatuesdaynight · 11/08/2013 22:37

Why the hell didn't your DH put his foot down? Male pride kicking in, perhaps? No bloody way would I have paid all that money on some sarnies and soft drinks - who cares if it pisses off some selfish friends?

kim147 · 11/08/2013 22:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

pookamoo · 11/08/2013 22:39

This is why you need to say in a clear voice before anyone orders: "Can we all just pay for our own today?"

Most people won't have a problem with that, even if they just deduct your family's meals first, and then split the rest.

I learned the hard way, now I always make sure I set out my intentions before people start to order.

YANBU

Flatasawitchestit · 11/08/2013 22:42

YANBU

We've got friends like this. We went out once, just me, OH and our daughter. Had just mains, shared a drink with dd, whilst they bought their girls J20s like going out of fashion and allowed their girls to have adult menu food / desserts.

At the end we got stung with half the bill. I think we paid £17 more then we needed to.

Yes I worked it out, I was fuming but stupidly didn't say anything. Next time I said we'd do separate bills as its easier to work out and was told I'm a tight arse Hmm

Charlesroi · 11/08/2013 22:58

I would have just said "Im.not paying £35 for a sandwich and two cokes and neither is dh. Heres our share"

Yep - me too. I don't mind a couple of quid over the odds, because sometime you win and sometimes you lose. but fifty quid?!!
I'd be going for the "it's OK, we'll get our own" line from now on.

PS Hope you didn't leave a tip?

ChazDingle · 11/08/2013 22:58

flatasawitchestit> But why would you be told you're a tight arse, only in a case where you would be paying over the odds for your meal and if you pay for your own the other party ends up paying more. Actually that makes them the tight arse i'd say!!

NicknameIncomplete · 11/08/2013 23:03

I have never been in a situation where we have split the bill. It has always been pay our own.

When i am out with my friends we dont need to have a conversation everytime we go out because we all know the situation as we are friends.
I am the only one of my group of friends who has a child so this is why i insist on paying for our own as i dont want my friends paying for my dd.

frogspoon · 11/08/2013 23:06

Flatasawitchestit:

They don't sound much like "friends"

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 11/08/2013 23:08

Yanbu in this instance. Usually I don't mind splitting the bill at all, but what we tend to do when we go out as a group is split the food bill and all buy our own drinks. It's usually much fairer that way.

HorryIsUpduffed · 11/08/2013 23:10

The greediest/richest person suggests paying separately.
The least hungry/poorest person suggests splitting the bill.

That's just good manners. That said, the decision does need to be agreed before or during the ordering process preferably, not when the bill comes, and nobody should order on the assumption that someone else will subsidise their choice.

Often it doesn't matter (yours was £15, someone else's was £18, you all pay about £16) but in this case the difference between £10 and £50+ is significant.

In the OP's case, where the number of people in each family was different, and the scale of feasting was so different, I'd have been tempted to pay for ours at the bar when I went to the loo. Then when the bill comes I say "Oh I paid for ours" and the person holding the bill confirms that our items are not on it.

phantomnamechanger · 11/08/2013 23:17

I have had this both ways and think everyone should pay their own share - we go out from work - about 25 of us - everyone tots up what they owe plus £2 each for a tip and either puts the cash in or gets their card swiped for the right amount. It does not take ages to sort out.

went out with a gang of 20 mum friends from school and some were downing wine by the bottle or 2 - never in a million years did I think we on soft drinks would all end up subsidising their drinking habit because we would split the bill evenly - I ended up overpaying by £11 on a meal that cost £15 because I felt embarrassed to cause a scene! it left such a bad feeling I have not gone again

another time we went out to a tea room (me, DH and 3 Dc) with a couple - good friends, the DH of whom saw the bill and spilt it between the number of PEOPLE - so he paid 2/7 putting the cash in the dish and leaving us to pay 5/7 which meant he only put in about 2/3 of what he should based on what they actually ordered and ate compared to the DC (posh gateau and extra pots of tea compared to a few cheaper tray bakes and squash!) - he had not even looked at the price of the items on the menu and probably thought he was doing the right thing - luckily it was not ££££ and we saw the funny side of things. If it happened again we would point it out - or get in first with the menu and adding up.

we are not tight or anal - just "fairs fair"

Viviennemary · 11/08/2013 23:18

YANBU. The unreasonable ones are the people who decided they would not at least offer to pay their fair share of the bill. If people have more or less the same give or take a few pounds then fine. But not if there is a big difference. Your friends are to blame not your DH.

SuburbanRhonda · 11/08/2013 23:34

Sofia, sounds like your friends are extremely unimaginative if the best they can come up with - at a dinner party fgs! - is pasta and pesto. I only feed that to my family when there is nothing else in the house!

I get that in the 1980s people found it hard to cater for vegetarians. But these days? Really?

AmandaHoldenmigroin · 12/08/2013 03:54

No yanbu, which is why you should Ask the waitress to put your food and drinks on a separate bill. Do this before ordering, saves a lot of bother.

ArtisanLentilWeaver · 12/08/2013 04:11

Sophia, I hate to say this but pesto is not vegetarian. The hard cheese in it is made from rennet.

Saffyz · 12/08/2013 04:19

YANBU. Why should you subsidise others? They're not subsidising you, after all...