WIBU to insist we pay less?

[PinkyofPie]

Went for a meal last night with a few ILs and another family (the parents and aunties/uncles of the partner of an IL) - about 20 of us in total.

We went to an Italian chain restaurant. I am pregnant so not drinking and DH in his support is abstaining from drinking too (his choice before I get flamed!). We had 3yo DD with us.

We had a pizza each (£9 each) and DD shared mine as we both have quite small appetite, and all 3 of us shared a bottle of large mineral water which was £3. DH and I shared a dessert which was a fiver.

The rest of the table all had a 2-3 courses each and every single person had lots of wine, ordered in bottles

Now I am usually happy to split the bill and think nothing of it, when people have similar food and drink. If I had to pay £5 more than I would individually it doesn't bother me at all, I don't like to make a fuss.

However when the bill came someone in the 'other' family took it and got his calculator out....£33 each! "Oh actually it's probably not fair that Pinky and PinkyHusband pays that for MiniPinky. Just pop a tenner in for her or something and I'll recalculate"

I would rarely spend that much on a meal out. We are saving for the baby and also have had lots of unexpected bills lately - car repairs, things going wrong in the house, broken washing machine etc. We budgeted for the meal but thought more around £35-£40 for the 3 of us.

Anyway, as DH went to put £76 on his card as we didn't have enough in cash, I said "sorry it's just that we didn't have alcohol and shared most of our food, is everyone happy I we just stick £40 in?". Which was £14 more than what we actually ate and drank.

There were some pissed off faces but they said "oh I suppose so". Everyone else had to pay £3 more each

DH thinks for the sake of an extra "few quid" we should have just maybe left it, but I think I was in the right and they were being cheeky fuckers.

WIBU and tight or would you have done the same?

I think that if you normally just split the bill, you should have pointed out before everyone got drunk the bill per head was worked out, that as you wouldn't be drinking you'd prefer a separate bill. I assume that the price per head was pretty much the same as normal, so it wouldn't have been a surprise to either of you. Congratulations on the pregnancy by the way.

I know some people who pick and choose whether they're a bill splitter or a 'pay for what you've hadder' depending on what's best for them. Ridiculous.
I don't mind going with the majority, but agree that when you're pregnant and not drinking, you definitely shouldn't be subsidising others. I would always say if someone hasn't been drinking to put in for what they'd had or a tenner less etc. I have been stung by someone who wanted subsiding repeatedly and always used to wait until everyone else had paid in large parties to see if they could get away with paying nothing

Since you always just share the bill I do think it was off this time to decide at the end that you were not doing so. Fine to specify at the start and ask for yours to be billed separately but changing things at the point of paying is wrong.

Baroness we've never had a meal with these people before, I was referencing what I usually do with friends. And the subject of who pays and how was never broached, I assumed at the end it would be discussed rather than announced. I don't like to bring it up mid-meal either i think it makes things a bit awkward!

I hate quibbling over a few quid but in this case theres a huge difference! You are definitely being reasonable.

Someone we used to- used to!- socialise with used to quibble over for example who had a larger glass of wine and who'd had more olives and bread etc. That's the sort of bill splitting people hate.

YANBU. I would have (and have done several times) noted what I owed and added 10% tip, which would in this case have equalled £30. Me and DH drink very little alcohol and you should not have to pay for everyone else's drinks.
In the future, if in this sort of situation, ask the waiter when you order to do your bill separately.
Fifty quid for other people's booze is not on. Sod the 'pissed off' faces.

The other people were most at fault, particularly the family member who did the calculations, for putting you in the embarrassing situation of having to say something. In big outings like this there is always the possibility of unfairness and it is the responsibility of the ones filling their boots to notice if others have consumed substantially less.

I'm glad you said something but you should have been more specific with the numbers so they knew why you wouldn't pay more- surely they wouldn't have got catsbumface if they knew you'd only spent £26! I just can't understand why any of them would want to split it, I would feel awful if someone was to pay an extra £50 for nothing. It's so selfish.

Yeah, at the pissed-off faces. That's a bit cheeky of them!

I'd be embarrassed if I'd tried to sting people £99 for £26 worth of food, and be all 'Oh sorry, of course you should pay less' when they pointed it out.

I don't think you did anything wrong, but I don't think they were very unreasonable either. With 20 people it becomes very difficult to start calculating how much each person had or to keep track of who is drinking (and how much). Having 3 courses and mineral water can easily add up to £25 - £30 per person (including a tip) in a chain restaurant, so actually it is possible that not everyone round the table was really drinking and eating that much more than you anyway. If there were 6 or 8 of you then I would be a bit cross with them, but I think that with such a large group you do normally have to accept that the bill will be split equally unless you make it clear from that start that you want a separate bill.

It is not impossible that there may have been someone else down the other end of the table who had a sip of wine and only one course, and who is also feeling a bit aggrieved..

PS on a side note, leaving a 10% tip is now often underpaying when you are in a large group. It seems to have crept up to at least 12.5% or even 15% as a service charge, which is not always voluntary in a group of a particular size. That is another minefield when with a larger number of people!

Surely most people keep a sort of rough calculation in their heads though? Sort of well the starter is about a fiver and the main was 16 and half a bottle of wine so that's roughly 30 sort of thing?

Maybe not...

I always think you should remove the alcohol before splitting if anyone isn't drinking, as bottle of wine is £20 to start with. And as Your DD didn't actually order her own meal, she shouldn't have been counted at all, but your PILs should have picked up on this!

Funny how it usually the greedy bastard whose wired into every course on the menu and knocked back the booze who suggests just splitting the bill. I'm vegetarian and as such I'll end up have a £9 veggie option and someone who has had a £25 steak will usually pipe up with let's just split it shall we?

YANBU! Something similar happened to me at the weekend - table of 18 for my hen do. About half were drinking a lot of prosecco. I was drinking a lot of prosecco...

At the end the bill came and we removed the price of prosecco and divided by 18 (£15 each), then divided the prosecco between the 9 who drank (extra £10 each).

2 of the girls mentioned that their food only came to £8 each, nobody noticed at the time as there were so many of us so nobody was trying to stiff them on purpose. So a quick recalculation and everyone else paid 1-2 quid more. Nobody cared, it was a really nice meal and it would have been daft to end such a lovely meal with 2 people feeling hard done by.

Funnily enough my first ever MN post was about someone complaining about splitting the bill - but that time we'd all had pretty much the same thing and the fussy couple ended up owing more!

Why should they have to say at the beginning that they want to pay separately, to avoid being stung by greedy people spending loads more?

It would never occur to me that I would be expected to pay towards someone else's meal that had consumed and spent three times what I had. Maybe I have nicer friends and family?

Still, good to know dh is that debonair with money. Perhaps take him shopping with you to some really posh shops. After all, it's only an extra "few quid."

Ha I will remember there's a spare £36 floating in his bank!

Never an easy option with group meals, but you have to move fast to outwit the heavy drinkers/ eaters who try to shame the party into dividing the bill, thus subsidising their meals. You drink and eat more than most, your share of the bill goes down whilst the 'moderate consumers' goes up.You were quite right to insist on paying what you did; next time establish you pay for your own meals first.

I know some people who pick and choose whether they're a bill splitter or a 'pay for what you've hadder' depending on what's best for them. Ridiculous.

I do something a bit like this. I note down what I'm ordering and the price, and add a tip. I'm then prepared to pay that much. If the split bill comes out to less than I had I know I should be putting in more and will do, pointing out that I had an extra drink or whatever. If the split is about the same as what I had, no issue. If the split is way more then I can say "since I only had x&y that's ££ with tip".

It's making sure I don't underpay or overpay. (Although obviously sometimes I'll treat a friend.)

Maybe I have nicer friends and family?

Nice enough that when they go out in a group of 20 they know exactly how many courses each of the other 19 had, which of them ordered the cheap mains and which the expensive, and who had wine and mineral water, and who stuck to tap water?

It's just impossible to keep track in that size of a group, and so if someone has eaten less the onus is on them to speak up. Which is what happened. So it seems like a happy ending.

I'd bet the disapproving faces were from people who also ate less than the value of the split cost who had decided to suck it up.

I agree Barbara. I never assume every is happy to split the cost if out, not everyone can afford to. Assuming everyone else is happy to subsise your choices and getting the arse about it when you're expected to pay for what YOU actually had is much ruder than what op did! Why should some subside others expensive menu items and alcohol consumption.

I just don't get the pissed off reaction of the bill splitters (not just your meal OP, but in general) Just recalculate again after the smaller bill has been taken off... It's not hard.

Subsidise fgs.

I'm glad you said something but you should have been more specific with the numbers so they knew why you wouldn't pay more- surely they wouldn't have got catsbumface if they knew you'd only spent £26!

I agree with this - you definitely weren't being even a tiny bit unreasonable, but I do wonder whether your vagueness was why they were a bit put-out, especially if they were all a bit drunk. People always underestimate how much their drink has added to the bill, especially when it's wine ('I only had a couple of glasses, that can only be a few quid', when actually it's 2/3rds of a £20 bottle of wine) and it sounds like no one noticed that your daughter didn't actually have a meal, and 'we shared most of our food' may not have conveyed this to them.

I agree that someone should have pointed out that it wasn't fair for you to split the bill - and I try to always do this if I'm eating with a group and someone has notably less - but people might just not have been paying much attention to the fact you didn't have much. I think that's more likely than that they were deliberately screwing you over.

Agree that it's almost always the big diners and drinkers who suggest splitting the bill, to their own advantage, and then do catsbum face if you point out you only had a main course and diet coke. If the split amount is more than £10 different to what you actually consumed, definitely right to disagree!

Wow, I hate this 'split the bill equally' thing. The people who get arsey about it are normally the ones who have pushed the boat out, ordered oysters and cocktails and fillet steak and then get narked because you won't subsidise the cost of their meal.

I 100% agree that you shouldn't have paid it and £3 extra is nothing actually.

Makes me miss when I was a student and everyone got their calculators out to work out the cost to the nearest penny. Nowadays it's all 'split the bill equally' and 'buy rounds for 14 people'. And if you don't you look tight.