Splitting restaurant bill

[idontwanttodothisanymore]

I’m one of those people who like to pay for just my meal. I hate splitting the bill by how many people there are.

Me and DH went out with his friend and his OH the other day.

Mine and DH meal came to: £31.57
I had pizza and water, he had chicken and one coke.
DH friend and OH meal came to: £49.78
They had ribs, lasagne, chips and 3 drinks.

Final bill was £81.75
DH friend had two vouchers for £20 off, so they both used that.

Then the OH said we could pay the rest. So we ended up paying £41.75 - £10 more than our meal!!!

I had never met her before and was completely shocked that she wanted us to split by 4 when our meal was cheaper.
She was very intimidating anyway so I didn’t want to say anything.

We were going to do 2 bills but the waiter was all flustered so we said don’t bother. Regretting it now!

I know it’s only £10 but our circumstances are so different. They both work and she has one child - he works full time and she works part time. Whereas DH works part time (and overtime if there is any) but I don’t (I had to leave my job due to medically issues), and we have 2 children.

DH doesn’t think I should be annoyed but I really am!
AIBU to be annoyed?

I don’t think I’ll ever see her again anyway, I didn’t get a good vibe from her and she’s just not my kind of person at all.

Another factor I guess is that we tend to go out for dinner with people who will eat and drink in a similar fashion to us. Maybe one drink/cocktail before dinner, bottle of wine or two through the meal, coffees/brandy afterwards. It would be unusual for someone to divert wildly away from this pattern, so the cost shakes down as pretty even.

But why did you do all those things you didn't want to do? Who just changes every plan they have when someone they don't know whats to do different?

Pisa I didn't say they paid full price for them, but they do have to pay for them - yes the value (to spend) is more than they paid but it's a cash equivalent - use them for £40 pizza vouchers/ jewellery/ AA for the year or whatever etc. If they hadn't chosen to "save" £30 on a meal (£40 Vouchers for £10) they'd have used the Tesco points to save £30 on RAC membership or Eurostar or whatever it is Tesco offers these days!!

Then I guess now you know, you never say you'll sort it later, you get separate bills or you accept the social norm for once you've eaten as a group is to just split the bill by the group. If you want to pay separately, you ask for separate bills. Staff can always do this. If they refuse, you leave because it's not ok to faff about later on about "but you had a coke, and he had a side...." nonesense.

You share a bill or you don't.

"I never understand how some people think it is so difficult to roughly calculate what you had and pay your share. Just round up then add tip. Paying for what you had is hardly complicated. "

It's not hard here is it, and if you don't want to calculate it, then it doesn't hurt to be generous in spirit, i.e. err on the side of overestimating your share of the bill.

Last time I took someone out to lunch, it was somewhere more expensive than they'd normally go so I just paid the whole bill without question.

@hotbutteredcrumpetsandtea

I looked at the wrong date for our early bird cinema times.

So we went to town to see the film - but it wasn’t on until 5 hours later!

DH friend asked how the film was, DH said we got the wrong time. So his friend invited us with them as they were going to a different cinema later that evening.

I always want to pay for my own food because I am a greedy fucker with expensive tastes but with no expectation or desire that my less well-off friends will subsidise either fact.

I sat through an honestly excruciating dinner bill-splitting where a single mum was trying to pay for what she owed only - the only way she could afford to come to her friend (my sister's) 30th. No, she wasn't pushing the electric bill to attend, but she could only afford so much after meeting the demands of her life and had picked from the menu accordingly.

Another girl and my BIL were falling over themselves to look like high rollers, having both ordered far more, wanting to do the 'grown up' thing and split the bill. Eff that. The grown up thing was the woman with real adult responsibilities standing her corner over the amount she knew she could afford beforehand.

Seriously, 99 times of 100, the person wanting to split the bill will have a financial reason for doing so, not a tight or stingy one, so why be a twat about it? These people are theoretically your friends...

oh and if you are struggling financially, don't agree to change your plans to more expensive ones to keep someone else happy when the reality is you cant afford it.

It is hard when you are struggling, but really focus on where it went wrong to avoid this happening again, and it was way before the bill arrived that everything went wrong. Saying 'that doesn't work for us, you go ahead and we'll do our own thing' is fine.

If you knew the other cinema would be more expensive then you could have said no to meeting them later. Just don't make plans to eat out with them again.

" they'd have used the Tesco points to save £30 on RAC membership or Eurostar or whatever it is Tesco offers these days!!
"

Yes this is true, but IME the deals have got a lot worse and there's a lot more 3 for 1 and 2 for 1, so it's actually hard to get £40 for £10 nowadays. A lot of my Tesco vouchers end up expiring. I like my Amex better (straight cash).

If you are going to use a voucher like this in a mixed group then you should get your own bill or at the least be generous when splitting the bill, not pretend that £40 in Bella Pasta vouchers is in anyway the same as £40 in cash.

Right, so everything you paid out unexpectedly was completely down to yourself then?
If 8 quid breaks your bank then the sensible thing to do was go home, not pay 24 quid for the cinema when you meant to pay 4, and then willingly go to a more expensive place to eat, and then willingly say you'd share platters, and then willingly split the bill.

Honestly, you and your h caused the problem you are complaining about.

DH has been friends with his friend for 14 years now.
Me and DH have been together for 9 years.
DH friend has been with his OH for less than a year.

DH has met her once before when he helped them move house.
I hadn’t met her until last night.
I wouldn’t call her a friend, it was very awkward.

It’s very rare that we can get a babysitter anyway so I don’t see another scenario in the near future where I have to see her again.

I like to split based on roughly what I’ve eaten, but overestimate generously always.

Doesn’t anyone skim read a bill?
I can take a glance, for literally a few seconds, and round up to £7,£15,£6 including drinks , mine comes to £28, call it £30 for a first estimate.....

Don’t you all do that?

There is just so much detail when the most simple and basic answer is "you should have insisted on two bills". Next time, you'll know.

Unbelievable! You are an awful snob! How depressing this thread is. I never realised there were so many stuck up, patronising ignorant people

Thankfully I've never met anyone in real life as rude as some of the people on here. Maybe they're just feeling braver behind their keyboards and are not so outright rude in person...but then again...

£28 plus tip is £31.50

You went along with it. It's done now. You have to let it go and not see them again or SAY SOMETHING.

It's bad enough to split the bill but if you must you should do it by numbers not how much each person's meal cost .

I agree with pinktiger Its all about manners.

"Bad enough to split the bill"

Do you mean OP should have just paid for the whole thing?

I don't care if I split the bill and come off worse I only eat with people I don't mind paying over the odds for and visa versa. We have never ever split the bill other than divided by the number of people there. Whoever's kids are there are excluded from the numbers and the rest of us absorb the cost. We know it will come around another time when it's our kids. I love my friends children anyway I have no problem paying for them.

It is the social norm just to spilt the bill. I've never done anything other than that....I can't imagine people getting calculators out, what a faff.

Unless you have a very specific set of friends who have always totted up
individual amounts then you have to
assume the bill will be spilt equally. If you can't afford to do that then just go out for drinks.

They don't owe you anything just because you have more children and work less.

I've found that when people are being very exact and adding to the penny on their phones it always turns out that the amount thrown in the middle is short. They tend to forget about the tip, or the bread, or "I only had a glass of the wine so I'm not putting in for the booze".

Rough splits, like to the nearest fiver yes, but the literal penny pinchers alnost always under pay.

If I only had £40, two kids and was expecting, I wouldn't be arranging trips to the cinema or eating out