Paying friend for petrol?

[Pollyputthekettleon32]

So my friend invited me for lunch,she drove to pick me up (15 min each way ) and I gave her £5 petrol.
She then says her dad says “does (polly) realise petrol isn’t free”
Is £5 petrol not enough?
How much should I be giving?

[TestingTestingWonTooFree]

How embarrassing. I’d feel compelled to text her a (equally) passive aggressive text about how you’d worked out the mileage/average cost of fuel/£5 payment and worked out that she owes you money. But that’s ok, because she’s a friend and you don’t charge for lunch dates. CF.

This.

I’d calculate the extra distance on google maps and guess her fuel economy from published figures. Alternatively the HMRC rate is 40p a mile I think, that’s meant to cover fuel, maintenance, tyres, insurance etc. Make sure you add in the coffee.

[flumpybear]

Essentially you've given her more than the trip would have cost innfuel and paid for her coffee too - my god thsts plenty!

I drive a 1 sEries BMW - it costs around £60-70 tonfill the tank. My trip to work is 12-15 mins each way and I could easily live on this tank for 3-4 weeks with the odd trip to the shops etc ... so I'd say for my car which isn't expensive but not dirt cheap either, I could easily do 40 plus 15 minute journeys so around £1.50-£2 per trip max - she made money off you in this case .... unless she drives a gas guzzler ?

[Mummyoflittledragon]

I think he missed off “.....free for you seeing as she’s paying you to fill your tank.”

[M0reGinPlease]

What a shit friend she is.

[emmyrose2000]

I'd be embarrassed if someone even offered me money for such a short drive. I certainly wouldn't take it.

If someone expected/asked for money for such a short drive I'd assume they were a miserly, stingy person.

[ConciseandNice]

How embarrassing. I’d feel compelled to text her a (equally) passive aggressive text about how you’d worked out the mileage/average cost of fuel/£5 payment and worked out that she owes you money. But that’s ok, because she’s a friend and you don’t charge for lunch dates. CF.

[ZenNudist]

Uber next time

[clippityclock]

CF!! Next time say you’ll meet her there as you can’t afford to keep paying her petrol and buy her drinks. She’s awful

[Juells]

As she’s newly passed it’s a bit of a novelty for her so she’s suggesting to pick me up and go for drives etc

Hahahaha driving around feeling good and making money at the same time. Win win for her.

[LemonysSnicket]

I used to drive 200miles home on £15 of petrol she can fuck off.

I was the only driver out of my friends and never once charged a penny. Cheap.

[Iloveacurry]

And you got a coffee too? That’s another £5. So with the petrol money and coffee, she’s quids in. She’s definitely a CF.

[expatinscotland]

You just say no next time. Seriously, who does this? I just don't get it and we're usually pretty skint. If we know someone's off the road, always offer to give a lift as long as we're not meeting to drink, and wouldn't dream of taking money, just no. And especially not if we were going in the first place! Last year we were travelling about 5 hours each way to a common holiday destination and a mate was going, too. She doesn't have a car, so we swung by her place in the city and collected her and went on our merry way. She offered us money, said no. Duh. We were going anyway, she's a friend, not a coach tour passenger.

[sonjadog]

Ah, if she has just passed, she might not realize how much petrol it takes for a trip of that length.

[Pollyputthekettleon32]

As she’s newly passed it’s a bit of a novelty for her so she’s suggesting to pick me up and go for drives etc

[Pollyputthekettleon32]

I don’t think she mentioned I normally pay her petrol.
She’s only been passed a month and we’ve been out twice previous and I’ve gave her £5 each time.
Maybe her dad didn’t know I pay petrol as he is a nice man.
Parking was free as it was just a pub and you can stay a max of 3 hours then we went to a retail park which is also free parking.

[carefreeeee]

Presume the comment is not about the current trip (as the comment was made before you even went) but previous trips? Have you had lifts with her before and not contributed? Or maybe the dad was just surprised at her driving 15 mins out of her way (it would be a total of an hour' driving for her, which is quite considerable). Still if your friend didn't want to pick you up she shouldn't have offered to do so, and definitely shouldn't have passed on her dad's comment. £5 would have covered even an hour's driving amply.

[flowerslemonade]

Well yeah you obviously realise it isn't free seeing as you gave her £5 for it. His comment doesn't even make sense.

[2andcountingtodate]

Rude and passive aggressive. I bet he said nothing but she wants an excuse to make a pointed comment.

[Viviennemary]

I think it's easier to pay for coffee or similar if it's only a short drive. Paying £5 is quite excessive IMHO.

[Katedotness1963]

This doesn't show me in a good light but..

Years ago a friend decided she wanted to start going to the gym, but she didn't want to go alone so asked me to go too. I had absolutely no interest in going but she wouldn't leave it alone so, eventually, I agreed.

She would come and pick me up (less than 5 minutes from her house to mine) and drive us to the gym. Afterwards she would want to go for lunch and I felt it was only fair for me to pay since she did the driving. We were going three times a week! At the end of the second week, as I'm getting out of the car at my house she says "(husband), says you really should be chipping in for petrol". I was speechless!

That evening I worked out the mileage, cost of petrol and roughly how much would be used for the round trip. (This was about 30 years ago) it came out to be something like 25p per day. Next time I saw her I gave her £1 and said I would not be going again.

A couple of days later I remembered his job paid a petrol allowance!! Needless to say the friendship cooled.

[SandAndSea]

I drive people all the time and always have. It's nice if someone offers some petrol money or a drink and/or goes halves on the parking, but it sounds like you paid well over the odds.

Did she park for free? If so, I think you over-paid. Buying a coffee would have been enough in my book.

[Trinity66]

Bloody hell, she wanted money for petrol from you? What a tight arse

[RafikiIsTheBest]

Is she a little socially awkward. I'm wondering if it's more of a case of you gave her the money and she felt weird about it or maybe it reminded her about what her dad said (like she wasn't expecting anything) so it was a strange way of thanking you???

I still don't quite get the timeline. Maybe you should call her and ask her what she ment as you didn't understand and are worried she thinks your taking the mic (what with paying £5 cash and the price of a coffee for a lift to somewhere she arranged).

I think it's bizarre.

[SickOfThisShitNow]

We spend less than £10 on a 40 minute each way journey. (Plus the extra driving around when we're in the town, McDonald's to Tesco, Tesco to town centre...)
You CF friend is trying to get you to pay all the fuel. Where was her fiver contribution? Yours more than covered all the fuel for the trip.
I never ask for fuel contribution if I'm going there anyway or have invited the person out. I only accept a little something if they ask me to take them somewhere and it's quite far.

[UndomesticHousewife]

You should get new friends with non idiot fathers