A splitting the bill AIBU

[JamHolyMoly]

We recently went out for dinner to celebrate my step-father's retirement. There were 11 adults and 4 children. The adults, bar one, had 3 courses. Most had at least one alcoholic drink, some only had soft drinks. Money wise, most people consumed roughly the same amount of food and drink except for one person who had the most expensive dish on the menu (double the cost of everyone else's). This person also had a number of very expensive drinks as well as a couple of extra side dishes. The children all had the kids menu food which was £8 for 3 courses. They all drank water.

At the end of the meal, the guest who had the most expensive meal got the bill and told everyone that it would be £40 a head, and included the children in this. We have 3 children so by his working out of the bill we owed £200 for me, dh and our 3 children.

FYI I am not someone who ever argues about the bill and I'm always happy to split the bill evenly amongst all adults present. I don't think I have ever refused to pay an evenly split bill so I don't have form for this.

Anyway, I immediately said that DH and I weren't going to be paying £120 for our three children's meals seeing as their 3 courses totalled £24. It then became really awkward as the person who had split the bill up started getting arsey with me and made a number of rude comments implying I was being tight and basically tried to embarrass me in front of the group. I kept my cool and didn't bite back. Everyone else went very quiet and refused to be drawn into it. My dh was chatting to an acquaintance at another table at the time so he didn't even know what was going on and wasn't there to back me up. It put a dampener on the entire occasion and it's left me feeling very upset that no one spoke up to say "hey that's not fair to expect Jam and dh to pay £120 for £24 food".

In the past I have always stood up for people when they've had one course and a soft drink but been asked to pay an evenly split bill which covered alcohol and numerous course, and would never expect someone to pay for my meal if I had had considerably more than them. I told the person to remove the £24 we owed for the kids from the total bill and then we were happy to split the remaining amount amongst all adults and add the £24 onto the amount we personally owed. I didn't expect anyone to pay for our children's meals but likewise I didn't expect for us to be covering everyone else's expensive food options and alcohol consumption through our children.

Anyway, a couple of family members have since contacted me to say that I ruined the occasion and have upset SF and his (adult) children.

I honestly don't believe I was unfair to refuse to pay £120 for my children's meals but at the same time a number of people in the family disagree and think I was being very unfair. I don't understand their mindset or how they can justify this so maybe I ABU? What do you all think? Should I just have sucked it up and paid the entire £200?

Am slightly at the WhatsApp chats that must go on amongst Greens circle of acquaintances
A: Anyone fancy dinner next week
b: great idea, we could try the new place in town
C: ah would love to, I'll have a look at the menu as I'm on a budget
A: well if you're on a budget you won't be fully complying with the requirements of communal social dining. But never mind, I will generously meet you another day and we can go for a free walk and inhale air. Now, B lobster Thermidor is it?

I don't understand why anyone would get upset and feel you've ruined a meal cause you merely asked to split the bill evenly!

Hope your mum sheds light to what's going on as this is a ridiculous argument

OMFG I cannot wait to hear what your mum says.

On tenter hooks!

Does anyone else imagine the stepfather's son to look a lot like David Cameron...with his trotters up!

@Greenhousekeeping you’re trying too hard.

It’s all a bit Hyacinth Bucket-esque.

Please remember red onion = red wine & white onion = white wine.

To be fair, as far as formal dinner parties go GreenHouseDining is correct for social etiquette and bringing wine.

However, in most social circles, brining wine is fine, especially informal get togethers.

I feel we all agree, whatever our thoughts on big dining out that OP is NBU. This thread has become a bit about bill splitting in general though. Everyone’s different and everyone’s social circles are different. We just split and don’t quibble the odd extra coffee/desert/wine etc but we also have no CFs in our group that take the piss.

Or GreenHouseKeeping! Not dining 😫

I think subsidising for 5-10 is fine when it is a group that goes out often. Sometimes main courses can vary, sometimes an extra glass of wine is drunk, sometimes coffee is bought and it all comes out in the wash.

Beyond that no - and here the subsidy was £96 how any one can agree with him is beyond me

I think the OP's way of splitting this bill was the ideal way. She paid for her children plus a share of her DSF.

I don't get why adults split the bill and share the costs of any children. My family often did this and, although there was only one child in the group, so I did do it, it was annoying as the child was so picky he usually left most of his food, despite choosing it themself. I hated paying for a share of their wasted food and felt their parents should have wasted their own money on the wasted food.

I don't mind splitting costs of adults evening some have more expensive meals. It's usually 'swings and roundabouts' over time.

• even when not 'evening'.

Claire In my home country most restaurants run a separate bills for each diner. As in once you sit down and the waiter comes over, he/she will then just open an individual tap per person/family. It takes the whole stress out of eating out and worrying if you are ordering the expensive choice or if someone else is taking the piss. Splitting bills isn't really a thing there so this system works well.

I'm really glad i only go out with down to earth friends on reading this thread! Just because we will only pay for our own meals doesn't mean we should miss out on occassions ffs. We CAN afford to eat out...we just can't afford to cover anybody else's suddenly expensive tastes!

As for the wine thing, if i turn up without wine people usually think something is up! We always take alcohol with us as a gift - neither me or DP drink so we aren't questioning anybody's wine cellars i might start asking to see them now tho

I cannot stand non-splitting on the bill normally, but in this instance there is no way I would pay all that for 3 kids!

OP was being fair. Children's meals are a low, usually fixed price and tend to have drinks included or at least add little to a drinks bill.

Splitting a bill is good where people tend to comsume a similar value of food and drink or it balances up over time. The advantage is that it tends to be quite effective at covering services charges/ tips.

It doesn't work where the drink and food covers the extreme range of the menu. People who order the finest steak and drink half the wine cellar shouldn't expect to be subsidised.
Also at the opposite end, there are some of the cheap vegetarian and tapwater end of the scale who always seem to forget their share of the service charge/ tips and will quibble to the exact £10.25 and consistently leave others to add the extra costs to their share. Not as galling as the extortion types, but socially wearing none the less.

I hate this too.
I do mind the extra £5 or so but hate subsidising cfs.

If you eat and drink your way through £100 worth of stuff wtf should you only pay £50.
Op, you are not being unreasonable at all.

Don't mind the kids extra £5.

My favourite places are where you pay at the time of ordering, it avoids all this mess.

I cannot stand non-splitting on the bill normally

Well I hope you normally OK your meal with everybody before you order then.

Yes it's always the c.f. Who has the most expensive meal who wants to split the bill isn't it.

I very rarley split the bill. I'd rather just pay for what I've had, otherwise there'll always be someone who overpays, someone who doesn't pay enough etc I don't think it's fair.

I find it's always the CF who has eaten & drunk the most who tries to bandy around words like "tight" in these situations.

Yup, this. It’s always CFs who order the most expensive food and drink the most that want to split the bill. How convenient.

I think I've accepted that some people always want to split the bill and some never do, but what I now don't get is those that tailor their order based on what others are having.

OK, there might be a general 'are we having starters' discussion to avoid either one person sitting there with nothing while everyone having a starter, or even worse, one person having a starter and everyone else having to wait for them to eat it, but anything beyond that is bonkers and what if you go first and everyone else has picked cheaper/more expensive options than you? Or the others order first and your order is too cheap/expensive to fit in - you would have to start choosing again and hope you were ready before the waiter got to you.

Some restaurants have a huge range in prices - Italian is a classic example. A pizza or pasta probably costs about a tenner if that and is filling enough to have by itself, but if they also do steak and fish, than can be twice as much and often sides are extra, so you could have some people with a £10 order and some that's £20+.

I'd never base my choice on what others are having, I'd order the food that I wanted to eat. Are all my dining companions thinking 'oh no, Barbara's ordered a pizza, so that means I can't have the fish now' .

Also I think that from this day forward "GF" should designate "Greedy Fuckers"