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?

Well at any rate, I'm glad that your mother and SF accept that you were reasonable

My apologies.

Well nice to know your own mother was bitching about you behind your back. I think she ought to set the record straight with those she discussed it with.

In fairness it was probably a “I was mortified that X kicked up a fuss about £16” as opposed to “listen to how awful my daughter is,”

However, I’d be well and truly pissed being told he wasn’t annoyed with me!

That makes more sense: "let's count Jam, her husband and the kids as three adults for the purposes of splitting the bill" isn't a terrible way to go about it. As you say, it still puts you out of pocket, but not massively (in proportion to total cost of the meals)

How crappy for aunt and sister to be griping about it, though

This is utterly insane, YRDNBU ok! I'm angry as hell for you. As someone who considers herself quite poor, the notion of splitting the bill is crazy to me. I don't drink, partly due to cost so I'll be damned if I'm paying for someone else to! Me and my close group of friends are all in similar boats and struggle financially too, so we all know that we pay for our own. One friend tried to split the bill once and I happily objected as she had had 4 alcoholic drinks. She accused me being tight and I said no, in not but I've spent within my means. Pay for your own sodding drinks, love! Good on you for standing up for yourself. Naturally it's taken a female to have the balls to do so. I'd tell your aunty to eff off and move away from the other CFs

I’m not sure I’d bother going out with any of them again after this

Ivana, I was so cross at that point. My mum seemed more concerned that I would be worrying about what SF thought of me rather than the fact his son had attempted to swindle me out of money to pay for his luxurious meal choices! She's had a rocky relationship with step-son so I think that played a part in this as well.

Yanbu! Shame on the rest of the party for not sticking up for you. It is one of my bug bears when someone that has 3 courses and copious amount of drink and then grabs the bill when it arrives and suggests the bill is split when others in the party are driving so have stuck to tap water.

Does she know how you feel and how angry you are

Tbh even her first version of events means she wanted you to pay for him

I would just pay for what you and your family had and no more. If they don’t like it that’s their problem. The same thing happened to me once so now I only put the amount for what I had to eat and my buy my drinks separate. I can’t be doing with family tiffs.

I think I would be really annoyed at your family for not sticking up for you at the meal, making a big deal about it and then riling up relatives who did not even go to the meal. I think in the future if you go out with any of them say at the outset you will be getting a separate bill in view of the fuss they caused last time. In fact I think it would be a long time before I went out for dinner with them again. I also would not offer to pay your SF bill in future birthday or not.

The bill should have been split between the adults with the parents paying £8 for each child. (Obviously the cost of the children’s meals taken off of the overall bill iyswim)

It’s disgraceful that no one stood with you, I guess they thought if you paid £200 then their share would be substantially less than it should have actually been.

I don’t think you are being at all unreasonable in wanting a fair split.

@yankiedad I also read it that way but then although I think my oh is a knob, and a couple that I work with are complete tossers, I don't think all men are. Sometimes they can't do right for doing wrong.

I’ve been out many times with my three kids in similar situations. And what always happens is the kids aren’t even counted. I obviously never expect this. The bill usually gets split between the adults. It’s actually such a ridiculous situation. You were absolutely right

YADNBU - and then some! The other adults in the party were BU for not backing you up at the table and the person who phoned you to lay blame at your door was almost as big a CF as the huge CF who tried it on by oredering big and paying small.

I hate this whole ‘splitting the bill’ thing. Those who defend paying up are the people who take advantage or who think others with more money should pay for them. And in any case, who knows what the true income or disposable part of it is for others?

Ordering, not oredering! Sorry.

Nope! As a group we always take off kids meals then split the rest. And even then someone will chuck in a bit more if they drank loads or we’ll knock a bit off for a tea totallers.
Can’t believe someone expected you to pay £120 for kids food!!!

Or if we’ve all got kids there the bill is split between adults. Can’t stand people taking the piss like that!

We usually just share the bill with close friends. Some we win, some we lose. But, I admit on ‘bill sharing’ nights, I hadn’t considered the extra costs of bread/olives/water etc. I always consider the tip, although others don’t.

However.........how about printing out several copies of a document showing the various calculations on how to have possibly shared the bill? Showing (hopefully!) that every time the CF is underpaying his fair share. You can then give these to everyone who thinks YABU.

I once went out with a group where the CF who did the bill splitting (and ate/drank the most) included the children in the headcount. I was the only one with kids (DD and her friend) so I would have ended up paying for their alcohol basically, as I would have paid three parts and everyone else one part. Thing is they knew THE KIDS’ MEALS WERE FREE!!!! (Clearly stated on the bill).

I soon put paid to that, and insisted we all pay for what we’d had, purely because the CF had had the most.TBH if they hadn’t included the kids in the headcount, I would have paid whatever the split was, but they pissed me off. Have never gone out with them since!

You absolutely did the right thing and your DM has not exactly covered herself in glory has she. Even if she thought you had only been asked to pay £40 for one child, she has no business gossiping to your Aunt and Sister. At the very least she should put them straight and apologise to you.

I hope your response to being asked to any future family dinners which include the CF will be a firm No Thank You.

You are definitely not being unreasonable

YANBU whatsoever! You should only have paid £104 as I understand it not £200 and that’s not taking into account his very expensive meal that would have been knocked off the total before the bills was divided. You already made an allowance for his expensive order. That’s more than enough.
Next time a set menu at a fixed price for everyone or they pay their way for what they had or alternatively the birthday person invites everyone which is what we usually do in a family thing. End of arguments. Or the organiser pays the whole lot and everyone fills up the kitty with equal amounts per adult and then of course a reasonable amount for children’s meals afterwards. It looks like he was trying to get his meal for free . You’re no fool!

Yadnbu I always split the bill but that is ridiculous, it would have been so easy to minus the kids amount then split after that.