Splitting food when sharing holiday home

[Ohmygoodnessreally]

Been asked to share a holiday home with Bil, sil and their children...I want to say no for a few reasons but when talking it through with dh realised I don’t know how people work out how groceries etc work?

It would be self catering for a week. We eat very differently to bils family and there would be a big cost difference.

Do people have dedicated fridge shelves a la students? 😂
Or certain communal things?
Or just all in, and try to split somehow?

If going on holiday with someone we'd generally all eat together. If you're just sharing accommodation then tell them you'll sort out food for your family and just buy your own and claim a cupboard when you get there.

We share a holiday cottage with family every year.
Yes we have our own food and drink. We do have our own shelf in the fridge and cupboard. It works brilliantly - no one gets irritated that someone else drinks all the red wine!
We eat out in the evenings a few times and then one evening we cook a meal for everyone and pay for it and another night they return the favour.
I suggest getting the food organisation sorted before you go so everyone has the same expectations.

You sit down together and try to plan meals that you can all eat or you eat out. It’s not the norm to cook and eat separately when you are on holiday together.

In my family, we usually each prepare a meal in advance to take and have when we are away so it’s less to do on the holiday. Lasagne is the obvious one.

Take things with you that you particularly like. Like your coffee or whatever.

We all ate together and just took turns paying for groceries. But you can do it any way that suits - talk to the other family.

Any approach is fine. In your shoes I’d acknowledge that you all eat different things and suggest everyone sorts themselves out.

I think you've got a recipe for rows when family A eats family B's items by accident (or not); or alternatively if you share costs but don't get the same benefit. I would use that as the excuse for not taking up this lovely holiday plan.

We all eat together and split the bills accordingly, with kids counting as half a person (unless it’s teens who eat adult portions!). It can get complicated though and only do it if you don’t mind it not being 100% fair!

We did a self catering holiday a while back with three families and it was a nightmare as the largest family kept moving the goalposts about how we'd split food costs, basically wanting the rest of us to sub them. There are plenty of ways to do it, the main thing is agree a way that is agreed ahead of time.

I'm with Ellmau on this - all I can think of is all the things that could go wrong!! You seem to suggest that this arrangement wouldn't work for other reasons, so surely the food situation could be the last straw.

Sit down in advance and meal plan, then split the bill according to the number of people eating the food.

Can you give us some idea about the cost difference and how differently you eat? It might be easier to spot a compromise there.

Erm................we would be actually talking to our relatives to discuss and work this out, not posting on MN for anonymous views.

Sorry, but it seems to me you're making a big deal about something really silly and easily sorted with a 5 min chat.

If they are like my brother and his family they will buy food we would never eat like cheap white bread and spread rather than butter. They will then eat your much nicer food and get arsey if you complain.
They will also buy huge amounts of junk food which their children will have unlimited access to and take the piss out if you if you don’t want your child to eat Krave for breakfast every day followed by full sugar coke and crisps.
We don’t go away with my brother anymore

It's only complicated if you make it. Buy your own stuff and then take some stuff to share aswell

Arrange to have a BBQ one night and buy your own food for that etc

Really shouldn't be that difficult to work these things out

I've been away several times with my DM, DB and DS (so 4 households). The easiest thing was to allocate shelves / fridge space, and to agree to share some communal items eg milk & bread.
It's always worked well - we all have wildly different budgets and expectations. DS favours a lot of take-aways on holiday and DB is the complete opposite.
There's also the fact that sometimes we didn't all want to eat at the same time.
Or couldn't (I'm looking at you, DM, with your giant jigsaw spread over most of the table!).

Say no - going on holiday with other people is bloody hard, we did it over the summer and there were lots of positive things to say about it but it'll be a long time before I'd consider it again.

If it's such an issue, why don't you both get your own accomodation?

We used to go away with my sister, bil & 3 kids a lot. We both book our own caravans and do our own shopping but we also share i.e if they are in ours we stick the pizzas in for everyone or we go over and get a takeaway where we either take it in turns to pay or pay for our own. I don't begrudge buying my family a meal. Similarly, on one first night when we hadn't been shopping yet and it was late my sister sent over some post pub food when we couldn't get a pizza delivered.

Now they come to us as we live in a holiday town I'll go shopping before they get here and when they do DH & BIL normally go to the supermarket to get drinks and other food and I think they normally just go half on it.

It doesn't have to be so complicated if you aren't so hung up on everyone getting or putting in their exact 50-50 split down the middle share. It's swings and roundabouts.