To be ungrateful to receive a gift that's going to cost me money?

[wintertime6]

I just don't understand why people think it's a nice thing to do? Me and DH were given a £30 voucher for a really fancy restaurant as a gift. Yes, I know that it would be lovely to go out for a nice meal, but it's a set menu in the evenings at £70 each, not including drinks. So in reality it's going to cost us well over £100 and we're just going to end up going for the sake of using the voucher, and will have to organise and pay for a babysitter on top!

I know I'm not going to enjoy it that much, knowing how much it's costing us, but I'd feel bad letting it go to waste and the person who bought us the voucher is definitely going to ask how we enjoyed the meal and I just can't lie!

I'd much rather have received a £30 voucher for a local pizza restaurant and we could have gone out some night as a family for a chilled out meal, I wouldn't have had to think about what to cook for anyone that night, and it would have been pretty much free!

I hate being ungrateful for gifts, but I just can't bring myself to feel grateful in anyway for receiving such an annoying present!!

Why not go for lunch, they usually have a cheap menu, and drink water. Take the kids - via the park first of course. I took my kids to proper restaurants from babies and they behaved far better than in noisy kid oriented places with others running around.

I agree with pp, ring the restaurant and see if they will do takeout dessert. Much less faff.

@LellyMcKelly. Unfortunately, that's not unusual.

@lotsofoysters of course they will. Why does it need to be toddler friendly? I'm sure a cake will keep them occupied for half an hour

@bananasandwicheseveryday I completely understood "a couple of jumpers ago" and think it's a great way to say a few years ago...!

If dinner is £70, then lunch is still likely to be £20-30 ph so it's still likely to cost a fair bit, especially if they take DC.

Plus there seems something a little bit sad about going and trying to spend as little as possible, with most of the menu being off limits, and I say that as someone happy to have cheaper options, use vouchers etc.

I can see that, if they go, they're going to come away feeling that the voucher was effectively worthless.

Haha, sorry but what rubbish gift

of course they will. Why does it need to be toddler friendly? I'm sure a cake will keep them occupied for half an hour

The restaurants I can think of that charge £70 per person are Michelin star wannabes, and you have to book tables in advance. If they do cheaper set lunches, you have to pay for the whole set lunch or they lose money by giving you a table that could have had 4 full paying customers.

Agree it’s a rubbish gift. It wouldn’t even cover the cost of a lunch.

I would give it back. Tell them you won’t use it as it’s too expensive and you don’t want it to go to waste

If you do this, be prepared for them to be offended. Giving back a present with that message will come across as a passive aggressive snipe that they're tight as a duck's proverbial for not giving you enough for two meals.

The ones I can think of don't tend to be full on a weekday afternoon and don't lose money by someone sitting down for a cake and a coffee.

We've taken the kids to places like this since they were babies and never had a problem or felt unwelcome.

What was the gift for?

I just wouldn’t go and fob them off with excuses. They won’t buy it again

I bet they got that free and have passed it onto you.
I'd just either give it away to friends at work or to someone else who doesn't know the original giver.

I’d either ask the giver to look after the kids so you could go for lunch - ‘assume’ they’d meant this as part of the gift. Or, if this clearly isn’t an option then go with a friend so DH looks after the kids. Take him back a dessert.

When gift giver asks, just be breezily honest that you couldn’t get a babysitter for lunch, and that the evening meals would still have cost another hundred pounds or more.

Dh used to like nice clothes & shopped in Reiss a lot until I made him change his ways. Sil gave him a £10 voucher for Reiss for his birthday once. I think it was at least £20 for a pair of socks so it went to waste.

I would actually go by myself for lunch, it will probably cover the full cost, and no babysitters or top up payments required. But I am absolutely fine eating in a restaurant myself, I know others dont like it

This happens to me all the time. Gift experiences seem to be the in think with my in laws who also make a fuss about everyone being treated fairly... they spend exactly the same amount in each person they say but buy me gifts like afternoon tea for 2 which means really half is actually for me. Sounds lovely but they know I don't have bread nor cream so....
All the gifts are pretty far away and difficult therefore with a young family. They just often go to waste or given away as raffle prizes etc. No amount of saying anything, handing back etc works. They spot a bargain & buy it. It's not for the receiver as you always have to spend extra money.

To be honest it is a extremely thoughtless gift... or one they forward on to you when they realised they couldn’t afford to use it.

Don’t go, if they ask, tell them the truth.

£30 is a weird amount as a op said it sounds like an amount from a refund or suchlike as it’s not realistic given the calibre of the restaurant. I’d google them re lunchtime because some restaurants have reasonable day time menus even if they are pricey in the evening.

Sell the voucher. Eat at home. Tell the giver that you had a lovely meal.

Or keep the voucher, tell the giver you’ve not managed to organise a babysitter yet.

Totally agree OP. We were given a voucher for a Michelin star restaurant by a family member. They'd booked the table for us (months in advance) and said they would babysit our DCs. How lovely! Except it cost us almost £200 by the time we paid petrol to get there (2 hour round trip from where we live) and the set menu was a fortune. Stressed me out no end.

bin it. it's a shame but it is what it is.

it's a set menu in the evenings at £70 each

Usually lunchtime menus are less expensive. Couldn't you go then? A weekday if your DH is available then would probably be even less expensive. Granted you might still have to pay for childcare but this is par for the course when you decide to have children.

Just don’t go. Tell the givers you have and had a lovely meal. You are now precisely £0 out of pocket.