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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Pils paying for meal out

169 replies

numananumana · 09/04/2022 03:33

So we invited pils to ours, they suggested we all go to our local pub for Sunday dinner. We explained we couldn't really afford it and offered to cook Sunday dinner at home. Pils offered to treat us which was lovely so we said yes. When we arrive at the pub fil says "right our treat, you just pay for the drinks" So we ended buying drinks for us, 2 dd's and ils, then when food is finished dd's want pudding mil helps then decide but then doesn't go to order it (you pay as you go at this pub) so I end up going up. All in we spent £40 Aibu to say if someone says my treat they mean the whole bill?

OP posts:
2022booklover · 09/04/2022 09:43

My MIL did this to us a long time ago - in our twenties and skint. Except she didn’t say she wasn’t paying for the drinks until the end of the meal.

StoppinBy · 09/04/2022 09:50

How disingenuous to offer to take someone out then expect them to pay up for part of the meal/drinks.

If I invite someone out (whether it's a night on the town or a meal out) and I offer to pay, there is no hidden expectation for them to dig in to their own pocket and with my friends I also know that their offer would be genuine too, no hidden costs, fees or teeny tiny writing that I have to watch out for.

I think your PIL acted very badly and I understand how you ended up paying for the drinks and dessert when you were put on the spot like that, not once but three times, with the first drinks, second drinks and the dessert.

When you are feeling a bit more cashed up.... make sure to return the favour.

ChinstrapBobblehat · 09/04/2022 09:50

YANBU. ‘Treat’ means everything, especially if the offer’s been made on the basis that the other party can’t afford to eat out and has already said they’ll host instead.

We once had this with DSis (generous to a fault) and BiL (genuinely lovely in every other respect, but known to keep his hands in his pockets whenever it’s time to pay for anything). They invited us to dinner because they’d cashed out a load of reward vouchers and could use them at a local restaurant. We had a really fun, lovely evening, with BiL keeping the wine and cocktails flowing, even asking for an extra bottle of red ‘to go’ just as they were closing up. How generous, we thought.

When the bill came, he put down his vouchers and said, ‘that’s all the food covered, our treat’. He’d known all along that booze wasn’t included, and left DH with no choice but to cover a huge drinks bill that was more than twice as much as what we’d eaten. I didn’t even realise what had happened until we got home. Still pisses me off years later!

rookiemere · 09/04/2022 09:55

By my reckoning the ILs "treated" OP and family to the princely total of £16.

Based on two adult meals at £10 each and alcoholic drinks at £6 each ( probably more than that) their own bill would have cost around £34 and they paid £50.

Whereas OP could have bought the roast ingredients from Aldi ( unlike some poster who apparently routinely spend £40 on a roast dinner) for £10. So they were out to the cost of £30 ( maybe £28 if you want to include electricity costs).

It's a funny old treat that costs £28 more than you had originally planned to spend.

ManyATime · 09/04/2022 09:57

In hindsight, it’s probably better just to be deeply offended that they don’t want to come and eat your food.
React with total incomprehension.

Friendofdennis · 09/04/2022 10:01

I wouldn’t go if they offer again. It’s too fraught with nasty surprises. £40 is a lot when you are on a very tight budget

rookiemere · 09/04/2022 10:02

Yes @ManyATime all these posters saying how rude it is not to offer to pay for drinks when out, in my mind it's much ruder to turn down your host's cooking then stick them with a large part of the lunch bill.

BoredZelda · 09/04/2022 10:18

When we arrive at the pub fil says "right our treat, you just pay for the drinks"

To which you respond, “we said we couldn’t afford to go out, come on, let’s go back to ours for lunch”

Catflapkitkat · 09/04/2022 10:22

I think they were cheeky to offer a treat and then stick you with the drinks bill. Everyone knows that pub drinks aren't cheap. I totally agree with you - if you offer to treat someone, it's the whole bill - including the tip. You now have the benefit of past experience ammunition - next time they make the same suggestion say 'No thank you - last time, your treat ended up with us paying the 40 quid drinks bill'

AlJalilia · 09/04/2022 10:24

Our treat = whole bill. Do they have firm for being tight, OP?

BoredZelda · 09/04/2022 10:29

It would also feel embarrassing to say, we cant afford the drinks.

OP had already said she couldn’t afford to go out. Refusing to pay for drinks would simply be a reminder that they couldn’t afford it.

Hellodarknessmyoldpal · 09/04/2022 10:34

That is really annoying but i think you just need to be better at saying sorry we can't afford that. You get the drinks- ' sorry if the drinks are on as it'll have to be water as we can't afford that." Kids ask for pudding "sorry dc we can't get you pudding here but we can have something when we get home". They obviously didn't really you seriously when you said you couldn't afford it.

billy1966 · 09/04/2022 10:34

I think it was very rude of them OP.

I can understand your annoyance.

You spoke up and yet they were actually quite mean about their so called treat.

Now you know.

Just say no thanks in future.

liveforsummer · 09/04/2022 10:36

It was unfair to put you on the spot like that and someone's treat certainly shouldn't land the person being treated with a £40 bill however would you have spent that much less shopping for a home cooked meal for 6 including desert and drinks/wine. Not forgetting the electric etc to cook it given current rates and food costs?

MoltenLasagne · 09/04/2022 10:37

If they paid £50 for food I assume that's £10 per adult plus £5 for kids. So if you stuck to soft drinks and MIL hadn't encouraged your kids to pick pudding, you'd actually have been better off paying your way rather than funding their alcohol! So much for their treat...

user1471538283 · 09/04/2022 10:43

I feel sick for you. When my family offers to treat it is for the whole thing unless someone says they wont pay for alcohol..

They think they've done the bountiful bit by buying meals and yet you've spent nearly the same.

I would never go out with them again. And I would tell them why

GirlsTalk250 · 09/04/2022 10:44

YANBU, they should have told you that they would buy the food and expect you to get the drinks.
That said, why didn’t you buy drinks for MIL and PIL and stick to water yourselves?

MaudieandMe · 09/04/2022 10:46

I think YAB a bit U as you’re complaining afterwards instead of having a few direct conversations with them at the time, when you could have resolved any misunderstandings very quickly and easily.

You said you couldn’t afford lunch out but you obviously didn’t re-iterate this when they left you paying for drinks. They don’t know what your income and expenditure is so they may have thought paying halves would be fine, when it wasn’t.

It’s your responsibility to be crystal clear and not expect them to second guess what you meant.

All you had to say was ‘our finances are very tight this month and we simply can’t afford to pay more than £X towards this lunch’.

I have adult children and young grandchildren and have absolutely no idea what their finances are like.

FellowFairyLights · 09/04/2022 10:53

Re my previous post.

Ha ha, our situation had been similar, as we hadn’t wanted to go for our meal but we’re pressed into it.
It wasn’t snobby to say the place was full, dirty, unclean tables, with screaming kids, as that’s exactly what it was like, and MIL had been very upset, as they’d only been when it was quiet, during the day. Which is why husband suggested the place around the corner ( his mother was getting upset) But no reason they couldn’t have split the bill, since they already offered to pay.
Mumsnet is an odd place.

SpiderinaWingMirror · 09/04/2022 10:57

Dunno if it's treating you.
Round here you can get pub Sunday lunch for a tenner.

DrManhattan · 09/04/2022 11:02

They probably don't think they have done anything wrong as they paid for all the meals.
Plus you paid for the drinks and didn't say anything, so they will think its fine.

Bluebluemoon · 09/04/2022 11:09

If you say to someone "let's go out, it's my treat" - you pay for everything. Bonkers to suggest otherwise.

If not you would say "il pay for the food if you'll pay for drinks and dessert" or whatever. I would think they were v tight fisted.

My dm does stuff like this "oh, il pay for the drinks - you go to the bar - here's my card get such and such (reels of a list of drinks for herself and my aunties etc) then you order me my fish n chips on my card blah blah". I just end up paying for everything bc I can't be arsed with the faff. Then she's all wide eyed "oh, but I said I would pay^"!

Sweepingeyelashes · 09/04/2022 11:19

This a very old trick. The Duke of Windsor in Paris was notorious for sticking people with the bill. He invited a French journalist and his wife to dinner assuring them that he'd pay. The couple turned up and the Duke handed them the wine list and told them to order the wine. The journalist said that he and his wife didn't eat meat for the next month.

The fact that your in laws didn't twig when you were drinking soft drinks and they felt free to order two alcoholic drinks each and encourage your child into choosing a pudding without paying says a lot about what sort of people they are. I mean you'd already told them you couldn't afford to eat out. Hell would freeze over before I ever go out with this sponging duo or invite them to my house.

Tilltheend99 · 09/04/2022 11:32

@MakeItRain

Yes that sounds very thoughtless and annoying. Maybe it's because some people don't really understand what "I can't afford it" means. At least you know for next time, when you can completely but politely refuse to go. ("No sorry, we can't even afford a drink out at the moment.)
This

My DH is always complaining that it’s fashionable at the moment for people with loads of money to say they can’t afford things when they just mean they have to cut down for a week while or there debits go out or because they are putting all their spare cash into savings etc So when someone who is genuinely broke says they can’t do something they people don’t understand at all.

Prime example is Boris Johnson complaining about not affording holidays and wallpaper on his £150k salary and asking ‘donors’ to subsidise his lifestyle.

Tilltheend99 · 09/04/2022 11:41

@MaudieandMe I understand what you are getting at but…

Isn’t this why there are people living in poverty up and down the country and few people realise the true extent of it?! Because people are embarrassed to let others know how they struggle and do their best to appear they are managing.

The op already told their pil that they could not afford to go out, to have to reiterate again, possibly with people at the pub listening is putting the op in an uncomfortable and unfair situation.

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