Unfair splitting of dinner bill by couple

[NazMedusa]

Went for dinner for a friend's birthday who we hadn't seen for a while and who had come all the way down from another city. This friend has had a rough year so we were treating her to dinner.

Male friend at the last minute asked if he could bring his wife along as she really wanted to join us. Fine but a bit annoying as she's not really a part of this friendship group that we'd formed 15 years ago at work but we've spent enough time with her as he has a habit of bringing her along to everything. So four of us (who once worked together) plus this wife.

The couple ordered extra starters, sides and alcoholic drinks. He made a comment a couple of times that "we'll pay extra for our bits". Myself, other friend and birthday girl don't drink so had a soft drink each and one starter and one main.

The bill came to £170. Our food and drinks came to around £25 each for the non-drinkers. The couple spent the rest. Male friend and his wife took it upon themselves to work the bill out and spent at least 5 mins doing it. As the birthday girl is close friends with the three of us (not the wife), I expected him to split her part between the three of us, and then split the rest of the bill according to what we roughly ordered. Instead he said that myself and the other non-drinking friend owed £48 each, and he paid £74. So he paid only £26 extra when he was supposed to be paying for 2 adults (himself and his wife) plus the non-drinking birthday girl (who's food and drink came to £25 and should have been split three ways).

Isn't this unfair? I feel like we also paid towards his uninvited wife. We paid it without saying anything as didn't want to make things awkward, especially in front of birthday girl. But how should I deal with things next time this happens??

For a bit more context: I am currently on an extended mat leave so no income. And him and his wife are top earners and earn more than any of us.

£25 ish for your food, couple of quid for the tip and a tenner towards the birthday girls food. It doesn’t sound that far out to me. They might have made a bit of an error or you might have forgotten something but either way i doubt they are deliberately ripping you off or they would have stayed quiet or tried to get everyone to split.

Don't be ridiculous. Whether £42.50 pp is not a lot to you is beside the point. Maybe it is for the OP. And whether or not it is a lot is actually irrelevant; no one should be subsidising someone else's costs unless they make that choice consciously.

I think you either need to say something at the time or let it go (but remember to make sure it is split fairly next time, if there is a next time). Seems petty to email after the fact in my opinion.

So you should have paid for what you had then added a third of the birthday person's costs, leaving the remainder for the man. Who sounds like an absolute tool taking charge of the bill then messing it up for everyone.

Don't be intimidated by this mansplaining twat and his cling on. Message him now and say, hey, just realised we divided the bill wrong. It should have been XX. Here's my account deets so you can transfer the difference. Nothing for you to be embarrassed about, the shame is all his.

£25 your food, bit of a tip, £10 towards the birthday girl. You've overpaid by about £8.

But he is cheeky, adding all extras and then paying less. I assume a tip was given?

Are you sure he didn’t also cover the tip by leaving cash?

Has he done this before, or is it a one-off? If the latter I'd suggest it was a genuine mistake due to alcohol affecting his maths. Too late to do anything now but next time, keep a running total in your head of your bill, and if it's |(significantly) wrong at the end just say you've been adding as you go and yours is X amount; here's the money.

There’s no need at all to ‘dissect’. If everyone else has been drinking soft drinks and I’ve shared a bottle of wine with my partner I’d offer to put in an extra £x to cover it. Doesn’t need to be exact, but it’s better than assuming everyone is ok with subsidising my more expensive tastes.

If you can’t be bothered to do that, the alternative is to match your ordering to what the group is doing so everyone is roughly equal. I’m sure this couple could have survived without the booze and extra food for one night if they find splitting the bill more fairly so difficult.

You should have said something at the time! 'right, Gary, my share comes to £25, and I'll add a fiver in for the tip.' Then just paid that.

He's a cheeky freeloader.

My reaction to bill splitting is: complain before the fact, not after. If you go along with it bring it up long afterwards you’ll look cheap and petty, even if people agree the other person is a CF.

I understand you wouldn't want to query the bill with thw woman you were treating there.
I'd chalk it up to experience and not invite him going forward - his wife tagging along if she is the only partner that attends must alter the dynamic.

Personally I wouldn't say anything now and I can see why you didn't at the time but if there is a next time you need to either split it yourself or say something, now you know he has for for this!

I voted YABU because you chose not to say anything at the time. And it’s because you didn’t want to make things “awkward”, however that’s exactly what allows cheeky twats like this to get away with it.

You paid almost double what you actually spent and while he’s a chancer, you’re also partly accountable as you didn’t say “oh hold on, that’s not right, my share is £x”.

Zero point debating it on here afterwards, you need to speak up at the time. He didn’t worry about making things awkward by knowingly overcharging you, did he!

Why do you assume a tip was given when OP never mentioned a tip? Anyway if a tip is to be brought into the equation then that means that CF and wife underpaid by even more!

All these ridiculous comments on here about why the OP doesn’t want a “married man’s wife” there. They’re not glued at the hip, it was an outing for their friendship group not partners. If you cannot grasp how annoying it is to have someone bring their partner along every time then you’re completely missing the point.

Get in touch with him asap and tell him he made an error in calculating the bill. A decent friend will cough up if an innocent mistake.

Am I the only person who thinks that the wife should actually chip in to treat the birthday girl? It seems the point of the evening was to treat the birthday girl who was "guest of honour". If wife wanted to join from the "host" side she also should have contributed to the treat.

It's always people who order extras who want to sort the bill out. I usually avoid group meals out for this reason. If I have more eg wine then I always pay for it.

Text in a friendly way saying you’ve checked the bill and you and such and such should pay X amount and he and his wife should pay XX amount so can he transfer you and your friend the difference.
Next time be more assertive.

As others have said, this should have been challenged at the time. You each pay for your own bill plus 1/3 of the birthday girl’s. No idea where he grabbed the figure from, it doesn’t make sense but clearly unfair.

I agree.

I understand the awkwardness of bringing an uninvited plus one to such gatherings and not something I would do personally but I lowkey feel sorry for uninvited wife the way you have worded it sounds like you don't like her much and viewed her as an inconvenience, regarding the bill you should have mentioned it there and then if you are all such good friends minus wife then they should be no hard feelings.

DH go out very regularly with any number of a group of about 12 friends, some of whom are CF in this way, and due to this sort of nonsense we always just pay for what we’ve had - ask for the bill and go up and pay for our own at the till. Electronic tills cope with this no problem, even when we’re all out en masse.

It’s the only way.

Hence the ?, it was a question.

On the same basis of OP paying a tip, the CF and his wife should have paid £110 including birthday girls meal and tip. So I was wondering if a tip was paid, did OP physically see him pay £74 and no tip was left, or did she assume £74 once she had deducted the 2 lots of £48.

His £48 calc is around £8 too much, IF THEY PAID A TIP. If they never paid a tip then they've been overcharged more like £13 each.

Cheeky fuckers rely on people being polite and not saying anything. You could have easily just said 'Oh, that sounds different from what I thought, can I check?' in a nice tone and corrected the bill.

If it was me I'd just chalk it up to experience. I know of certain friends of mine who can be tricky with the bill (they're not close friends as it's really irritating), and I set the parameters in advance with them.

Re the wife I don't think it's unreasonable to invite the wife if you're inviting a male friend. Perhaps you and your other friends are not married? In any case I think I would expect my husband to be invited to such things with me. whether o choose to bring him along us another question