Splitting the bill - ended up paying 3x my consumption

[Jyas]

Not an AIBU but more a WWYD…I’m in a hobby group and about every 2-3 months we treat ourselves to a nice dinner. There’s usually 8-10 of us and we always split the bill. It’s normally around £50 per person. This week we went to a restaurant which was more on the upper end of what we usually go for. Mains were £25 - £45. We all chose our food, but when ordering, the waiter managed to talk 3 of us into trying ‘the chefs special’. This was a rather elaborate and unusual dish, he didn’t mention the price but I would have thought it would be between £55-£60 at least from the description. When the bill came, they realised that it was over £90. The 3 offered to take one bottle of wine out of the total and share it between them to make up for their expensive dish.
In the end we paid £110 each and they paid £125 each. However, my main was £25 and plus drinks (i only had one water and one glass of wine from the shared bottle, others had much more to drink, and most had a starter but i didn’t). I would have paid around £40. So I ended up paying 3x as much.

We all really don’t mind if we pay a bit more than we consumed and we regularly go out eating together so things balance itself out. I was aware that the bill would be split and I was happy to do as usual (before knowing what their dish costed) so I couldn’t really say anything and I just paid, but I feel that £40 compared to £110 was just too big a difference on that occasion.
Would you have said anything, even tough everyone knew in advance that the bill would be split?

I think it’s more cheeky fuckery to be the sour puss putting a dampener on things by bleating on about only having a mineral water

Meanwhile in real life literally nobody minds if people want to pay for what they have and actually encourage it to ensure no one’s out of pocket.

In your case OP I would have either brought it up in the moment of "Hang on a minute, my share is £110 but what I had only adds up to £40. I'm usually more than happy to just split the bill but not if the split is more than twice my meal cost, can we pay individually this evening or take the chefs specials out of the shared bill as I can't afford that?" or paid up at the time (it's easy to get flustered when you're caught in the moment) and then messaged everyone later on to say something like, "Had a lovely time as always last night but just realised that I paid £110 when what I had only came to £40. I usually don't mind splitting the bill but my share was more than double the cost of my meal and I just can't afford that on a regular basis. Obviously it's done now but if there's a big disparity again in future then I will just pay for my own meal."

I have a small group of friends that I go out regularly with every couple of weeks.

We all are more than happy to just split the bill each time because we all generally get items of the same value and, because we go out as the same group so often, any discrepancies tend to balance out (eg one week I might pay more than my share because I only have a main while everyone else has a starter but the following week I pay less despite being the only one to have dessert; one week I might not drink as I'm the designated driver but the next few weeks I drink a bottle of wine, I cover the drinks bill the same every week etc). However those discrepancies tend to be maybe £10 difference between what we had and what our share was, not £110.

Any time there is a big discrepancy then we take the "discrepancy" out of the bill, split it equally and then the people who had the other items pay on top - eg if there's 6 of us meeting but 2 arrive early and have a couple of cocktails each and a sharing plate before the rest of us arrive, we take that off the bill before we split it and those two pay for the extras they had. Or if say only one person was drinking alcohol then we'd split the bill equally but if the drinker had been buying multiple cocktails at £12 a glass while the rest of us had £2 soft drinks they would pay their drinks tab on top of their share of the meal (we might put one cocktail on the bill if the rest of us had multiple soft drinks, but anything above that and the alcohol drinker paid)

Your friends are arses in this instance @Namddf - it is often wealthier people who impose this behaviour on the group and they are absolute cunts for doing it.

Whatever the way in the past - when etiquette dictated the person who issued the invitation paid the bill - these days we all should be mindful of the other person and just put our hands in our pocket to pay our own share.

No, the issue is created when a tosspot doesn't offer to pay their fair share.

Only a rude cheapskate orders more than others and doesn't automatically pay for it.

Shit of your friends. Bloody cheeky given how much more theirs was. Next time, bring it up jokily, say you’re only paying your own bill this time. Users!

I can understand being caught on the hop that night.
But I think the people who ordered the most expensive meal should be reaching out and trying to pay people back.

I think @Jyas you're going to have to hire the bullet and say something,that's way too much money to be overcharged.
I'm sure someone on here could give a nice text to send.

Absolutely - they’re the tightarsed greedy fuckers putting a dampener not someone who is expected to subsidise their gluttony

The behaviour of not paying your fair share of a bill just puts me in mind of grubby moneygrabbers like Boris Johnson.

I would be embarrassed to try to get my friends to pay for my consumption. If I order something expensive, I chuck in extra. Who orders something they are too skint/tight to pay for??!

I bet you're the one with the £90 dish and all the cocktails.

I don’t go out with any cheapskates. I’m happy to cover my share of the final bill. I don’t care who has had what. If what you ordered comes to more than mine I don’t care. I’ll happily chip in. I think we have crossed wires on this

If you read my latest post above I’m coming at this from the other angle. You’ve misunderstood me

No, I don't think we have crossed wires?

I think if person A orders £80 worth of stuff but doesn't automatically offer to put in £80 worth of stuff, person A is a cheapskate. It doesn't matter whether person B i shappy to pay or not, person A is behaving embarrassingly.

I am responsible for my own purchasing and my own money. I would never be so badly-mannered as to expect someone else to pay more to cover me.

Yup. I’ve said that before. I’m a non drinker so people usually let me pay for my bit as it is.

Lighten up please

I have a friend who is a single Mum. The difference between £40 and £110 is huge. I wouldn't expect her to subsidise people who went for the more expensive meals. I wouldn't want her to not come because she couldn't afford it.

The difference is a lot to me as well. You may be richer than some of us.

But where do you draw the line with this?

There's a difference between "The bill is £50" "my share came to £23.75 so here's the exact money"/"Let's call it £25 each" and "The bill is £150" "My share was £50 so here's the exact money"/"Let's call it £75 each ... One there is a negligible difference, the other is a much more significant difference.

Is there a cost where you say "actually I can't afford to subsidise such a huge disparity in the cost between your consumption and mine?" Because mine would kick in way before I paid over twice the cost of my meal.

I am happy to split a bill 50/50 if we've had generally the same things (same number of courses/drinks) or if it is a regular thing where any discrepancies balance out over time (eg If we car pool and alternate which week we drink) but there are limits to that of there is a large disparity between the cost of your relative meals.

I have had gastric surgery so I cannot eat anywhere close to the same amount as most people. When we go out for dinner I will either get a starter and a dessert or just a main as I cannot physically eat any more and I will generally just have one drink (as I can't drink and eat at the same time).

If I go out for dinner with someone and we both just have a main and they get a dessert that they let me have a bite or two of and they have drinks then I'm generally happy to split evenly but if my meal is £20 and they've had a 3 course meal costing £80, why should I have to pay more than twice my meal cost to do an even split of the bill, especially when they know ahead of time that I would never be able to eat the same amount and therefore there would always be a disparity in cost if they wanted to have the full works.

It is nothing to do with 'lightening up' - that is something people say to try to shut others down, but my position is not going to be changed because you disagree.

The people who don't automatically pay for their share are rude. I would never do that, because I am happy to pay my way.

This is why I stopped going out in groups, eg with work colleagues. Two of them guzzling wine I ended up paying for, the 'split bill' costing me much more than my consumption.

If anyone thinks I'm a cheapskate, good luck to them. I'd rather be that than a con-merchant getting my meal and drinks for less than I should.

Yes, we always just ask for separate bills when we order. it’s much easier.

I think it's much easier to treat these things as a shared maths problem rather than a fairness problem.

"Ah hold on a minute, I think our maths is out - I had a main and a glass of wine but it looks like mine will be £100? Usually it's a bit up or down isn't it - but I think this time our equation is properly borked. "

What a CF that person is! 😳

perhaps you can tell us what you had in your 90 quid main.
You are one of OPs dining companions, right?

it's not quibbling when someone is clearly taking the piss. It is very very very common in Germany to do this. Extremely common. It often takes servers aback if we are out in a group and decide to split. (none of us are piss takers, we all have 3 courses wine and coffee)

How we split the bill, depends which group of friends I’m with. I’m conscious that some of my work friends have less money than others, so am happy for people to work out what they’ve had and pay accordingly. I would say, however, that when that happens we always seem to come up a few quid short, so some of us still end up putting a bit more in …

With my close pals, we always just split the bill. BUT because we’re not CFs and we love each other, if someone’s not drinking, hardly eating, the rest of us will always notice and make sure things are (more or less) fair. I would never expect someone who just has a starter and a soft drink to split the bill equally.

This is actually shocking.
What sort of friends are happy for you to transfer £70 when they know you only had a starter?