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?

So you’re saying I wouldn’t pay my share? If you read my posts I’ve said I don’t care who has what. I don’t care if whoever I’m with has 100 quid’s worth of food and drinks and i have half of that. It’s our evening out and we would split the bill half and half. Shut you down? Learn to read. If you pick over who’s had what with a calculator, well good luck to you. You’re the miser. I think you just fancy an argument

This.

Then keep an eye on what others are ordering and comment on the price. It helps to maintain the point that you are keeping an eye on cost and that you can't afford X and you are not prepared to bail others out if they are dicks about it later.

There isn't a cat in hell's chance I'd not say something if the bill came in x3 what I'd ordered. £90 is a lot of money. Thats about not having enough of a spine and if you aren't prepared to say something reconsider going out with this group completely.

I try to see it as the cost of an evening out with my friends rather than paying for a meal.

But it's sad that they apparently see it that you should effectively pay them to spend an evening with you. That's not what real friends do.

Because it looks tight-fisted and petty. If you can’t afford an evening out say so and don’t go

This is the same gaslighting excuse that the CFs always trot out. Shaming you because they can't afford their evening out! As if they're children who couldn't possibly be expected to pay their own way, so it makes it your fault that they can't!!

I'll bet that none of them would, if they lived in a small flat on the same road as a grand manor house, cheerfully agree to split the street's council tax bills equally, but by their arguing, they should: if they can't afford to live on this street, they should never have bought or rented a dwelling on it in the first place... right...?

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
Surely, it’s more cheeky fuckery to be so unaware of your dining companions that anyone is put in the uncomfortable position of having to point out that they’ve eaten a quarter of what everyone else has, but is still expected to pay the same.

I’m clearly in the minority but I’d leave it and swallow it. They didn’t know they were ordering a £90 main either (which is just crazy) and I know that’s not your problem but if the done thing every time is to split the bill you can’t start policing what everyone eats.

Next time I’d probably order something expensive myself.

but if you’re going to places with prices like that your social group must all be able to afford it, so I hope it wasn’t too much of a struggle to pay.

It's inevitably the people on the expensive food and drink who are keen to split the bill and take advantage of their friends.

Anyone who is a half-decent person will want to pay their way properly.

If you agreed to choose the expensive food, then you should pay for it and not expect others to subsidise you.

I don’t care if whoever I’m with has 100 quid’s worth of food and drinks and i have half of that. It’s our evening out and we would split the bill half and half. Shut you down? Learn to read. If you pick over who’s had what with a calculator, well good luck to you. You’re the miser. I think you just fancy an argument

So you can afford to pay £75 for £50 worth of food and drink? Be thankful for that, but don't forget that not everyone else can, and they might have more pressing needs for that other £25 than conforming to some people's social expectations.

To have the luxury of being able to spend an unlimited amount on eating out.

I don't think thats being a miser. I think that people conscious of budget and they have financial responsibilities which they can't ignore and can't just forget out of politeness to others (who didn't consider them in the first fucking place when they ordered the most expensive thing on the bloody menu).

You agree prior to eating / ordering. Other people shouldn't expect a blank cheque when going out for food because that really is the height of rudeness.

Spinning greed as acceptable by doing a DARVO and accusing others of being miserly is the very height of ignorant privilege. Its prickish.

What is it about restaurants in particular that bring out the CFs? If you bumped into a friend in the supermarket and they had an overflowing trolley whilst you had just popped in for a loaf of bread, would anybody dream of suggesting putting it all through as one transaction and paying half each?

In fact, if you were meeting (and having drinks) at a restaurant that was 25 miles from your home but only one mile from theirs, would they suggest that you both split your combined taxi fares and pay half each? Why not - how is it any different in principle?

I’d have sucked it up and not said anything. But had I ordered the expensive dish, I’d have insisted on an equitable split.

Really rude of the people who ordered the expensive mains to not cover the cost!! I’d be avoiding going out with them for a while! Where are you eating with those type of prices?! That for me would be a very special occasion not a regular meal with friends, even £40 for me is a lot especially these days . Maybe next time suggest somewhere a bit cheaper and say you paid way over what you ordered last time and unfortunately money is a bit tight this month

It's incredibly stressful to have limited funds and to know that regardless of whether you stick to a budget other people are going to basically spend your money for you. That's a dick move no matter how you swing it.

Of course, what inevitably happens is that the people in the group who have less money to through about get excluded from events and get labelled "boring" and "tight" despite them being driven out by the actions of the cheaky fucks.

I think a lot of bill splitters are being tarred with the same brush here.

I have never been for a meal with friends and had such a large discrepancy in what was ordered.

Generally, it is just easier to split a bill 4 (in my friendship group) ways, because (as above) we all tend to order at the same rate. The very first thing I say when we sit at a table, before my second butt cheek even grazes the chair is 'are we doing starters or straight to main?' because I will always have more than one course, as long as others are joining me. I won't sit and eat a course alone. If someone has an extra drink it literally costs me a couple of pounds extra, so I don't care. Equally, if one of us are feeling the pinch we say when we are organising the meet up - and we will happily go cheap and cheerful. If someone is driving, that is always mentioned when the bill comes (by the non driver, because as we are friends we care about each others feelings) and it's always brushed aside by the driver.

Some of you are going for meals with Henry VIII himself, ordering gallons to drink and whole banquets to themselves, whilst you eat a salad and drink a tap water.

I don't think it's bill splitting that's the issue in most cases - it's a shit choice of friends.

I'd definitely just be paying my own bill in future

Without wanting to derail, I'd be inclined to tip off the local paper, or put it on the local FB group, if the restaurant is routinely offering 'specials' that aren't on the menu, without telling you what the cost is, knowing that they are multiples of the price of a 'normal' meal from the establishment. Especially if they're furiously overselling it and telling you that baby hedgehogs will cry or that you'll mysteriously die at sea if you don't have the special, or whatever.

It might be legal, but it's morally very shady indeed - and I can't imagine that public opinion would be on their side at all.

It's quite sad that you would rather pay people to spend time with you (which is what you're doing when you subsidise their evening to such a disproportionate extent) than have the self confidence to say "Sorry, I will not pay to spend time in your presence. The bill was £150, you had £100 worth of food so I will be paying £50 not £75."

There's a huge difference between getting out the calculator to work out the exact cost of your meal and paying not a penny more than that total and knowing you had a starter for around £15ish, a main for about £30 and a couple of drinks so are expecting to pay in the region of £55 but willing to pay up to £60-65 to split the bill evenly but are then asked to contribute £100 as your "share" of the collective bill.

I would love to be able to go somewhere and pay absolutely zero heed to the prices but I have a budget and therefore make decisions based within my budget. I should not have to justify why I don't want to subside someone who is ordering things that are disproportionately more expensive than what everyone else is ordering.

I think the restaurant is in the wrong here. I am totally in favour of paying for what you eat, I have a particularly galling memory of going out with a group of friends, when the bill came it was nearly double what I was expecting. Turns out one of their husbands had been merrily ordering expensive wines to try them out. They are nice but absolutely loaded. Someone had a word and it didn't happen again.

But in this case, I do think the restaurant shafted you all. Your friends didn't know that the special was going to be £90, so I do think it's a bit different. I wouldn't split the bill if it happened a second time though.

Your options are:

1. Just let it go.
2. Next time you go out for a meal, drink lots of expensive cocktails and order the most expensive dish on the menu.
3. Send a message to the group (do you have a group WhatsApp?) saying what a lovely night it was, but a bit on the pricier side given you only ate a £25 main course and had 1 glass of wine but paid £110!!

we were out in a group of 3 couples a few weeks ago. 2 couples shared a starter per couple, 1 couple had a starter each (more expensive than the other ones too)
They each had mains, and various drinks. Dividing by 3 would have greatly increased the price for 2 couples (who knows why they ate less) and reduced the bill for the 3rd pair.

But they're German so they said to the waiter "we're paying in pairs" and the waiter came over with their pad and we went round the table saying what we'd had, waited to make sure it was all covered (it was, waiters aren't daft, they know what they served, they have it in black and white in front of them and a good waiter won't forget within an hour or two what they brought to whom)

No awkwardness, no issues, no long time waiting to add things up (waiter did it in their head) and that was that. Where's quibbling? (hint: nowhere)

This is an excellent way to handle it.

Ime very few people can do maths in a restaurant and even fewer can do it with drink on them.

I’d assume from what you described that people were being a bit dim rather than trying it on.

Although I do think it’s a bit of a sharp practice by the restaurant and I would leave a review saying so.

But why the adherence to bill-splitting rather than just asking the server for separate checks in the first place? Then everyone can order as they please without sticking it to the others.

There's nothing unfriendly about requesting one's own bill.

Most of us don't have to pay people to spend time with us.

@ZeldaWillTellYourFortune past experience of paying for our own.

It took so bloody long and the waitress kept messing it up that by the time we were sorted, we didn't have time to carry on somewhere else for a drink.

Now, one of us pays and the rest will ping it straight across to them. Makes life so much easier.

Splitting the bill only works when everyone has roughly the same. In a case like this, I would have spoken up immediately and said that I would pay for my own meal on this occasion due to them having the expensive dish.

If anyone complains about you not splitting, it is usually the ones having the most expensive stuff