To think you don’t do this when someone is taking you out for a meal…?

[greedyguts18]

DH took his sister out for dinner to celebrate her birthday at the weekend - it was a nice restaurant so he knew it wouldn’t be cheap but his sister ended up ordering the most expensive food items on the menu & had 8 cocktails at £20 a go!!!

The meal ended up costing hundreds and hundreds of pounds - so much so that I’ve had to bail him out so he could get through the rest of the month.

If someone is treating me to a meal, I always make sure I don’t choose the most expensive thing on the menu - surely this is just basic manners ?!

AIBU? Or was she really grabby to do that ?

It's not about thinking this is ok. It's about challenging the OPs attitude that this is SILs fault. Yes, she's rude and grabby. But the main problem is OPs husband has no money but chooses to go to expensive restaurants with £20 cocktails. He then requires his wife to bail him out.

No money sense at all and this whole scenario speaks volumes of why he is living paycheck to paycheck in the first place. Flashing the cash that doesn't exist.

I've paid £28 for a vodka red bull and that was 15 years ago

Massive mistake

This was at the Grosvenor

I wouldn't have let her order that much anyway in the first place but besides the point!

It’s not really beside the point though as the DH could have stopped it at one, and then there would be no cause for the OP to post. Or he could have provided guide rails if he could not afford half the menu- ‘sis, picked this as it’s a nice place but if we can stick to mains under x that would be great so I’ll stick to budget’. Or, better still taken her somewhere with low cost meals and no cocktails on the menu. The OP’s outrage in initial information was all on the sister with people jumping on board, whereas there would have been no issue if DH had of acted in a normal fashion in the first place. It’s not even like it was a new date (which he still could have managed), it’s his sister for crying out loud. It’s in no way beside the point to actually point out that he could have said something to his sister and avoided this drama.

Why is everyone shocked by the prices? Have you been out in a nice restaurant lately? They are expensive!
When we treat ourselves with my husband to go, we also spend hundreds, especially if alcohol is involved.
Don't take someone to a nice restaurant and expect to order one drink. If you can't afford to have whatever they want, take them somewhere nice and more affordable.
Or you can easily resolve it by communication! It's not hard!

Exactly this, it demonstrate a problem with making sensible decisions.

That just sounds like a bit of a flex though.

The idea of a “nice restaurant” covers a huge range of restaurants depending on people’s income brackets, or just what type of food they happen to fancy at the time.

It is perfectly possible to out to a “nice restaurant” and not spend “hundreds” (which I take to mean more than £100 per head).

Even for special occasions I’m sure most people in this country would be looking to spend less than that per head for food and drink.

I would be annoyed but just draw a line under it for next year and ask them to go to a cheaper place or do daytime instead of invite you along too so she's more self conscious of

@Nesbi If you take someone to a restaurant where £20 a coctail, you should expect an expensive bill.
Unless you want them to only order one or max two drink all night but then you should tell them that.
Not saying anything, not be able to pay the bill and complain about it later is strange to me.

I am not from the UK so I found it difficult to understand why would you go out somewhere nice just to keep counting how much you spend and stress about it. For me personly, going out in a "nice" restaurant and only been able to order one drink sounds less fun then a cheaper place where I don't need to stress about it.

@Katherina198819 i think we agree, it sounded like you were saying you should expect to pay 100’s in any “nice restaurant“, rather than in any “nice restaurant “ that charges £20 for a cocktail!

I know people who will go to a special restaurant because they really want to try the food there though, and the only way they can afford to do that is by keeping the drinks bill down.

I think that is absolutely fine, you shouldn’t have to miss out on experiencing good food just because the restaurant also charges a fortune for the drinks.

There should be a middle ground though, not just a choice of nursing one drink or hammering through a hundred and sixty quid’s worth of cocktails!

She was out of line for going overboard with the cocktails, but not for picking food that she wanted.

Don’t offer to treat people if you can’t afford it. I’m not picking food that I’d like less because you’ve offered to pick up the tab- I’d rather order what I want and pay my own way!

There are some snobby messages on here, dont go if you cannot afford it etc. The OP has already said she and her DH have been to this restaurant so knew it was quite pricey. What OP didn't bank on was a greedy cow of a SIL stuffing her face.

Yes thank you @GoldEagle - that’s exactly right. He knew it would be expensive but SIL went totally overboard. The bill was nearly double what it was when we went !

What was he doing buying all the drinks though? Presumably it wasn’t her 30th/40th/50th… why did he agree to do that when she’s unlikely to reciprocate?

He was an idiot and now he’s relying on you to bail him out which makes him look even more of an idiot. What’s he going to tell her next year? If he was doing it to impress her he can’t exactly take her to a budget place bc he’ll have to admit he couldn’t afford it last time. Guess he’d better start saving now.

Well she has just ensured that next year it will be McDonalds or Burger King. If your DH does something similar for her anytime soon he will just be seen as a pushover - once bitten etc.

Regardless of the price, it's a bit naff to have 8 cocktails with a meal.

The cocktails, out of order. Food though, if someone invited me to a particular restaurant as their treat, I’d assume I was ok to choose the meal I wanted.

Well exactly. I wouldn't let someone order 8 £20 cocktails at my expense unless I was happy to.

I agree SIL went overboard with cocktails, but it was a poor choice of venue, given they cost £20 and presumably he didn’t meet his sister yesterday?

I don’t agree on the food front though, again poor choice of venue if she couldn’t pick per preference of dishes from the menu.

He should have picked somewhere in his budget or told her what his budget was. She should’ve stuck to 2 cocktails, even at half that price.

Either way it’s not for you to subsidise or get involved in their poor choices.

A spirit with a mixer is a cocktail!

And the fact is, we don't know what she was drinking because either OP doesn't know or she doesn't want to say.

Never in my life would I call a spirit and a mixer a cocktail. That’s an alcoholic drink.

Is a rum and Coke a cocktail? An archers and lemonade? We clearly have both ends of the scale here 🤣

Can you imagine Tom Cruise in that film “cocktail” where he literally just pops the lid off the coke bottle and places it next to a single shit of JD. 🤣

Barmaids now calling themselves mixologists because they can pop the cork on a bottle of Hendricks.

No. He's treating her so bloody good luck to her.

If he wanted to save his cash he should: (a) not have taken her out, or (b) taken her somewhere cheaper.

Well, put a squeeze of lime juice in your rum and coke and you have a Cuba Libre.

A Highball of whiskey and soda water is considered a cocktail.

A Mimosa is just Champagne with orange juice as the mixer.

I know what they are. I just genuinely cannot imagine anyone but a knob head asking for a screwdriver in The Kings Head on a Friday night. If these are the type of cocktails that the brother was paying £20 for then he is an even bigger fool.

A single what??

I'd definitely want my money back after that!