If you're sharing the cost of the meal there's certain things you don't go for

[alpacachino]

If you're out with a group and you usually split the cost of the meal you don't choose the mixed grill or the steak right? You stick to the main menu.

Or AIBU and just grumpy at my brother in law

"I didn't eat any calamari so I'm not paying for calamari"

In that case my experience is possibly not the norm, going out for a meal isn't a rare treat for me it's a regular way that I meet up with friends and family.

Like the OP I'm not talking about high end restaurants but the pubs and small restaurants round me seem to be busy every day of the week so I don't think I'm that unusual

Maybe it depends where you live

I think you should have what you want from the menu but I would offer to put more in to cover it or offer to cover the tip

We now pay what we roughly have had. Or one person pays then we work out what each person had and requests them to pay. We are a mixed group some drink, some don’t, people have 1 course v 3 & some can’t afford (just at end of maternity leave as an example) some just meet us for a couple of drinks and snack.

Since we have done this the night outs are easier as no one worry’s what to order or what the bill will be! And the ones that want a few cocktails can and pay for it while the person sat with a water doesn’t have too! They also better attended as everyone knows what to expect financially.

Every month I'd say. Sometimes more if there's a birthday

I absolutely refuse to be taken advantage of and pay for what I have plus service charge or tip.

Well say you guys all share it out and I will pay my own.

Personally we always just split it when family, but it seems to really bother you, and also you may not have as much free money as the rest of the family so just say you can't afford to split and will just pay for what you have.

If there’s a large group. Broken down his mixed grill is likely to cost less than a pound per person.

There will also be at least one person whose drink is more expensive. Or orders dessert. If someone has an extra Coke does it both you this much?

What if you want a meal at £10 and everyone else orders from the same section but theirs are all £13. They would be putting up the bill more than his mixed grill.

Do you have an issue with your Bil in general?

That's a good way of doing it. They can all share if they want but leave me out of it. That way they might realise more just how much more his is costing or they might not care

Separate bills is a complete pain for restaurants. Just sort this out yourself in advance.

Everyone who orders the most expensive thing, various cocktails etc thinks others won’t notice. They do ALL OF THE TIME and the offender is marked down as stingy and mean. Dont let that person be you.

I do. I don't like the way he treats my sister

Yes, this is generally how things work in my circles.

My sister is a nightmare for this- if it’s a cheap set menu she’ll get from the a la carte, goes for surf n turf etc and she never quite pays for it, so is always subsidised. I don’t go for meals with her now as i find it really cheeky but not enough to fall out over.

Seeing as this is your family, I don't see why you can't say that if BIL is having a far more expensive meal, he has to put in extra to pay for it. He/they can't have it both ways by splitting but also having expensive choices. It's one or the other, no argument, unless the whole table agrees.

Because otherwise. if the person who makes the most expensive choices doesn't put in extra to pay for it, they're effectively saying that they're expecting the person who had pasta and a soft drink because they're on a budget and that's what they can afford to pay for, to pay for most of the mixed grill eaters meal as well.

My circles are less fancy

Exactly!

I would only have steak if the person I was with suggested it, as I do like it but I eat out quite often and wouldn’t want to buy it everytime. If I’m with one or two friends we usually split the bill, but with my walking group we just pay individually

I usually order a vegetarian option and hardly drink, but don’t mind what others do!

I find it much more tiresome when someone wants to pedantically dissect the bill and extract the items they ordered and just pay for these. This sort of behaviour usually means they accidentally forget to add the service charge, forget an item, forget their drinks etc and leaves a short fall in the bill which everyone else absorbs.

Not anymore, we just work out what ours cost and they come round with the card machine. So they don’t need to issue seperate bills, just take individual payments

We have a weekly meal and none of us would ever consider paying anything other than what our own personal food and food and drink came to, plus share of the tip.

If you're all too lazy to work that out, there are apps for that.

@SauviGone reading that has given me the rage, the rude cheeky cow 😡

I'd always order what I wanted. With the expectation everyone would also. Assuming we all drink a similar amount, then splitting the cost is fine. If someone's on a budget, then they can just state they'd rather just pay for their own.
I certainly wouldn't go out to eat with a view to spending/eating as little as possible and policing what others order. That really would spoil the fun.

This 100% 😅. Major nostalgia vibes. A mixed grill indeed!! I need to know what it was, what was included!

Well if you're well off enough to pay for a mixed grill while eating a vegetable pizza and one drink without worrying, @CriticalThinker that's all good for you, but you can't assume that others are the same.

Many people have thought that 'I'd love to go out with the group, but I don't have much spare money, but if I just have a pizza and one drink, I can afford it'. So that's what they do. But then the bill comes and the people who had three courses and wine say 'lets just split it' and suddenly the person who purposely stuck to a more modest meal finds that it's cost them more than twice as much for a blow out that they didn't even get to enjoy themselves and then they find themselves short for other essentials later in the week.

We usually just split the bill unless there’s a huge difference. Which there is with one group I go out with. One doesn’t drink and picks everyone up and drops them home, saving a fortune on Uber’s …. the other two think the bill should be split evenly, I always suggest adding up the booze separately and splitting by 3. Not fair for her to sub our drinks and bloody drive us about, piss take.