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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be annoyed at the blardy silly woman who took faffing to a new level over splitting the bill at a restaurant this weekend??

145 replies

yorkshirepudding · 06/05/2008 11:22

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sallystrawberry · 06/05/2008 12:51

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Joash · 06/05/2008 12:52

BFTD - similar posts.
The women I mentioned does exactly the same when her kids are there, I've got to the point where I have said that we will each pay forour own.

BFDT · 06/05/2008 12:57

We have tried to split it but cos they have so much money they don't understand that we haven't. We wouldn't mind but their kids don't even eat all this food they order for them! So last time we went somewhere that had a set meal for adults as then it would be easy but then they decided to order off the different menu. It always makes us look really bad and pennypinching, which I guess we are

Joash · 06/05/2008 13:07

BFDT - I disagree that it makes you seem like a penny pincher. It does makes her look like a cheeky cow!!

I was just honest and said that we lived on a budget and consequently had to budget for things like this, therefore, we pay for our own. I always suspected that her repeated attempts at flaunting her money was a cover for something. It turned out that they didn't actually have any money Mortgaged up to the hilt and up to their eyeballs in debt), but she liked to project a certain image.

Original poster
yorkshirepudding · 06/05/2008 13:21

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bamboostalks · 06/05/2008 15:34

At my friend's hen night one of the girls asked for 1.99 to be deducted from her share of the bill as she had bought the balloons.

I have another crazy friend who is totally obsessed with getting points on her credit card and so always begs to pay for everything and then of course there is total chaos as there is no change etc or others don't have cash, total nightmare every time.

Miggsie · 06/05/2008 15:41

Well, I'm a teetotal vegetarian so I ALWAYS end up subbing other people when the bill is split equally, only once did I say I was intending to pay less, this was due to 9 bottles of wine being drunk between the other 4 people, no way was I subsidising their terrible drunkeness on £50 bottles of wine.
When I go out with DH and friends he orders something really expensive and I have the cheapie veggie thing and it just about works out ok for us as a couple.
Next time I will count the mushrooms!

triflenorks · 06/05/2008 16:07

We often go out with two other couples, I don't drink, so I always end up driving. We normally split the bill 3 ways, the one couple who always complain are the couple who probably pay the right money. She complained one time to many, and the last time we went out, I insisted we each paid for our own and informed her that if she complained any more I was charging her for taxi service! she always complains about my driving too. I hate going out with her.

ninedragons · 06/05/2008 16:28

I was out once with a friend and some other friends of hers that I didn't know.

I thought it was pretty cheeky when they ordered Cuban cigars, which were put on the communal bill. I still paid, but I really wasn't happy about it.

sarah293 · 06/05/2008 16:33

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citylover · 06/05/2008 16:39

God I hate this so much and it's happened to me in Pizza EXpress to.

I just can't understand it. In fact it's amking me feel all stressed thinking about it now.

The embarrassment and the getting out of calculators.

sarah293 · 06/05/2008 16:40

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llareggub · 06/05/2008 16:41

I don't drink either but would never do anything but split the bill equally. I don't look at it as paying for what I have consumed, but rather at a payment for an enjoyable evening. Which is why I only go out with people I like and make excuses about nights I can't be arsed with.

bringmesunshine · 06/05/2008 16:43

oh brought back horrid memories of a meal not to many years ago where one woman in our group of mothers announced when the bill arrived that she would not pay her 'share' as she had not had a pudding and was on soft drinks (many others had not had starters or pudding etc) and when everybody spluttered and raised their eyes to heaven said that she was unable to afford to go really...so she did us a favour then ?

I gave her a very wide berth and I am sure she is still the same to this day.

hideous, hideous, hideous I can't understand people who do this.

expatinscotland · 06/05/2008 16:47

i thought it was etiquette to split the bill when there's a big party like this.

but went to an Xmas do once, and we'd all been having wine and such, as you do.

bill comes and i threw in £25-£30, summat like that (i was already pretty ripped by then), as did everyone else, i thought, and went outside with some others for a smoke.

some us were headed to a pub afterwards, so we waited for a colleague to come out.

he came out laughing.

one of the most senior chaps pulled out a friggin' cheque book and calculator, and wrote a cheque for exactly £31.71 for both him and his wife.

we pissed ourselves laughing all night.

he did that other times, too, and no one ever wanted to go out with him anymore.

he once offered to share a taxi with me, but i said i preferred to walk as it was free, then waited at the next taxi rank .

Original poster
yorkshirepudding · 06/05/2008 17:31

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hifi · 06/05/2008 18:06

if a friend and her dh come for supper they bring a bottle, if we dont drink it they take it back.

squeaver · 06/05/2008 18:17

Once went for dinner with 3/4 other couples. One couple arrived late after we'd all ordered some drinks and some mineral water. She made a big point of asking for tap water. We split the bill at the end, but she then deducted the cost of the bottled water from their share of the bill and added it back on to ours.

She got out a calculator to do it. This happened about 8 years ago - dh still goes on about it.

MrsTittleMouse · 06/05/2008 18:20

I expect that when it's a huge group that there's no way that you can split the bill and come up with the right amount of money.
I do find that in a small group that we always end up paying a lot more than our share though, and it is a problem as I'm a SAHM and three (soon to be four) of us are getting by on one income (or perhaps not; I realised yesterday that we're coming up short each month by £80 ). I don't really understand why people think that it's OK to drink loads and order side dishes when they plan to split the bill. Don't they notice that some of us drink tap water and order the cheapest things on the menu?

JammyQueenOfTheSewers · 06/05/2008 18:20

Mostly I'm happy with an equal split. However I have had a couple of meals out when I was a student, but everyone else was earning and I've had to ask to just pay my share because I only had £5 so had deliberately had pasta with tomato sauce ~£4 and had drunk tap water. So if I know or suspect someone is hard up and/or has had grossly disproportionately small share of the total, I do try to suggest they should to pay less.

2GIRLS · 06/05/2008 18:23

When I go out with friends now I'd be happy to split the bill although we usually pay for what we had (cue a huge amount of faffing around).

But when I was a student and seriously skint and it was someones birthday, I'd hate going to big dinners as I'd alwys have the cheapest thing on the menu and not drink because I couldn't afford to have any more, and then be faced with a big bill when it was split. Bit of a nightmare as I never had any more money in my purse.

scottishmummy · 06/05/2008 18:23

i used to work with a colleageu so mean and stingy that she spiled every night out
with her tutting, humphing,
ordering starters instead of meal to save money
refusal to tip
carried a bag of change so she could pay to the penny
commenting on cost of every item ordered I hope you enjoy your £5 salad etc

MrsTittleMouse · 06/05/2008 18:25

We don't tell everyone that we have less money than them, so maybe they just don't think about it. Everyone else we know bought in cheaper parts of the country 7 or 8 years ago (and so have lovely low mortgages) and we are renting in the SE (horrible rent payments), and everyone else we know is a WOHM (although I do appreciate that childcare costs are a real issue).
It would be really embarrassing to admit that we don't have the same amount of money. DH and I were talking about it the other day, and we still haven't worked out an answer. If our friends sat down and really thought about it, I'm sure that they wouldn't do it, but it's not the kind of subject that we'd like to bring up.

Iamthedoctor · 06/05/2008 18:25

Sounds like my Mum, Grandmother and Aunties. They all faff about the bills.

Went on a family holiday recently. Was 13 of us, including my DD and nephew. My brother put in HALF of the bill (I tried to refuse, but he was having none of it) - and the others STILL faffed about with 'who owes what.'

Tatterdemalion · 06/05/2008 18:25

Oh I might be the winner for complete and utter tightness.

Dh and I were invited to dinner party by a collegue we both knew a bit. She was new so we thought 'oh why not'. She invited another couple we also worked with.

At the end of a very average roast dinner 9in her flat), as we were sipping our coffee, she pipes up

"OK I've looked at my shopping list and if you could all give me 10 dollars each that would be great"

We were all most taken aback, but as we were all fairly new to living in Queensland we thought this must have been a local custom

It was not, she was just a tight weirdoooo