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

[yorkshirepudding]

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she asked you to stump up for groceries eeek

Snap, 2girls!

I also did begrudge paying an equal share for a dinner where I'd had the cheapest starter and main, no sides, no dessert, no drinks, and several others in the group (who I didn't even know) had expensive dishes, side orders, dessert, loads of wine, and liquer coffees. I ended up paying over £20 for an £8 meal. I paid up though because I didn't want to spoil the meal for the birthday girl.

well I must say that when we went out for our church "girls night out", we did pay for what we'd ordered.......but then there were 32 of us, and many of us simply couldn't have afforded to go if we had to split the cost evenly between us all.......

Mind you, the food was pre-ordered and the church treasurer had already worked out how much we all owed and gave it to us in advance so we knew how much it would be.......

We went out with 16 friends for my birthday in April, I havent had alocohol in 4 years but did that night and somehow I ended up with the bill (Iwork in a bank so people assume I'll deal with it ) anyway wine fuddled my head asked everyone for £35 each paid the bill and had £160 left over,spent ages at bar slightly pissed trying to work out why I had so much money left (I'd forgotton we'd all paid a deposit) so then had to go back to table and hand everyone £10 back, actally everyone was chuffed and we ended up buying 2 bottles of nice champagne with it

Sometimes if there are a couple of non drinkers/drivers we have a seperate bar bill and that gets divided between drinkers and meal between all of us

Jammy queen - I never have a problem with paying for what I have, as long as we make a decision to do that before we start.

Likewise, I don't mind splitting the bill.

That's obviously my problem then - I've never been to a meal where a decision was made.

We had this on DP's birthday - I was six months pg and not drinking, and there was a girl there who insisted on ordering a round of aperitifs that nobody wanted, then said she HAD to order the wine for everyone as she knew about wine. DP managed to order the red, seeing as he drinks red and it was his birthday, and a lovely bottle of port for afterwards. He said he would pay for the port as it was a special treat and quite expensive.

She then moaned about the bill and about the cost of the red wine, and insisted on working out what everyone had, conveniently forgetting that I hadn't been drinking and making me pay the same as everyone else. She didn't want us to pay for DP's meal, so he had to pay for his meal AND the port, and ended up paying double what everyone else paid, on his own birthday!

And she moaned about leaving a tip, really loudly, in front of the really nice waiter who had danced attendance on her all night.

I was the only sober one and . I gave DP the money back for his meal and port later.

I think that it's good to split the bill except when you don't know someone else's financial circumstances and you take charge of ordering wine. My sister and her husband went out to dinner with another couple recently and they had brought along a friend who was visiting. He nabbed the wine list off the waiter and ordered a total of four bottles of wine at £65 each. They split the bill evenly and my sister doesn't even drink. I think that's really rude.

Spicemonster
I agree that is really rude he could asked before ordering considering the price

Amazingly the few times I have done a HUGE group thing it has all worked out well/ Probably helped by the fact the place wasn't expensive (£8.95 for one course, £10.95 for 2, £12.95 3 courses, House wine £10) Everyone who drank put in £20 - £25 (asked for £20 and then said if you drank a bottle of wine add a bt!!) Ones who didn't paid £15.

Everyone brought cash (bar me ) and it was brill.

I am all for splitting bills unless it is really unfair. But I also wouldn't go somewhere witha crowd that was pricey IYKWIM

we have had this at the works xmas do in the past so now we all have to give £25 if not drinking and £30 if drnking before the meal, like about 2 weeks before, so the person doing the bill at the end can just pay. Works out much better.

I always get embarrassed when I remember one of the first nights out I had with dh's family.

It was dh's 21st birthday & his parents had booked a table at a lovely fancy place in a seaside town. When we had ordered the meal, ate it etc the bill came out. Dh (the boyfriend of about 8months) told me not to bring any money as he was buying my dinner (I felt bad but he was/still is very insistent).

So there they all are, splitting the bill, handing over notes & notes... they wave dh's cash away saying they are paying for the meal..... he tries to insist (still handing money over) they refuse etc.. so in the end he forgets about it & we head to a layby home.

The next day his mum told him I hadn't paid my share of the meal He give her the cash then & explained to her that he had tried to give it to her the night before but she drunkenly insisted she didn't want his money!!

Everytime I think about what they must have said about me after I left I get all annoyed at myself for not having my own money with me in the first place!!!

I'd much rather pay my own - because I like puddings & lots of booze & don't want anyone chuntering that they only had lettuce & tap water...

I usually work out what I've had in my head as I go (ex-waitress so good at adding up), add 15% for a tip & plonk it down. If anyone else really wants to faff about sorting the bill then I let them get on with it & settle up any discrepancies. Life's too short!

(but agree it's different if you're on a tight budget & others are expecting you to pay equal shares. Not sure what the answer is there).

people like this drive me mad.

I prefer to pay for what I've consumed but it depends - if I've swilled Dom Perignon and scoffed caviar, it's up to me to pay for it and not expect everyone else to subsidise me . In the past I did force a bill to split according to what we'd eaten/drank after the restuarant I'd booked as the party organiser as being middle of the road for all was rejected (as it sold pizza which one girl couldn't decide if she was allergic to or not - she would eat it on one occasion but not on others) in favour of a more expensive steak restuarant nearby. The average bill was £57 a head as one or two people insisted on drinking £40 a bottle wine (which I hadn't). My bill was £18 for a salad and a glass of lager. As I was a student and thus on a tighter budget I stuck to my guns and made them divvy it up more accurately, to my advantage and their distinct disadvantage (I was moaned at for 'making' their meals more 'expensive' -wtf? They ordered it all!!) I don't think non-drinkers should subsidise people who drink or people who eat one course as opposed to three or four, but one system should be agreed on before you order, which was my mistake. And pay for drinks at the bar - they're often 75% of the total cost anyway.

restaurant etiquette might be one thing but I am just gobsmacked at the woman who invited people round to a meal AT HER PLACE and then charged them for it.

Can't believe that couple either who bring a bottle of wine to your house and then take it back with them if it hasn't been drunk.

When i have been out for a meal in a group we normally just split the bill.

Although one time, when i was pregnant with dd, six of us went out for a curry and everyone accept me was downing the booze. Then when the bill came it was split evenly so the other five people i was with payed exactly the same as me, even though they had all had pricey alcohol I was too shy to speak up though

The trouble is, when going out with new friends who are mums, that I seem to have regained some of my drinking capacity, [... I've always loved the pudding bit,] but they - being superskinny and/or pregnant/breastfeeding/trying for another, are almost all tee-total, or thereabouts. This makes me feel really guilty, because I like their company, and, no, there are no swings-and-roundabouts. I always order more.

I then do some mad, slightly tipsy mental arithmetic, where I try to split it evenly for the others but add on an extra fiver for myself, - or perhaps that should be a tenner, often get it wrong [in their favour], so they argue, and we end up splitting the bill evenly, anyway. This isn't as longwinded a process, as yorkshirewoman describes with faffy woman, but I can understand where faffy woman is coming from, cos I'd love to feel free to order more, and then pay for it. I feel otherwise, I'm not being fair.

See, I am probably someone that you would all complain about. We don't have much money and in fact never have (burdened by uni debts, expensive rent, not enough wages). We don't want to not go out at, that would be very sad and anti social, so yes, if we go out and only have a main course and soft drink we would rather pay for what we ate.

It's different if I am out with all my good friends, but a work thing or with people where I don't know everyone, we just don't have the cash to splash around.

I remember one incident when I first started my current job, we all went out for someone else's leaving do to TGI fridays (near work). I din't yet know anyone, I had only been there 2 weeks and therefore hadn't been paid yet, haven't just left a temp job. I had a main course and soda a lime and everyone else had at least 2 courses and cocktails. They all wanted to split the bill and I nearly cried, but didn't say anything as I was so new.

A couple of years later the same situation (though I still didn't have any money) and another girl had joined the team. I warned her what happened last time and neither of us having any money (we were both the youngest, everyone else was older and more established) we said to the organiser before hand that we couldn't afford to split the bill. So when the time came she made a really big deal of saying "right we'll split the bill - oh but Bumper and XXXX are just paying for what they had, so everyone else owes XXXX and they are just paying for their own" making us feel very small and very embarrassed.

OH SO embarrassing. I was a bit like that 20 yrs ago when I was a teenager!! But now you just take it on the chin. The bill divided by the number of people and you hope that the night was worth it. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't!! So what I do now is just eat drink and be merry, no point being abstemious really!

That's fine unless you actually have a finite amount of money to spend that evening. I think all the people saying "well you shouldn't go out then" are being really unfair. Why should the amount I spend on a night out be out of my control?

If had ample money I honestly wouldn't have a problem with it, but it's pretty mortifying going out and knowing that you only have £20 to spend regardless.

ooh, yes the farting about and endless discussions "oh but I had...yeah, though you did have a side salad...argh, how awful.

I'm not too bothered - either split it (if everyone had roughly similar), or pay what you had...but discussing it at length is just embarassing and childish.

On the theme of stinginess, we went to a lunch/party, the host had some bread, olives, ham, antipasti stuff out when we got there. DH and I had bought some brie and crackers, another giest had bought some homous, and hey presto, all the antipasti disappeared back into host's fridge, and we were served only what we had brought!

oh Bumper, that is v mean of your ex colleauges.

I do try and be aware of whether people have eaten roughly similar amounts, and always sugest that friends pay less if they have fewer in their family/have eaten much less/have had no drinks etc. I would'nt ask somebody to put in extra though, as I'd feel embarassed.

Thankfuly, most people I eat out with (doesn't happen that often!) are good friends, so we go "well, the bill was £60", and then, being good friends, we don't actually want to rip one another off, so we make adjustments for each other ("Em, you should just put in £15 though, not £20, because you didn't drink"...that sort of thing)

Apostrophe - I took around a cake to my xp's mums' house once as she'd invited us for tea. The cake she'd had one the table wasn't served and we ate what I'd taken. Made me laugh like a drain since I'd complained for months about their stingy ways and then they did in front of company!! That occasion it was worth it . The cake she kept back was a 99p one from Sainsbury's btw.