Birthday bill split

[KnickerlessFatWoman]

Last weekend was my mother’s birthday, so we - that’s me, my parents, sister and BIL and their 12 year-old son - went for Sunday lunch. Unfortunately the food wasn’t great, and they ended up taking my main off the bill.

My dad is someone who always wants to treat everyone, so my sister and I decided this time it was our turn and we were going to treat him and our mum instead. When the bill came, BIL asked if we could split it over two cards, but they said they could only take one payment. He paid and I said I’d transfer my share. For the sake of keeping the maths simple on this thread, let’s say the bill was £210, or £35 per head.

Both BIL and sister are crap at responding to messages, so it took me until midweek to get the bank details. I sent over £70 to cover me and one of my parents.

I heard nothing in response, but I was chatting to my mum earlier and she said “Oh, by the way, Katie said you got the money wrong - it was £210 and you only sent £70”. I said no, that was right - my meal and one other. She said, “Ohhh… I think she thought you were splitting it”. I laughed and said, “No, we said we’d treat you and Dad. I didn’t say I’d pay for three meals!”

I don’t really know why my sister couldn’t just have messaged me instead of talking to our mother about it, but that’s not really the issue. Surely she and BIL don’t expect me to pay half the bill? By treating our parents, I meant exactly that - not that I’d pay for them both while my sister just paid for her own family (which is what this amounts to). There are three of them and one of me. If I pay half the bill, sister and BIL have only covered themselves and their child - there’s no “treating” anyone at all.

AIBU for thinking £70 was my share and paying just that?

If you clarify everything at the start and ask the staff for separate tabs at the beginning, CFs can't get away with it!

If I was sat at a table in the scenario you described, and I agreed with sister that “we’d treat our parents” as our parents usually pay, I probably would automatically jump to the conclusion of going 50/50 on the bill.

I do see your point of view in terms of breaking it down into cost per head, but I think the treat is that you’ve paid a bill for your parents as opposed to paying for specific meals.

If you were buying a joint physical gift for your parents with your sister, would you want to only pay a third rather than half if she also wanted to include your BIL’s name on the tag?

If I were your sister in this case, I’d have probably said “bung an extra £20 onto mine to cover the extra wine we’ve had” or something of this ilk (ie. Just a number that I’d pulled out of thin air as opposed to breaking it all down according to who’s had what exactly).

Of course yanbu. Agreeing to treat your parents is exactly that, and completely different to agreeing to split the bill.

I think you don't even have to address this with your sister, as she hasn't raised it with you directly. Very poor taste of her to raise it with your mum, as the goal was to treat her!

If sister raises it with you directly you can clarify, but I'm not sure you need to before that. You've done nothing wrong.

So, your siblings were fine with taking advantage of you and you didn't mind being the doormat.

Not all families enjoy that dynamic.

I do this whenever possible, too but some places will not allow it.

We only seem to go out with old friends where we all know our routine. We split evenly (by person). If anyone has significantly more, they’ll always take it off the top before the split. One friend likes craft cocktails and will do this.

It helps that we are horrified by the idea of not contributing fairly and that a couple of us enjoy doing the math.

If we are in a nicer place one of us will take the bill and the others send their share later.

Why would you even consider that your friend would pay for you, and need clarification on this?!

19 pages of people pretending it's normal for anyone to expect their sister to pay for her husband and children on a family night out😂

19 pages of people pretending that paying 70 quid when in fact your only share was 35 because your own was comped is in some way unfair 😆

Peak Mumsnet. Don't let the cheeky fuckers plan this sort of nonsense again, get everything in black and white in texts.

PS your sister's sly attempt to manipulate you via your mum into paying her share is very concerning. I'd keep an eye on what else she might be whispering in your parents' ears.

It seems there are a lot of CF's on the thread that would just assume (bats lashes) their whole immediate family would be subsidized.

Then her sister thought she was going to get a freebie, just so the OP would have the pleasure of their company?

Oh and if you're a cheeky fucker intent on forcing others to pay your share, the onus is on YOU to ask for that favour clearly in advance. HTH.

@KnickerlessFatWoman , more than 80% of people agree YANBU, and most of the people questioning you seem to have a problem with reading comprehension.

As another pp noted you should talk to your sister and re-iterate that you agreed to splitting the bill for your parents, and remind her that they took your main off the bill, etc.

OP, just be glad that you didn't use your card and then have BiL send money to you! He would have sent less under the assumption that you were paying for half the meal for all the people in his family!!!

You're spending too much time arguing on mumsnet. While I agree with your side of the story, I really don't think it's that big an issue that warrants all this effort and time on your part arguing with strangers on mumsnet.

Speak to your sister and move on. Putting aside if the split was fair or not, the bigger issue is the fact that she didn't reach out to you and instead dragged your mother into this, that's childish and ridiculous in my opinion.

Either way speak to her resolve it and move on. Resolving doesn't mean you agree to send her extra, it just means you explain your point of view and if she doesn't see your perspective then you agree to disagree. Next time you will be more explicit when meeting for family meals.

You don't need to convince everyone on mumsnet and frankly you never will so it's just wanted effort and energy.

I clicked on YABU by accident!

I completely agree with you, OP. I think your sister and BIL are being scrounging CFs if they’re expecting you to pay 50% of the total bill. My sibling with children (me without) would never expect this when we’ve treated our parent to a meal out with the family - and it’s never needed to be explicitly discussed between us as it’s obvious (as he’s not a CF!)

this is the only correct answer to the OPs question, anthing else is a misreading of what she clearly stated from the outset. Her sister misunderstanding this ain't her fault, neither is the single tax that so many coupled people on here seem to blindly apply to these situations without thinking.

I have no idea why people are implying the OP is stingy or grabby but not accepting that it's the sister getting a 'free ride' in the sense that she's not doing anything more than paying for what her nuclear family ate, whilst the OP subsidises the whole birthday treat aspect. OP isn't unreasonable to be peed off that it's being implied (and not to her face_) that she's somehow the one avoiding something here! Whether or not you'd let it go or not wasn't the question being asked.

Nicely summed up.

YANBU @KnickerlessFatWoman. Your sister is being cheeky to assume that you would be paying for both of your parents while she simply paid for her own immediate family. She is even more unreasonable for dragging your mum into this disagreement. That is very childish and manipulative of her. Does she usually behave like this?

I think that as normally your parents pay, splitting the bill meant paying for 50% of total bill and not just you and one parents meal. I don’t think you did split the bill. Next time just say you pay for your meals and one parent and so will I .

The whole point of going out for the meal was to treat the parents. Why should the husband and child pay equally? They are innocent bystanders!

If you and your sister go halves you have both spent exactly the same. Simple.

I know your main was taken off!

I’m just saying I wouldn’t have included my nephew in the split, if it was me. So I would have divided by 5 instead of 6 and then paid for 2 out of 5 meals, your sister pay for 3 out of 5.

But they are not innocent bystanders, they are people who hoed into a meal, chipper that they thought they were getting a freebie.

The treat was for the parents. The only way it should have worked 50/50 was if only OP and her sister went, as the children, to treat the parents. Otherwise the treat for the parents means both th children paying 50/50 for the parents, and then each for themselves. I would have been mortified to expect someone else to pay for my whole family, and if that was somehow the ‘deal’ (although that’s madness), I would have left everyone at home to ensure it was fair, and because I’m not an entitled CF.

You don’t have to. I’m saying what I would do. This situation wouldn’t have arisen in my family or dh’s, as the bill would have been split down the middle, in the first place.

So if you were at the meal with your partner and one or more children, you would expect your sibling, who has come along on their own, to stump up half of the entire bill?

Yes because in my family we split the bill down the middle irrespective. Sometimes it’s just me. Sometimes, both my siblings, sometimes just one, sometimes all niblings, sometimes some or none. But our family rule and for dh’s, is that that the bill is split down the middle, unless, one side is treating for a special birthday, for example.

YANBU, but you'll probably need to explain it. Married people get very bad at maths - they can get mistaken in thinking that 2 people = one person, when it comes to bill splitting.

You and your sister have very different ideas about splitting the bill. Neither of you is mathematically wrong; but I think your sister is a bit cheeky to expect you to pay half of the total bill, when it was just you, in contrast to the 3 people in her family. (and your main course was rubbish/inedible from the sounds of it).

But this is typical behaviour pf married/family people. They just don't think, and obviously you sister sees her family (3 people) as one unit, and you (1 person) as one unit.

You need to explain your maths to her, and the concept of fairness!

Similarly if I’d been the one on my own I’d have paid the half of the bill.