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?

You're right. They can't expect to take a family of 3, and you pay half of the bill when you're just one person. If you're treating your parents, that's two people - one for you to pay for, and one for your sister to pay for. You've done exactly right.

As a few others have said, you're actually being generous given that your food was taken off the bill, as that will have pushed the cost down a little per head for everyone else, and you've still paid for your own cost too!

Around 30% of people fail basic level 4 GCSE so perhaps the results are not surprising

You didn’t say you would split the bill, you said you would share the cost of your parents’ meal. That’s one extra meal for you, one for your sister. Seems straightforward and what anyone reasonable would understand.

The OP doesn’t actually mention ‘splitting the bill’ despite the number of times it’s been mentioned on this thread. The OP says that the decision was to treat the parents - so each sister absorbing the cost of a parent’s meal into their overall share of the bill.

It seems blindingly and mathematically obvious to me that the OP’s payment is fair but reading other responses, I feel that I must have missed something in the OP where the agreement was for DSis to pay for her own family and for OP to treat both parents?

I'm completely with you OP, you agreed to treat your parents by paying their share between you and your sister, not split the entire bill equally between you. I don't think it's fair for you to pay as much as the three others, otherwise you and your sister are treating the BIL and nephew too.

But when BiL asked them to split it over two cards, if you had said at that point that you were just splitting your parents shares, not the entire bill, it might have clarified the situation. But never mind.

You do realise that bills can be split any number of ways don’t you? If it were being split 3 ways you wouldn’t expect each person to pay half would you?

Yep, it’s 70 for you. Anything else would be bizarre cheeky fuckery at its best.

I’m not ignoring them, I’m baffled by the stupidity of so many when mumsnet is normally fairly astute, and the irrelevance of how you do things in your family. Read the op!! we were going to treat him and our mum instead which means the mum and dads bill will be split and added to our own

Your way, only OP is treating her mum and dad.

If the sister would have gone out with her husband and child as a family of 3, it would have cost them the same as what they want to pay for also ‘treating mum and dad’.

OP didn’t agree to 50/50. Both sisters said they wanted to treat mum and dad, OP didn’t want to treat sister, BIL and child.

Yes but if I said to my sibling we’ll pay or treat or whatever. We would to expect it to be split evenly between the 2 of us. I wouldn’t be as pedantic to be well actually I am only splitting parents part. You’ve agreed to treat you split the bill between the 2 people who’ve agreed

I think you've split appropriately and your Sis is being a CF.

We go as family of 4 with Sis/DP. I always pay 2/3s and them 1/3. Why would I expect them to pay for my DC?

If your parents normally pay, your sister usually pays nothing for her dinner for 3. So do you. So whose idea was it to treat them? If it was you, you have caused them a greater loss than you and you should pay half. If she suggested it she's a CF expecting you to pay more for her decision

Why are you talking about my sister “needing to pay for four meals” as if that’s a huge imposition, when she, her husband and her child ate three of those meals? Why would anyone be shocked at having to pay for their own food?

And if it’s such a trauma to pay for one meal more than you ate, why aren’t you worrying about me paying for TWO more? On my one income versus their two?

You agreed to treat your parents so you’ve split the bill. Personally unless discussed previously that you meant you were paying for one parents meal, the assumption would be 50/50 split between me and my sibling: we wouldn’t even think about doing anything but 50/50

Splitting the bill means in my book 50:50 otherwise we are into the territory of x didn't have a starter, y had alcohol and that's just ridiculously petty.

I think it’s just the phraseology tbh. When I first read it was split the bill, I assumed 50/50. If you’d said let’s split our parents bill I’d have assumed the two of you halved their bill. The latter is fair but if Dsis understood split the bill as I did that’s why she’s narked.

You’ve agreed to treat your parents not pay half of a family meal where you are one half and the other half is three people.
On what planet should you have to pay so much it’s outrageous? I’m embarrassed for them even asking. Oh and I bet the BIL did the big man treating everyone card swipe.
Grifters.

Would someone please quote the op when they keep claiming ‘the op agreed to split the bill’ ? Because at no point has she said that. It’s in fact the entire point of the thread. The op agreed to ‘treat their parents’ which the sister has turned in to ‘split the bill.’

I think it can be interpreted your way (splitting by number in family and 50/50 to cover your parents' meals or your sister's way (50/50 for the bill). I think the fact that your parents normally pay for everything makes this a lot more to pay than your sister would normally have to. There's also things you haven't mentioned such as did you go somewhere your parents would like, and perhaps it was more expensive than sister would otherwise have chosen?

You've also not considered that a 12 year old was (presumably) not drinking wine, so his share should have been less, so I don't think your way was fair anyway.

Basically you are all at fault for not clarifying it all very clearly ahead of time, as is basically the issue on every restaurant bill split thread.

OP, you are correct. The agreement wasn't to split the bill, it was for you and your sister to 'treat your parents', which would mean each of your paying for one of your parents' meals which is exactly what you did. Your sister's family will also have paid a little less due to the cost of your main course being taken off the bill.

that's very generous of you

but when I am the one with more kids, I don't want to split 50/50 per family because it means the others pay more. So I would feel. a bit bad if you just split in 2.

Our relatives once tried to split the bill with us when we agreed to treat our mum. My mum. Me and my partner. Brother, sister in law and their 7 children! No chance.

Yep one sister pays for mum, one pays for dad. That simple.
Why a family of three would expect a singular sibling to split the whole bill is really unfair. And asking is just cringe.

but they wont' splitting the bill? They are treating their parents.
The parents bill is split in half, 50/50

and added to the actual bill of each sibling.

EVEN IF I thought I had misunderstood and was expecting to see a 50/50 total bill split, I wouldn't be such a CF to give it more than a thought before realising it's not fair for 1 adult to pay more than a family and would ever have complained about it.

I think a lot of people think split the bill would mean half it between the two parties discussing it. I'd have said I'll buy mine and mums and you buy yours and dad's to avoid confusion because this is something my brother would 100% do, expect me to cover some of his too.