To not want to split the bill evenly

[BradfordMum]

When my meal plus drinks has cost MUCH less than everyone elses?

Tonight there are 15 mums going for a meal.
Last time, my share of the bill was £15, but I ended up paying an extra £9 as the bill was split between all of us.
I don't drink at all, and will have a couple of lemonades whereas the others have wine and other alcoholic drinks like vodka and coke and gin and tonics.

I tried to say that mine was £15, but they said we all should just split the bill.

Not only that, but I am also picking up 5 mums and taking them home this saving them a taxi, as I will be totally sober.

I DO NOT want to appear petty, but it gripes me.

i have a thing about this too. when i go out wiht a a group i know v v well i just order and pay for mine separately. this appened on sat. i said ;do you mind if i order mine separately'. they said 'we dont mind. we dont understan but we dont mind'. quite pleasant and jovial and that was that. i noticed lots of them had lots more to drink than me etc and i cant afford to subsidise them. i ust enjoyed their company having agreed at the outset i wasnt joining in with the bill splitting thing. i am not quite so brave when i havent known them all my life though....

As a veggie, I've been subsidising friends meals for 20 years. Unfortunately, I think it comes with the territory of eating out as a group, annoying as it is.

Actually, I think if you are a non-drinker and everyone else has drunk a lot, then maybe it's ok not to split it equally between all people. However, being a complete whimp, I would probably wouldn't bring it up myself if I wasn't drinking, but would wait for someone else to. Generally, I think this would happen.

I don't think it matters really which way you go i.e. either split or everyone paying for their own, as long it is discussed BEFORE you start.

I kind of have the opposite problem. When I go out I like to go all out, courses, cheese, drinks and I don't like worrying about what other people are going to be ordering if we are splitting the bill.

As for the car thing, if you don't want to drive people because you think they are ungrateful then don't offer to drive them, it isn't worth the angst.

YANBU. As the non-drinking (driver) vegetarian I always end up paying over the top. For those who get annoyed about people being "petty", do you really think it's reasonable to pay more than double your own bill?

I went out with some friends last month. My meal and drink came to £9 (rounded up) We were all asked to put in £20. The others were all drinking all the way through the meal, and most had starters/puddings/ side orders. I negotiated mine down to £15, but that is still half as much again on top. It's the principle of the thing. If I was the one having all the extras I would insist on paying the extra.

When I then went out with a different group for lunch I found out how much my own meal and drink had come to, added £1 plus the change for the tip and put that in the pot, like SMS.

I would always speak up for a non- drinker and never expect them to pay as much as a drinker - IME most people I go out with will speak up for the non-drinkers. I always accept graciously if I don't drink and those who are drinking offer a similar reduction. If it's good friends who I go out with regularly I usually just split it since it's swings and roundabouts - sometimes I'm drinking and sometimes I'm not so I win some I lose some. If you're always the non-drinking and or driving person must be annoying so as long as you go about saying it in the right way, I'm sure everyone will understand ie "do you mind if you reduce mine a bit to take into account that I've not been drinking2 - rather than a "mine's £22.45" as if you've been keeping tabs on your amount??

I clicked on this expecting to say 'Oh FFS, what's a starter here or there?' but actually YANBU at all. If you're not drinking AND driving other people home, you should definitely not be paying for other people's drinks. And if you were my friend, I'd be giving you petrol money anyway.

As I said earlier, it is interesting how much of the time it is the big orderers and drinkers who want to just split the bill evenly. They are usually the ones who say it's 'petty' to do anything else too. And lo and behold, when this isn't the arrangement, they generally order less and drink less.

My DH is lucky enough to earn quite a lot more than me and a number of our friends, who we often eat out with. So we are always happy to split and usually put in extra, even though we are often not drinking etc, because we can afford it. However, many people have budgeted carefully for a night out and then get shafted by the even splitters.

I had a dreadful meal out a couple of years ago, after a work conference, with the other delegates. Big table, half drank (lots) the other half didn't at all. Plus the drinking half ordered lots of starters 'for the whole party to share' without consulting the rest of us, or asking which starters we'd like if any. At the end they asked for everyone to put in an even share, which for some people was more than twice the price of what they'd consumed. Now I could afford it, but I spoke up because I could see people looking uncomfortable to the point of tears. It ended badly, with one of the drinkers throwing notes onto the table and saying that it was all "vulgar" (personally I think it's vulgar to expect others to subsidise you getting pissed, but there you go) but the alcohol was taken out of the equation before the bill was split, in the end. I still think I was right to speak up. The only thing I'd do differently in the future would be to speak up earlier if at all possible. It's worst when it's left to the actual bill-paying point of proceedings.

sometimes i just sneak up to the till area and ask to pay for my share as i have to leae early. i always add in a generous amount for the tip and just tell the others i had to go - probably is quite cowardly but when i really simply cannot afford to pay more than i have budgeted for it is just tough!! i still seem to be invited out so it ant offend people THAT much.....

when i went out with work groups, we usually worked out the average, including a tip, then told people what it was, and asked them to put in what they thought they'd had. (eg. bill = 100, divide by 10, so a tenner each. drinkers would put in 12, non drinker 8 etc) we always left way too much money, and everyone was abel to be flexible.

also, those giving a lift generally got their diet cok paid for, but not petorl money. seemed fair to me.

We tend to put in what we've spent individually, plus a bit for a tip. Wine drinkers divvy up the cost of however many bottles. It's not usually a problem.

It makes me glad that my friends are such skinflints. We always pay for what we've had rather just splitting the bill equally. yes, it takes longer, but it saves anyone from getting all bitter and twisted because they had a vegetarian meal / didn't have alcohol / had a cheaper dessert than everyone else.

I'm in the "can't be arsed to faff around with the bill" camp. Particularly as people always assume I can work out the bill and I can't do adding or subtracting when half cut.

it is a pain to work out who had what, so the best way is to spilt the meal evenly and then do a seperate bill with drinks if out with lots of people/school mums etc

if in a small group with people you know either say you are counting the pennies and ask to pay for what you eat - or as i find one of us drives each time so 3/4 times you will have 2 or more glasses of wine so it does even out

I went on an end of college dinner a few years back, was on income support, and ordered a £7 spag bol. Unfortunately I was the youngest and didn't speak up, chipped in £20 and was potless for the rest of the week. Now I'm older I'll always speak up and opt out.
What's even worse is when everyone chips in equally and one person blatantly doesn't put anything in and thinks it has gone unnoticed! Well I always bloody notice and it pees me off!

We don't work out everyone's individually. We keep track of what we have ordered ourselves and put in the right money at the end. Adding together the cost of your own meal isn't tricky. It doesn't have to be done as a group exercise- unless you don't trust the people you're out with.

Just put down your 15 and says that's all I have on me. My friend never had money for a taxi and would always ask me to pay -so one night i Said, no i have no cash, no bank card so she had to go to the cash machine and fork it out for a change

This can be really hard though. I once went out for dinner with a big group, that was predominantly middle-aged male expats. I wasn't teetotal, but had a couple of glasses of wine. Another woman there didn't drink anything at all. When the bill came, the doyen of the group (and serious wine guzzler, who had also ordered v.expensive bottles) split the bill, and it was 180 pounds each. As it happens we were all on expenses, but I was outraged. The restaurant was quite pricey, but I must have been subsidising to the tune of at least 120 pounds, if not more. The worst thing was they were all pissed, and I'd had a bit of wine, so I couldn't really make a case.

(I made my boss call the main perpetrator and complain the following day )

letswiggle .

No, YANBU. I completely agree. When I'm going out I know how much I have to spend and it's horrible to have that blown because someone else has drunk their way through the wine list.

A group of us went out for a birthday dinner for our boss some years back and a £9 main course and a glass of water cost me nearly £30 because of bill splitting. She'd drank half a bottle of the most expensive wine on the menu helped by one other person and, despite earning twice as much as me and and another colleague, insisted on splitting the bill. It caused some pretty bad feeling!

Now when we go out, we all keep track of what we've had, round up for a tip and put that in and it's usually fairly spot on. No calculators and no bitterness!

Luckily (?) we don't tend to go out as a group very often. We have friends who are lovely but who don't consider that everyone else is in a two-earner household and living in a much cheaper part of the country and bought their houses years ago. Rather obviously I SAH, we live in the SE and we're renting, so our housing costs are crazy. How do you point that out though? And I'm British enough to feel petty when they drink alcohol, order extra side dishes and their DC eat from the menu, rather than stuff off the adults plates and I think "don't you notice that we order cheap dishes, drink tap water and give our DD bits of ours?".

DH quite often doesn't go out with work collegues. They are mostly at a completely different stage of life - either young free and single (with lots of disposable cash) or older couples with older children (two incomes, no childcare costs) and teeny mortgages. We calculated that one meal would cost at least £50 a head, even though they were eating from a restricted menu to lower the costs!

i dont drink either so would be dam cross to find that im supporting for someone else to get drunk .

But if i am getting a lift will always chip in with petrol

When we go out as a group, we split the meals evenly and pay for drinks ourselves as we go.

You know if you were giving me and 4 other mums a lift to and from the place I would say to the other 4 lets pay for xx's meal between us - at £15 its only £3 - a lot less than a taxi!