How do I broach bill-splitting when dining out with friends?

Evansangel

When i once went out for a meal with friends, i dont drink s had lemonade, they all had glasses of wine.
When the bill came we couldn't understand what was written as it was all in indian! So we asked for the menu so we could work out what we had and what was owed.

The waiter went "No you just spilt it equally" to which i went "no can we have the menu?"
He went and got it and stood there staring at us and sighing whilst we worked it out and occasionly kept saying "just split it equally"

Turns out they had overcharged us and had put a few things extra we didn't have. Which we quickly got taken off :rotfl:
And didn't leave a tip.

Also another thing that is annoying is when we all plan for a night out, we all take money along. But one friend never gets money out and only has her card.
Which isn't so bad, except some resturants wont split the payment so they take part cash part card. And she turns to us to 'lend' her the money until she gets to a cashpoint.


But OP, you could roughly add up yours when your ordering and when you've placed the order accounce "well thats not bad, mine is only coming to £XX"

x

SandC

When it's your good friends I'm sure they don't mind but it is best to state your intentions before the meal.

I've been in sticky situations many times. My main group of friends seem to have it sussed now. We are aware of anyone who hasn't been drinking or who has only had main course etc. and split it so that nobody is out of pocket. But I have been with the same girls when we added it all up and agreed it was to be £15 each (drinks were being paid for in cash from the bar) and as it didn't add up I ended up putting £20 and nobody would admit they hadn't paid up. I wouldn't have minded but £15 was actually me putting a lot more in than my food had been.

Like pasturesnew I have also had the rounds with couples problem - there would be two couples plus me and another friend. Yet there would only 4 rounds bought instead of what it should have been - 6. The women of the couples, not holding the cash for the evening would fail to realise that they were two people and not one. Me and other girl then started to do our own rounds between the two of us when we realised.

Then there was on hol last year when about 12 of us went for a meal. I was on a budget (we were half board but they all wanted to eat out one night) so I had something cheap and 2 lagers, no wine. Mine came to about 21 lira but I was happy to put in 25. This was after I explained loudly to them that I wasn't prepared to put in the official split price of 50 as I would be heavily subsidising. They still did not have enough money in the pot at the end but I refused to put any more in to subsidise their wine.

It is a contenscious issue. With work, we try to go places who will allow us to pay cash at the bar for drinks or we will pay for set meals then split drinks bills accordingly. I think it seems to work okay.

I could never be a !!!!!!!!!! but I will no longer be taken for granted.

I remember going out with work, just drinks. I was with the same group all night and I recall saying to one girl the next day I had spent £45 and she was like 'really I only spent £15'. :mad:

MrsE_2

dondo wrote: »

Mind you the paying for what you ate people can be annoying when they're not entirely honest. I remember being out a good few years ago with a big group of about 20 work colleagues and some people had to leave before the bill came so just handed money for what they said they had ate/drank but when the bill came the sums didn't quite add up and they had evidently drank and/or ate more than they said (and hadn't factored in a tip that is automatically applied for big groups) so those remaining got stiffed to put in extra

But they are not "paying for what you ate people" if they are not paying for what they ate, they are freeloaders too.

Perhaps it best if large tables get multiple bills if their are dishonest people in the party.

ceridwen

MrsE wrote: »

But they are not "paying for what you ate people" if they are not paying for what they ate, they are freeloaders too.

Perhaps it best if large tables get multiple bills if their are dishonest people in the party.

In fact one wonders whether this whole dilemma is caused/exacerbated by the restaurants themselves - as in because they find it quicker/therefore easier for "parties of people" to just split bills evenly. Look at it this way - if you were a waiter/waitress - which would you rather people do? Precisely - you'd be standing there thinking "please please just split the bill evenly - and then it will be easier for me". You would not want people working out "fair shares" on the bill or asking for separate bills.

So - I guess there's a certain amount of "pressure" from the staff in a restaurant as well to contend with. This is understandable - as most people will look out for their own interests first - never mind what is actually fair/right. Hence - back to the "say what you intend to do at the start of the evening" and then keep a mental tally of what you personally have spent so far. That is the quickest/easiest way to deal with it at the end of the evening. I personally mentally round up as I work my way through what I'm having - ie "that was £3.87 - make that about £4/then that was £11.50 - make that about £12 - so I'll chuck in £16 at the end of the evening" way of thinking. Quickest/easiest/avoids me paying for !!!!!!!!!!s....

Golden_Anemone

I loved reading this thread - we've all been stung in this situation but I'm counting myself lucky on reading just how badly stung some people have been.

The time I most objected to this was at university. I was a mature student and our professor had organised a field trip for us - it was a really interesting morning and we were in fine form when we got back to uni. Lunch was suggested and everyone agreed. Professor chose restaurant - not somewhere we were used to dining. Some students had very little money and only ordered tea or coffee, most of us were ok for a sandwich whereas Professor had a main course and a pint. He then said "let's split the bill equally". To my absolute shame I didn't stand up to him and none of my younger student friends had the nerve either.

3plus1

It's simple. I only go out for dinner with my friends, my family or my normal colleagues.

I think it's easier to just split the bill, so I discuss with my friends what they want to eat (e.g. number of courses, wine or soft drinks, etc) and order roughly the same as them. One of the group doesn't drink at all, so I do keep an eye out for this - if we're out with him, we don't normally split the bill equally - we work out his share then split it. He would quite happily split the bill, but we're his friends and don't want to take advantage of him. Alcohol can be quite expensive in restaurants and he shouldn't have to subsidise that.

Some of my friends have less money than me, but I am aware of this. I find the best deals then ask if they'd like to go to restaurant X and use a discount I've found. I would never suggest an expensive restaurant if I thought one of my friends would not be able to afford it. And I know who is feeling rich and who is feeling skint - we're friends. We talk about these things.

I have quite a small family. Sometimes we take it in turns paying. Sometimes we split the bill. There aren't any rules here. I try to pay more given that I'm now the highest earner, but my parents are old fashioned and proud, which makes it difficult.

My day-to-day colleagues (from my office) always split the bill equally - we eat out in a large party, so it's impractical to do otherwise. If you don't want to feel shafted, you don't order the cheapest thing on the menu. You order something average priced and most people do the same.

I avoid having dinner with colleagues from other offices as some of them are selfish idiots who will happily order bottles and bottles of wine and then try to split the bill with tee totallers. I know they're unreasonable, so I just don't see them outside of the office. Makes life so much easier!

PasturesNew

3plus1 wrote: »

It's simple. I only go out for dinner with my friends, my family or my normal colleagues.


...
selfish idiots who will happily order bottles and bottles of wine and then try to split the bill with tee totallers. I know they're unreasonable, so I just don't see them outside of the office. Makes life so much easier!

A nice theory, but I don't have friends, never eat out with family and have no colleagues. All my eating out is done with people I might never see again - and who mostly always earn 2x what I do and/or have a partner so their income is 3-4x mine... they are also invariably drinkers of wine/beer. Fuelled by drink and not having to watch pennies ever, they do tend (by the time the bill has come) to be very gung ho about anything, incapable of listening or reasoning and are beating one down en masse about being "tight".

It's OK saying "well don't see them again", but the truth is I probably won't, but what to do ... you can't go being assertive with them as it'd really spoil things more than they have been already. Also, usually, a waiter will bring the bill to a man and it's too late to grab it first. If I'm flush, I don 't mind rounding mine up by a few quid, but when it's the difference between £7-8 and splitting a bill and paying out £20-25 EVERY time, it used to get annoying.

Nobody else would eat out if EVERY time they ate out all their food etc was always 3x the price.

It has stopped me from even going out with people to be honest. Over the years I've turned down many an invitation because I couldn 't see how to manage the bill paying part. I dread it when I am out and somebody says "let's go for a curry" because I know that it will usually cost me a lot more than I've spent .. and that's on top of having bought rounds of drinks all night that have meant my drinks bill would have cost me £4 and I've already spent £20.

It's just that whole way they have of making out you're the tight/awkward one when all you're trying to do is pay your own way ... and not 3x the cost all the time.

PasturesNew

3plus1 wrote: »

If you don't want to feel shafted, you don't order the cheapest thing on the menu. You order something average priced and most people do the same.

What if the choice is between going and eating what you can afford, or not going at all though? I can go out on a Saturday night, buy all my own drinks and have an indian afterwards for, say, £10 ... get involved in rounds and splitting the bill and you can be looking at £40-50. So if you only have £10 to your name it's the difference between going out once this month for a nice night out, or not, if you're expected to subsidise others... others who probably go out more too!

SandC

I can imagine how hard that is pastures, I very rarely go out with people I don't know well and I no longer tend to go out with couples like I used to either.

What I find you really have to watch is the wine drinkers. Because they are invariably sharing the wine they are drinking they forget how much it cost.

babelfish

Its amazing after reading this thread to learn of the amount of people there are out there that will purposely try to get others to subsidise their eating and drinking! People also have different ideas about bill splitting and whilst some don't mind rounding up, others like it worked out to the penny. I think both ways are fine as long as everyone agrees.

My OH and I once went out with two other couples we knew well because it was my birthday. We all ate a lot and also had wine between us, as well as the usual beers. However, one couple had both been feeling a bit ill and therefore didn't drink very much (I'll call them Pete and Mary) and only had a main meal with no starter or dessert. The bill was complicated by the fact that we had a voucher with 15% off and, instead of working it out in the restaurant, we paid by card and said we'd go back to our house for drinks or coffee and work out what everyone owed us.

My OH is very good at working things out in his head and would never try to work the bill to his advantage. He took into account that Pete and Mary hadn't had very much and also knew that he and I had had the most so he said "Lets just say £22 for Pete and Mary, £28 for the next couple and £30 for us". He had mentally worked out what everyone's meal had cost and took 15% off and also didn't add the wine onto Pete and Mary's bill as they hadn't had any.

Well, Mary went ballistic and pointed out that they'd hardly had anything and hadn't drunk any wine and generally made it clear she was not happy with my OH working it out in his head. Everyone else had been quite happy to pay what he'd said. She made Pete get a calculator and work it out to the penny twice to make sure the bill was correct. We were all quite upset and embarrassed and, to be honest, wouldn't have minded just putting in another fiver if it meant appeasing her because it was spoiling my birthday night. The other couple went outside for a cigarette and I could tell they were quite angry with how Mary was behaving and I, myself, was quite upset. It was one thing to say "Can we sit down and work it out properly?" but quite another to almost accuse my OH of trying to do them out of money, which is what she did.

After working the bill out twice and explaining to his wife how he had done it, it turned out that Pete and Mary's share of the bill actually came to £24 and, whilst we were correct at £30, the second couple owed £26. Whilst they weren't at all bothered that they had been nearly made to pay £2 more than they should, Mary was absolutely fuming that she now looked a fool. Pete just stood there looking sheepish, as though he wished the floor would just open and swallow him up. I was so happy that it had been proved that my OH hadn't been trying to fiddle the bill. I knew he wouldn't do this.

Pete and Mary, by the way, were the most well off of all six of us and went on expensive holidays, so it isn't as though her behaviour was fuelled by a need to save the pennies.

Needless to say, we never went out with them again, which is a shame because we all quite liked Pete. Its a pity he would never stand up to his wife and tell her what he was so obviously thinking.