Real Life MMD: Should I pay the extra money?

pineapple

If I had been the friend I'm not sure I would have said anything. But I would have had a chunter to myself.
Put yourself in the friend's position. You lend this person money. They say they will pay for dinner as a way of re-paying the debt. Presumably roughly to the value of the debt.
You go out to dinner and they proudly announce they got a money off voucher. How would you feel?
Or let's say you find out about it afterwards. How would you feel?

The thing to do would have been to announce the saving and therefore you would be able to push the boat out a bit more as a result.
That would be the friend's cue, if feeling magnanimous, to say 'no need'.
I have to say it doesn't sound as if there is much of a friendship - on either side.

yada33

Well done for finding the 50% off voucher.

However, I agree your friend is right in principle. They were kind in lending you money and the idea of paying for thier meal - provided the cost was equivalent to the money owed - was fair. However, by using the voucher you have not really repaid them at all and so this is unfair and likely to cause problems in your friendship. Whether or not you should have kept quiet about the voucher is irrelevant - you owed money to your friend and should therefore repay it in full as the ethically and morraly correct thing to do.

By the same token, if the meal had come to more than the money owed, I would expect your friend to pay the extra, as I am sure you would have.

Julia4J

It would have been best had you said nothing but if your friends had gone to the restaurant on their own they would have had to spend the money. You have been a canny shopper just not so canny with your mouth, sorry.;)

Tali_2

As you borrowed the money, not the food, it's the money you should repay. The decision to take food in lieu of cash belongs to the lender, not the borrower.

Nuttynatty

Pay up

take your friend out for dinner with the voucher and pay off what you owe them aswell

Losinmoney

Pay what you owe, not smug about telling your friend you've got a deal! Mean spirited.

stardust09

How would you feel if it had been the other way around and you'd generously lent a friend the money then they had tried to cash in on a meal voucher?

I agree that you should pay back the full cost of the loan and give the meal as a gift for your friend's kindness. After all, you got 50% off which means effectively you only paid for one meal.

Good friends are hard to come by so why ruin it? Don't abuse people's kindness and you'll still have their friendship, and many others, in years to come.

sarahmtly

Pay your friend what you owe them or you risk losing a friend that was good enough to lend you the money in the first place.

60ferndale

You say the person is/was a friend, Get what you can for nothing from big business but lookafter your friends.

pennypinchUK

Er, you say this is a friend? Wow - doesn't say much for you as a friend if you're trying to duck out of money you owe to them. Cough up the full amount and be thankful you've not lost a friend over your attempt to weasel out of clearing a debt.