sharing restaurant bills in a group

LutonGirl

I'm out tonight with a regular group of friends. Some time ago it was obvious that some were (perhaps innocently) taking advantage of the "even split" bill and were necking the booze and choosing the high value dishes to the detriment of those of us who were driving or just having a veggie main meal and half a lager!

A few of us decided to nicely put a stop to this and we introduced the "pre-order". As there can be as many as 15 - 20 of us, it's always a palaver to order and takes forever, so what we do now is circulate the menu beforehand and one of us collates the choices and tells everyone what they owe. It's worked really well and in the guise of being super-organised, we've managed to make it fair on all.

On the night, everyone pays for their own drinks at the table. It bemused the waiters at our favourite curry house to start with but they're used to it now. AND because they get the order the day before and there isn't a debate over the bill at the end of the night, it's a good trade off.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Small groups of 6 to 8, we normally end up in the Indian. Nomrally there is a purse from work to subsidise.

Other does, we normally hand round the menu, you pay afore you get there. We normally request a wine waiter, who we pay, and you buy your own drinks. Works well. Though as the organiser, I normally spend more time in some establishments reminding the host that we paid for the wine waiter, we expect them to serve us!

And if we have poor service, we dock the bill accordingly and never return. Mind you, only dione this once, and it would had been docked more, if I had known about the lamb shanks as well!

mutley74

DSmiffy wrote: »

I'm on a tight budget. If I'm out on a group night out and I have a budget, or if I;m driving and not drinking, I simply ask the waiter to put my order on a separate bill right at the beginning.
It;s that simple, - no problems when it comes to paying, no arguing about who had what, and no overspend. He just bring me my bill at the end of the night.
That is all

that's a good idea!

samizdat

Yes, it's a bit of a minefield, especially in expensive restaurants with richer friends/family.

I am incredibly greedy (well, I do a lot of exercise), so tend to eat more than most, but it's the £30-£40 bottles of wine that my brother-in-law feels is the minimum spend in London restaurants that are the real killer.

Which reminds me, I am due to see him this weekend. ***Shivers***. Must try to ensure a couple of hours of pre-load drinks before we go out.

Bella73

We as a group used to split the bill but got fed up with the same people taking the mick, so now we just all pay per person/couple.

I find it a but odd that some people find it "sours" the evening to sort out paying for what you have had, only seems right to me as you generally don't know everyone financial position and to be honest I couldn't give a stuff if that makes me "tight", I learnt the hard way by being ripped off by people in the past.

Always pay for my own drinks if I go out too even if everyone else is doing rounds, I like to know I do not owe anyone anything and if I want to leave early you don't get the...but it's your round rubbish either, we tend to go out in quite big groups and I would be in the floor before everyone had got their round in!

We have a couple of very close friends and sometimes if the four of us go out we split the bill, but if ine couple has loads more for whatever reason that couple put in a bit more.

Luiem

I don't eat out that often, but when I do I've always just paid for what I have eaten/drunk and then add a tip. I don't ever drink alcohol and one soft drink (or glass of water) will last me a whole meal. With chip and pin we just ask waiter to pay a given amount each, which has never caused a problem.

kerri_gt

I think it's good in the USA where they ask how the table would like the bills split, individual, group etc. doesn't seem quite such the norm here in the UK.

NY1986

wiogs wrote: »

Having been caught out in a group when I ended up splitting the bill I pay for my own nowadays.

I had a pizza, nothing to drink, which cost a few pennies under a tenner. My "share" of the final bill that time came to £30

This is exactly what happened to me. Twice. Last time went out for a group meal with work - I don't drink as I like to keep my wits about me (I had to get two buses at the time we'd finished) and only had one diet coke total bill was ~ 12, I was expecting to leave £15. My colleagues were on multiple cocktails/bottles of wine and they decided to split the bio per head ended up being £22.

Needless to say I haven't been out with them since.

Close friends and family are different as it's easier to split / make up next time.

jazzypinkpuppet

it's not always the drinkers causing the high costs, last week I was on a night out, me and my friend shared a bottle of house wine £7 each, my non drinking friend had four J20 drinks which were £3.75 each and had the cheek to say 'well as I wasn't drinking I should pay a bit less" :rotfl:

Woolwich_Kim

Usually pay for our own but when it comes to the service charge, I normally insist this be divided by amount of people as it's just far easier than working out 12.5% of only what you had.

In groups where there may be some you don't know, there does always seem to be a difficult one so sharing service charge don't always work. Also, I've dined with some real stingie people who if they offer you some of their food or drink will expect you to pay for it too even if it was just one or two fries or a sip of wine.

With my close friends & family we split equally regardless of who had what.