Friend dilemma over small amount of money

milliemonster

I am genuinely interested in people's opinions here as I honestly don't know if my thoughts are completely off track and don't want a repeat of this in the future.

Yesterday spent the day shopping with a good friend (our 2 boys are at school together), I owed her £6 from some shopping she did for me a few days ago so I offered to buy her lunch yesterday which she was happy with.

We went for lunch to a cafe, her meal came with a huge black hair on it so she sent it back had an alternative and the cafe were very apologetic and deducted her meal from the bill, the bill for our drinks and my meal then only came to £7.45, as I didn't realise they only accepted cash and I only had small change, she paid and as soon as we left and I found a cash machine, I took out £30 a £20 note and a £10 note and immediately handed her the £10 note.

My friend then abruptly turned to me and said 'I don't mean to be funny but you owe me more than that' I was a little taken aback as I couldn't give her anymore anyway as I only had the other £20 note so would have given her more if required once I had some more change, it caused a little bit of a difficult silence and I then started rackingmy head thinking of how much I owed her.

So I owed her £6 from before and gave her £10 which more than covered my half of the lunch (I know I had previously said I would pay for lunch but that was instead of paying her back the £6 I owed her, not aswell as) but I guess she was thinking that as her meal ended up being free she didn't want to split lunch. She told me that I owed her another £3, therefore she wanted the £6 I owed her plus me to pay for lunch almost in its entirety (including her drinks)

To be honest I found all this a bit petty quibbling over a couple of quid, but before I had chance to discuss it, she gave me a hug and apologised saying she felt really mean and couldn't believe she was quibbling over a couple of pounds when I have her son for her so much (I look after him a couple of days a week after school until she gets home from work)

So, I'm sorry this is so long winded but my question is that if it had been me who ended up with a free meal during lunch with a friend I would still have just split the cost of the meal equally between us both, so we both benefitted from a cheaper meal, I'm just wondering if I am completely alone in this? I guess I just find it a little weird if good friends out for the day together are wanting to split the cost of everything to the last penny?

System

A lesson for you, pay what you owe as soon as possible..... like the very next day. There would be no awkward silences, no misunderstandings or racking of brains as to who owes what.

DUTR

Having a quick read, the meal would have realistically been £15 , which you should have paid for.
Even at the £7.45 you should have paid for the meal and given her the money owed IMO.
If it were me I would have given her £20 at the time at the ATM and it's all done and dusted.
If she wanted to she could have given you a fiver back, but you did offer to take her to lunch and there is still £6 owed.

tea_lover

It does sound as though you owe her more than you paid. But if I was the friend I probably wouldn't have said anything as I think most things even out over time. It sounds as though she regretted saying it as soon as she had though so hopefully it's all sorted now.

hazyjo

Probably a deeper rooted reason.

Does she have money problems?

A controlling OH?

Do you owe her something that you've forgotten to pay back?

It does get very petty sometimes. I'm paranoid that someone thinks I'm out to diddle them. When I lunch with a friend, she gets the parking and I get the tip (£12.95 lunch deal).

I suppose I would have accepted her meal was free (before her saying) so I would still owe her £6 - but would deduct her drink, and pay the rest (so I suppose she was right). There must be some niggly thing where she feels she's paid more than you (or maybe a previous friend has taken her for a bit of a ride).

Jx

Caroline_a

I've recently discovered the Paym app that my bank and most of the major banks use. It makes it easy to pay small amounts to friends by mobile, and no need for change, etc. Someone who owed me £40 used it, I had an instant message from my bank to say the money had gone in and it went in within 2 hours.

I think it might be the way to go for small amounts like this, easy and no need for a cash machine!

Georgiegirl256

I agree, it is petty. However, IMO your friend is right and technically you do owe her more than the tender you gave her.

Hopefully it's all sorted out now though.

purpleshoes_2

I can't see how you owed her more than ten pounds. Her meal was free, you owed her 6 pounds to start with and the cost of your meal plus all drinks came to 7.45. You can't exactly pay for someone's meal if the cafe have given it for free. Paying the 6 pounds you owed her already and for some drinks more than pays what you owed.

The lunch was supposed to cover the 6 pounds you owed but as she got hers free you gave her the 6 pounds and paid for her drinks.

How you owe her more, I can't work that out. Looks like she wanted the 6 quid plus her lunch and drinks paid for.

DUTR

purpleshoes wrote: »

I can't see how you owed her more than ten pounds. Her meal was free, you owed her 6 pounds to start with and the cost of your meal plus all drinks came to 7.45. You can't exactly pay for someone's meal if the cafe have given it for free. Paying the 6 pounds you owed her already and for some drinks more than pays what you owed.

The lunch was supposed to cover the 6 pounds you owed but as she got hers free you gave her the 6 pounds and paid for her drinks.

How you owe her more, I can't work that out. Looks like she wanted the 6 quid plus her lunch and drinks paid for.

Remember the friend paid for the meal at the time, so it's now £6+£7.45 =£13.45 which is more than £10.

PasturesNew

In my eyes you owed her £6 plus your meal as hers was free. I don't think who was paying for the lunch or how you expected to pay for hers as settlement for the debt was clear.

Transactions need to be settled ASAP to prevent this type of confusion.

purpleshoes_2

Sorry, misread. She paid the 7.45 and you refunded that. If her drinks were for example 2.20, you've paid for them, you've paid for your own and you've paid for your own meal and you've given her the change from the ten pounds then you've paid her 4.75 or so when you owed her 6 to start with. I don't think you owed her 3 pounds, more like £1.20-1.50 depending on how much the drinks were.

The meal was instead of paying the 6 quid back, not as well as. You've paid for her drinks, her meal was free and you gave her the change from the ten pounds. About £1.50 tops of a difference.

I'd be astonished if a friend pulled me up after a meal saying I owed them a couple of pounds, she wouldn't have been complaining I expect if you had paid for more than the 6 pounds you owed.