Money Moral Dilemma: How should my wife deal with sharing meal costs at her new job?

mandymac123_

I think she did the right thing just splitting that first one, but going forward I think she should say she's a small eater so prefers to get her own bill & either set up a tab with waitress or settle it at the counter before the final bill is presented.

CapeTown

If it is work then it can be claimed on expenses.  I work for the NHS and we have a budget. It cannot be exceeded unless we pay the extra. Certainly no alcohol is allowed. Your wife should speak up. It really annoys me when others take advantage. Like not sharing petrol costs or paying tolls etc. 

peter1234567891011

If everyone else is splitting the bill you may well come across as tight but why would you care what other people think? Live your own life.

Agent57

Imagine if you went to the supermarket and were presented with a bill for you and eight other people around you and told to sort it our amongst yourselves.

Just bonkers how we have allowed restaurants to run their business that way.

LizzieFlorence

Used to happen  to me but I just said that I would pay for my own food and drink. It's not being tight it's being realistic as no one else knows what your money is needed for. I only ordered  what I could afford and didn't think it fair that I should be funding someone else's lifestyle choices. There are probably others that feel the same but too afraid to speak out. 

keithyno.1

CapeTown said:

If it is work then it can be claimed on expenses.  I work for the NHS and we have a budget. It cannot be exceeded unless we pay the extra. Certainly no alcohol is allowed. Your wife should speak up. It really annoys me when others take advantage. Like not sharing petrol costs or paying tolls etc. 

"If it is work then it can be claimed on expenses." 

Well not necessarily. Some organisations offer a subsistence allowance to cover meals where overnight stays are involved with a set maximum which can be claimed irrespective of what amount the employee actually spends.

The trouble with this MMD is that it's not made clear if the cost of the meal can be claimed back from the employer as an expense or if it's covered by a subsistence allowance as described above.

It would be most unusual for a work role to involve overnight stays away without some form of allowance for an evening meal from the employer and it does make me question the authenticity of this MMD on this occasion.

Lumid

I still have bad memories from a meal out with a student group 40+ years ago. We tucked in as it was a rare treat. At the end someone suggested the bill should be divided, I was hugely embarrassed and I'll never forget the look of distress on the couple's faces opposite who had one small course. I was a plus 1 so didn't seem my place to say anything, but I wish I had.
People do notice what others eat so noone should feel awkward about paying separately. Bills can easily be divided for multiple eaters on the card machine, we often do that.

Teapot55

(what is mmd?)

MikuMikuDance (commonly abbreviated to MMD) is a freeware animation program that lets users animate and create computer-animated films, originally produced for the Japanese … voice synthesiser software …

Now I’m confused … PS: I’m not a robot. 

It was bad enough trying to work out what ‘CS’ was in one of the previous replies but eventually I got it. 

Teapot55

Oh duh! Just got it. 

CBEl

coffee_cake said:

I would have thought that should be claimed on expenses.

I actually was going to say this also when I first read the problem.  If someone is away on business from a place of work surely they claim all meals, travel etc on their expenses when they get back.