Here’s the scenario. Eating out with other couples/people. What is so wrong with paying your share of the bill??? As opposed to dividing it up by _____ number of people.
My wife and I occasionally go out to eat with another couple, their 8 year old and one other adult. Generally a chain restaurant or local pub.
The two of us generally just order a cobb type salad or a chicken sandwich, and an iced tea. I want to pay our fair share. NOT pitch in extra so you can enjoy your full dinner and alcohol.
I don’t usually cause a stink about throwing in an extra $10+ dollars (but I’d like to). Most likely I’d be accused of being petty. Why should I subsidize their dinners. It makes me not want to go out to eat with other people. It’s the principal of it.
Can you and your wife ask for your items to be on a separate check? I don’t think you’re being petty, especially if there’s a difference of $10 or more between what you and the other people are getting.
When I eat out with friends we each pay our own individual share (without separate checks). The only time we split it is if what we ordered is the same amount.
I go out to dinner regularly with two different groups of people, four of us in one group, up to 20 in the other. In both groups, we always just divide up the bill between the number of diners. It seems to even out in the long run.
That said, I’m not sure I’d be happy with continually subsidising another person’s extra courses (I don’t eat entrée for instance) or their expensive grog habits.
If this sort of thing really bothers you, perhaps you shouldn’t be going out to eat with that particular set of people.
Seriously, go to a movie with them or something like that. Your share of the bill’s more obvious with those events, and nobody’s going to end up upset.
My experience is all over the board, from separate checks for each party, to just splitting two ways or three ways depending on the number of couples, to sometimes I’ll just pick up the whole tab.
It really depends on circumstance. When I go out with friends who are in approximately the same economic level, we tend to split the bill. Trying to figure out who had what isn’t worth $5 here or there, and it all evens out over time. And if it doesn’t, so what? We had a good time.
However, in the circumstances you describe, where you consistently order less than the people you go out with, paying your own tab is reasonable. The most polite way to do this without causing controversy is probably just to ask for separate checks.
In circumstances where the group includes people who have very different income levels, such as managers and clerks or students and professors, then it’s also fair to divvy up the check by what everyone ordered.
I didn’t vote because it’s not really an either/or question.
I routinely go out to eat with a group of friends and we typically split the bill evenly for simplicity’s sake.
They are friends. It all works out in the long run and I’m fine with it (as are they.)
If these folks are not that close, simply ask for separate bills and everyone pays for what they ate or drank. Is this really that difficult a concept?
But it is that complicated. In my experience - and especially when we were younger and more strapped for ready cash - once the group was larger than two or three payers, that approach always - ALWAYS - ended up with not enough money in the pot. And everybody would say, “Well, I added my stuff up and added 15%.” And who’s going to be the Big Bad Accountant to do the tally person by person to identify the shortchanger(s)?
Much easier and less stressful (among a group of friends, remember) is to take the tab and divide by the number of diners. Things round out in the end, especially since often there’d have been a shared or group appetizer too. If one person is regularly eating much less or cheaper than the average, or doesn’t drink alcohol when everybody else does, that person perhaps should ask for a separate check.
If you truly only get a salad and iced tea while your friends have two children and knock back full entrees with alcohol, and go out with them all the time, it sounds like you should get separate checks and it shouldn’t be a big deal.
In that type of situation, I usually grab the check as quickly as I can. I mentally subtract out my share, divide the remainder by the number of my companions, and say, “Okay, it’s $XXX per person.” Then I put in my fair share, and everyone’s happy.
Alternately, I’ve been know to say something like, “Okay, it’s $30 a head for the drinkers - that’s you, you, and especially you, Lucille - and $20 a head for the rest of us.” Again, it works out fine.
I agree with this. Unless it has been discussed (and agreed) in advance that you will be just splitting the bill equally, you should not be expected to do so. Especially if their “share” is substantially more than yours.
I find it offensive to split the bill unless everyone had about the same thing.
However, it would piss me off when I had a salad and ice tea, and the clown next to me got an appetizer, entree, three glasses of wine and dessert and they are the first to suggest “splitting the bill” evenly.
To add insult to financial injury, that clown was also the one who paid and didn’t leave an extra penny for a tip.
I’m not saying you need to create an Excel spreadsheet to figure out who pays what, but some people totally abuse the “split the bill” concept.
If for some reason you can’t stop going out to dinner with these people, and you know you’re going to be stuck paying more anyway, you might as well order a real dinner instead of just a salad or sandwich.
I usually offer to treat my friends. Next time, they offer to treat us. If we do decide to split it, we do it evenly. Figuring out who ordered what seems petty to me. (and when I’ve seen it done, it’s never as simple a procedure as it should be.) By “petty” I don’t mean to insult those who do it. I’m not philosophically opposed to people just paying for what they actually ordered.
I’ve been lucky that our friends typically order something in the same price range as my wife and I. I’d find it a little rude for someone to order a salad and dinner entree when the rest of us are ordering sandwiches. I wouldn’t say anything but probably wouldn’t invite that person unless they had a separate check.
It goes back to the family rules when I was a kid. We ordered last and were expected to order something similar in price to what mom and dad ordered. A steak dinner for me wouldn’t be acceptable if my dad ordered sandwiches. If dad ordered a soda then we could have soda. If he asked for water then that was the hint he wanted to save money on the meal. We ordered water.
Of course those kinds of family rules don’t apply to family friends. But I still notice what others order and get something in the same price range.
If there is a major difference in prices, it’s perfectly acceptable to say “I’ll throw in $20 for my salad and ice tea. That should leave plenty for tax and tip,” or to decide to have the drinkers/expensive orderers get the tip. People usually split checks because it’s easier, not because they want to stiff their friends.