There’s nothing sad about it at all. You’re throwing/hosting a party for yourself and inviting all your friends to celebrate. Typically, at least when I host a party, whether birthday, baptism, wedding, whatever, I pay for food and drinks. Guests will generally bring some type of host gift along, although they are certainly not required to.
Truth is, people who usually only have a beer or two with dinner, when provided with an open bar start ordering rounds of shots for everyone, or switch to imported beer or start drinking cognac.
And it only takes one in the bunch to set everyone else on a similar path. Which would leave the hostess in a most awkward position indeed. Better to just lay out the expectations from the get go, in my opinion.
And funding your own birthday dinner is commonplace is some cultures, by the way, your experiences and norms notwithstanding!
As a general rule I will not buy alcohol for other people. I’m fine with buying food for other people. If I were hosting an event I’d impose a similar rule.
Sally’s apparently seen how much free pizza a crowd of drunk people can eat.
Free alcohol provided to guests in a restaurant scenario often winds up costing vastly more than the food itself.
So she’s not running a bar tab? Entirely normal.
I wouldn’t mind paying for my own meal in this case. I’ve been through a number of different birthday scenarios.
One friend, “Cece,” had a party in a karaoke restaurant/bar private room. We all paid for our own drinks and meals while eating. We had the cake Cece had brought while in the karaoke room. She also ordered champagne.
When we were leaving, she asked everyone to chip in for the rental of the room and for the champagne. We did, although I hadn’t realized she was going to ask.
I threw my own milestone birthday party at my house a few months ago, invited 60 people, ended up with 36 guests, had margaritas, tequila, beer, soda, and water available. Others brought bottles of wine as gifts or donated more beer. Nobody got out of control. And most of them were driving.
When my friend P. threw her own milestone birthday party a few years ago, she paid for all of us to have hotel rooms, and paid for a harbor cruise including dinner and drinks and dancing. She just wanted to.
At the upcoming party for Sally, here is what I imagine will happen with us ladies:
Sally won’t drink. Neither will her friends K or L, because they are all non-drinkers.
Sally’s friend D might have one drink, probably wine.
Our mutual friend P will have a glass of wine, maybe two at most, and she will have a couple slice of pizza. (The cornmeal crust pizza slices at this place are fairly big and filling.)
I will nurse one bottle of beer while eating a hearty salad, as I’m not a fan of thick cornmeal crust pizza.
There are no cocktails served at said pizza place.
Then we will all head back to Sally’s house, in our cars, for some dessert. And who knows, she may serve wine and ale there which she would have bought at Trader Joe’s.
Regardless of what all you and your other friends have done in the past, the “pay for drinks” arrangement is not unusual, as stated in this thread. It seems like you think your friend Sally is cheap. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t, maybe there’s some other reason she doesn’t want to pay for drinks, but what she’s proposed is well within normal social expectations, at least around here. I wouldn’t personally set it up that way, but I wouldn’t think twice if any of my friends did it that way (and it has been done this way in the past.)
Why are you so unwilling to believe that booze adds up and she doesn’t want to pay for it? Even cheap drinks among multiple people getting multiple rounds can easily exceed her budget. That was my first thought when reading the thread. It’s not at all uncommon.
Seems perfectly normal to me. I’d be ok paying two to three dollars for everyone’s soft drinks, but not five to ten dollars for everyone’s beer and wine. Six people at $3 per drink (for soft drinks), two drinks per person is $36. It becomes almost $60 if everyone gets a beer, more for wine. Even based on what you say everyone will most likely drink, based on prices on the menu, you are looking at something close $50.
We we have a party, no alcohol is served. I don’t like being around people when they get drunk. It ruins the party and the longer they are there the worse it gets. Hey, you can’t donate money to MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and then let people get drunk at your party and send them on their way to drive driving while intoxicated. Consider having a party without alcohol.
Yeah this.
Two pizzas and soda for six people say $40.
Add two beers for each people at $4.50 is $54.
So what was a $40 hangout with friends becomes $94. To me $40 is reasonable $94 is not.
I know that’s not the OPs exact situation so I exaggerated to make the point clear.
She’s limiting it to beer and wine, which is reasonable; another way is just to put a cap of however much she feels like shouting on the bar. I’m not getting why this is a difficult concept: she’s shouting her friends pizza and a couple of beers, she’s not offering to get everyone blue blind paralytic drunk with the stupid cocktails of their choice at her expense.
I’ve never heard this word used this way before. 
Kiwi idiom. “My shout” means “I’m buying”. I’ll shout you a beer.
Ok that makes me feel better. I thought maybe it was an age thing.
Box of fluffies.
I get the opposite impression from the OP. It could be she knows her friends will limit their booze intake if they know she’s paying for it, out of respect for her budget. By telling them upfront she isn’t picking up the beer tab, she’s giving them permission to indulge as much as they want (on their own dime of course). In other words, party freely.
It isn’t odd when you think of it that way. Especially since she’s already paying for the pizza on her own birthday!
Shot, bro!
Chur.