I disagree. If my wife were doing something like this I would totally side with the person in the right. I wouldn’t end my marriage over it, of course, but I’d let her know that I thought she was wrong and I wasn’t going to help defend her. If I had to pay it out of my own pocket, I’d do it, but I’d also mention how tight my personal finances were until I was able to clear the hurdle of debt she forced upon me.
I’d like to add to my previous post to say that while I disagree about siding with an outsider vs a spouse, I do agree that pushing the argument further from the outside party would definitely be bad form.
You already live there, apparently, because this post in no way relates to the question Athena asked. You made a statement about invitations and commitments, not about causing arguments between spouses. Stick to it and defend it, but nobody’s fooled by this little piece of tripe.
To clarify, I did not actually do the calling to confirm, just the original invitation. I IM’ed CWWife with the invitation, she said she’d talk to CWHusband, and I told her to call my housemate back with their answer, since my housemate was organizing the trip. Housemate got the call, rented the place, and then the next day we hear that they aren’t going to come.
This is the fourth ski trip we’ve done this way, with a slightly changing group of people, and this is the first time this situation has come up. I made the invitation and specified the cost, she went away and conferred, and then came back with a yes to the person who was going to make the rental. CWW and CWH acknowledge that the miscommunication was between the two of them, not between us and them.
I agree that it’s better to not make reservations until cash is in hand, but there are good reasons to do things quickly. This was the second weekend we tried to plan for, because by the time we got people organized for a weekend in December, we couldn’t find a single place to rent. In the three days of conferring and settling on dates and location, our first three choices for places got booked, leaving us with either a more expensive place or a further hike. Each time that happened, we had to do another round emailing and calling and reconfirming, so I’m sure that my housemate booked the place the second she had confirmation from everyone to make sure we wouldn’t lose that one too.
Lightray, I do feel bad about causing an argument between my friend and her husband. But not bad enough to just abandon the whole thing.
iamthewalrus, I would charge the others in the group for the missing couple, depending on how you worded your explinations of the costs to the group.
For an outing like this, I would not have been specific about the costs. Saying it will be around 300-400 dollars a couple is much better than promising it will cost exactly$352 per couple. Unforseen things happen, and you never know when a group cost might come up that needs to be shared.
I agree, though, that your friends are deadbeats for not paying up.
I feel your pain about being overcharged. It does sound like you got shafted there. However, for every story like this there’s another about a person who just is cheap and wants to itemize because they don’t tip well and underestimate the amount they owe.
If you want a seperate bill, ask for one at the beginning of the meal. You might get a little resistance, but you should be able to do it 99% of the time.
Oh, and glee:
Who sells a house without
A. Being paid for it.
and
B. Having many legal documents to sign regarding the transaction.
How would it even be possible to do it otherwise in this day and age?
I agree exactly with Lightray. A group of 10 people are all going to have different attitudes towards money. Almost no one has 10 people as their best friends for whom one has a vast deal of experience as to how they handle money and committments. So before making a booking one is not prepared to cover oneself, make sure you have the money. Especially when large sums of money are involved. $1,730 for a Condo for a weekend is a lot of moolah.
When splitting a cheque with a different couple I give them the benefit of the doubt once (because I can afford to cover shortfalls). If I do not like how they calculate to split the cheque, next time we have separet bills.
Apparently you and Athena both have some sort of reading disability, since my statement about invitations and commitments lead to my point that the way it was handled made everyone miserable.
Deadbeat husband quite obviously assumed that something entirely different was agreed to than the OP thought was agreed to. Miscommunications in friendships are a lot worse if money is involved, so if money is involved you have to be more careful that everyone is on the same page.
iamthewalrus(:3=, with deadbeat friends, either accept that they’re deadbeats or that that they’re not friends. Continuing to make your friend miserable about the fact that her husband stiffed you isn’t going to change him or his mind – so it is only going to hurt the friendship. If you want to stay friends, you just have to let it go.
If this is enough to end the friendship, you may as well use that fact in talking to her about ponying up. It’ll be ugly, but it already sounds ugly.
Agreed, absolutely. I understand the need/desire to keep peace in one’s home/relationship, but if my husband/civil unioned partner (if I had one) was in the wrong, then, hell, there’d be no getting around that, and I wouldn’t defend him unnecessarily. (Hmmm…probably yet another reason why I’ll be alone for the rest of my life.)
(I must say, though, that I wouldn’t harp upon the fact that said spouse’s eff-up messed with my finances. I’d certainly **mention ** it so that he’d be aware, but I wouldn’t harp upon it because, believe me, the message would be loud and clear enough that he wouldn’t dare forget.) 
And yeah, when it comes to stuff like this, I’d say that one has to be clear from the get-go what the monetary expectations are. Ex: My co-workers wanted to have a pre-New Year’s supper at work last week (supper b/c we work the graveyard shift), and it fell upon me to order the food. I sent out an e-mail to everyone informing them that if I didn’t have $X by X time, there would be no food. Within minutes, folks were coming to my desk with contributions in hand.
No fuss, no muss–just the way I like it.
iamthewalrus(:3=, its sounds like you’re on the hook for the $350. I don’t think you should send that email cc’d to all the other skiiers though, as it might make you look bad to all of your other friends. I know this sucks, but your best way out of this is while saving face is to front their money quietly, and hope the friend-wife slips you money back on the side. If she doesn’t pay you back, she’s the one who has ended the friendship.
This lesson costs you, and some lessons in life just suck. There have been some nice fail-safe ideas already posted for future skii trips. I know that when we organize trips for a youth-group, the person running it gets fliers into everyone’s hands 3 weeks before booking with a clear cut-off date to pay funds in order to be included on the trip. Nothing gets booked until the checks and the names are in hand. Sure, its obnoxious, but darned if it isn’t effective.
Fuck that. If you want sympathy and {{huggles}}, post in MPSMS. Don’t post in IMHO and then get upset when you get a dissenting opinion. Don’t post in the Pit and then whine about getting bitched at back, which I will note walrus didn’t.
That said, I am totally with walrus on this. A commitment is a commitment and you have to pay the price if you back out. The welchers should have been the ones scrambling to find replacements and should have been thankful that others were doing their work for them.
There were a few times where I organized getting flowers for Secretary’s Day or getting a group wedding present at work. I’d send out an email offering to buy the gift and saying that all who were interested should pay $20 or whatever each. I would buy the gift based on the number of affirmative replies and invariably there would be a couple of people who wouldn’t pay up after two reminder emails. What is with people? It’s fucking selfish behavior to expect others to foot the bill for their fuck up.
I agree with this, raising the price for everyone might just lead to someone else dropping out since they already agreed to one price. Obviously the only good solution would be for the cheap ass husband of your friend to pay what he agreed too, but i don’t see why you should turn down your friend if she does offer to pay for her part. As to always taking your spouses side no matter how wrong they are, well thats just pretty fucked up.
Yes, but in the case of the OP, reservations were filling up quickly and they didn’t have the luxury of time if they wanted to rent a large enough place in Mammoth on that date.
I was ready to jump on walrus, too, but he’s clarified the point about what they agreed to. If it had been a case of
“Let’s go skiing!”
“Yeah”
“that’ll be $350”
“Uh-Oh”
The I would have less sympathy.
Ugh, I am sorry, but that was a terrible way to do it. If you are collecting the money for a group order at a restaurant you WILL come up short. Every time. You need to know this before you offer. It absolutely sucks when everyone has to go back and throw a couple more bucks in, sometimes taking two rounds of this to make everything balance. It can ruin an otherwise wonderful evening.
I have come to the conclusion that money between friends is a dirty thing that should be avoided whenever possible and handled in the quickest manner when necessary. Too many problems otherwise, too many hurt feelings.
When we go out I collect the cash from everyone in a pile and stuff it in my pocket and then pay the bill myself with my own cash or a credit card. Never even count it. I know I am sucking up about two to five dollars a person in miscalculations, low tipping, and general cheapness, but I figure it is worth it. I just don’t invite the really cheap ones (and they generally don’t want to be spending money at a restaurant anyway). I think this or separate checks are the best ways to avoid problems
All normal debts between friends (when remembered at all) should be paid in beer.
Of course the situation iamthewalrus(:3 describes is different. Money up front all the way.
I wasn’t intending to send the bitter email out to everyone, just to them. I would include the email addresses of the other people going so that CWCouple could contact them if they chose to do so.
The purpose of that email wouldn’t be “Hey, everyone, let’s all point and scowl at these cheapasses”, but “Here, see how it feels to have someone else have to pay for your mistake, and to have to go ask a bunch of other people to cover it for no good reason.”
The next time we do this, the rule is going to be money up front for all those who haven’t proven that they keep their commitments. And hopefully we’ll plan far enough ahead that we won’t have to try to scramble to get a nice place.
I totally agree with the folks saying that you should take the money from your friend if it is offered. You can’t ask the other vacationers for the money because it isn’t their fault, it is yours.
I have arranged these types of trips in the past and I never collect money upfront. The reason being; I only ask friends and friends wouldn’t welch. If they did, they wouldn’t be friends any longer.
That being said, this entire thing is the fault of your friend. She miscomunicated something to her husband and it is her job to insist he honor the commitment they made as a couple. As far as stopping emailing? F-that. She doesn’t want him to get anymore aggravated but it is okay for you to pay for her mistake. I don’t think so!
You made a statement and we’re responding to it. The fact that it was part of a larger point doesn’t invalidate the statement.
I just can’t fathom having a friend invite me somewhere, state a cost, I say “sure” and then say that because he didn’t reconfirm again later that I’m not responsible for the money. That’s just weaselling out of an obligation and screwing your friends in my opinion.
I believe that she asked me to stop emailing because she thought she’d have a better chance of convincing him if she was the one presenting the argument, not me.
Friend just IMed me, and I called her back. She says she was unable to convince her husband, but that she disagrees with him, and she is offering the money on her own. I told her I appreciate the offer, and that I’ll talk to her again about it if I’m sure we can’t find someone. I’m still not sure that I want to take it. Complicating matters (in my mind, anyway) is the fact that friend and I have a romantic history, and while it’s been over for years (since before she met husband), they are newly married, and I don’t want even the slightest indication that she’s paying out of loyalty to me over her husband. On the other hand, maybe that’s silly. I have no reason to think that this would be any more than a minor disagreement for them, and I can’t believe that I’m letting the matter of a few hundred bucks get so complicated.
On the brighter side, one of my coworkers says he’s interested, and maybe even his girlfriend, too.
Maybe the husband wanted out when he realized that you were going to be there.