I was just curious how everyone splits a meal bill when out with close friends, friends, co workers, family.

Super close friends usually ends up with one person picking up the tab and then alternating. I pick it up this week, you pick it up next week.

Friends usually just pay for their cost of the meal.

Co-workers usually split the total bill evenly. So the person with a $30 steak with pay the same split bill as someone with the $8 salad. For some reason, this is the way we do it.

With family, the oldest male picks up the tab. So usually it is grandpa if we go out to eat. It is my dad if it is just our family. Sometimes the men in the family split the bill evenly, but this only happens every once in a while.

A couple of friends and I rotate on who pays but other than that people always ask for separate checks so there isn't any splitting to do.

My family is scattered so it's rare for very many of them to be together...usually it's the dads who pay in that group. I won't complain if they want to take care of the check!

Everyone pays for what they ate. Whether this is by getting separate checks and paying separately at the till, or by one person swiping their card and everyone else re-imbursing them, that's how we do it. Family, friends, coworkers or close friends.

Why make someone pay for something they didn't eat? I would NOT be happy with splitting the bill evenly if I ate something worth 12 dollars and someone else ate something worth 45.

Erin.
::righteous babe::

I like to pick up the tab. With my mom, I have to get the check quickly or she will try to fight me for it. (Nothing more undignified than tugging on the check in my hand, come on mom.) But I'm all grown up, now. I can buy my mom dinner if I want to!

If it's friends, it depends on the occasion. If I get invited somewhere, usually the host pays. If I invite, I pay, unless we specify separate checks when we order.

kk~

This reminded me of the Friends episode where Rachel, Phoebe and Joey order little measly meals and then are told by Ross they have to split the check evenly... Anyway my best friend and my boyfriend and I usually just one pays one time, the other the next. Coworkers we have always done separate checks, and if I go out with my parents they always pay.

^^ Same, we just always split it based on what we bought, sounds like your coworkers are just trying to score a cheap steak.

If it's not for a celebration of something, everyone pays for what they ate. If it's a celebration, with friends we'll split the cost of that person's bill evenly between the rest of us, if it's a work thing then the boss pays. If someone doesn't have money or change, then we'll usually do a "you owe me" or stop by an ATM or something.

With family, dad pays.

There is no way that I would just split the bill evenly.

If it's co-workers who are also friends, we get separate bills. If my boss is there, he will pay for everyone and expense it, even if it's not an "official" company meal.

With friends, we get separate bills or one will pay if they owe the other money. With family, my dad always pays.

With friends and family (we usually go out as couples) we work out what we bought to the nearest note value (the smallest Aussie dollar note is $5) - rounding up. So if my/my partner's meal totals $36, we'll put in $40, and all the other couples around the table will do likewise and whoever made the booking keeps the leftovers (or tips the staff * )

With work, the boss picks up the bill, and it's paid by the department.

( * note re tipping: Australian hospitality staff get paid properly, so their existence does not depend on tips. Tipping is usually only done when the food or service is exceptional. Let's not get into yet another tipping debate here, plzkaithx.)

Usually in my family, if we're out together for a celebration, than the person that is the celebratee, their family will usually pick up the check. My unique family (Jim, James and I) will usually request that any meals for us be pick up your own check, because we do alright, but we still don't have the spare $500 that the bill gets up to sometimes. :/

When Jim goes out with his buddies, alot of times they just alternate who buys - they usually go out to places that run around the same price range (they consider themselves quite the pizza gurus), so it ends up being more or less equal for them.

If I bought a $8 salad, and had to pay the same as someone who got a $20 entree, I'd be pretty ticked...

That Friends episode happened to me!!! My friend wanted to go to a fancy restaurant as a group for her birthday. As a student, I really couldn't afford it, but she's a good friend so did. I ordered a vegetarian risotto entree as my main meal and had a soft drink. Everyone else ordered expensive steaks and bottles of wine. At the end of the night, they all agreed just to split the bill!!! Whilst they were busy trying to calculate it, I had to quickly make an excuse to leave with a "sorry to dash off, I know this covers my portion" and putting cash on the table. One of my other friends who was also a student and ordered pretty much the same quickly followed suit.

We do separate checks in almost every situation, except that when my sister, brother-in-law, husband, and myself all go out with my parents, my dad usually pays for everyone, but not always. My mother-in-law almost always pays for us too, and that gets a little silly, because she'll try to pay for everyone when we take her out for her own birthday, and we have to practically wrestle her for the check.

Very occasionally, a friend will offer to treat, and if family comes in from out of town, whoever is hosting them will usually pay for at least some of their meals. And if it's a special occasion like a birthday, everyone else usually splits the cost of the birthday person's meal.

I have heard of people doing the thing where you split the check evenly, but I've never actually seen it in action. I would feel terrible if I didn't know we were going to do that and I ordered something really expensive.

^ If you ever get caught in that situation, you can offer to buy the first drink of rounds if your group goes to the bar after. You can also offer to pay for the entire tip.

I once got caught in that situation because it was my first time with my group. I ate/drank about $45 more then the average person in the group. So we closed up the bill, and I started a new tab and bought dessert for everyone. I was super embarrassed and I felt awful that they were basically paying for the $45 difference.

I like to pay when we go out with friends/family mainly because I like to be generous. I know I am in a better financial situation than most of the people I dine with. It's not a burden on me to pay an extra $100 or $200 out of my budget. I know with my kids and their friends that dining out and paying for just themselves is not always in their budgets. (Although my son has paid for all of us before and he was happy to be able to do so.)It's different for kids in their 20's just starting out than it is for older folks who have establshed finacial situations.

Now, if we go out with one of my BIL's, I always know he'll pay for the whole group. He is so sneaky, too, lol. We never even see a bill. He speaks quietly to the staff early on and then before anybody knows it, we're leaving and he has a big smile on his face. He's the one who taught me how to pick up the check without making a big deal out of it. It's a gift.

The last two jobs I had were working for family, so the whole 'co-worker split the bill thing' did not apply. My next job will hopefully be owning my own business, so I'll be paying if I take my employees out.

kk~

^ That totally reminds me of my first date story! The first time my now boyfriend took me out on a date, he called up the place beforehand and he already gave them his credit card info. He started a tab before we even arrived.

I think that was a nice gesture on his part, because I would have felt obligated to pay my full share, and it might have been awkward to talk about spliting a percentage on the first date.
After we finished dinner, we were able to make it to the Opera on time because we didn't have to wait around for the check.

My friends and I usually just rotate- I buy that dinner, one of them buys the next, etc. Out at the bar, we buy rounds in the same way.

Most of my coworkers are friends as well, but in that case, we all usually just throw cash down and someone makes sure it's a decent total with a good tip.

My family consists of just my parents and I, so my parents pay when we go out.

We almost always do separate checks, regardless of who is there. Most of our friends are still struggling financially so to expect anyone to pick up the whole bill would just be too much. Occasionally when we go out with my parents, they will pick up the check, but we often split there as well. It doesn't bother me to ask for separate checks, or to figure out what we owe and pay from there. Just makes sense to me.

It really depends who I am with. My best friend and I usually take turns picking up the tab. Sometimes we split it, but rarely.

Close girlfriends that I know and love will go out and split the bill evenly. Because I don't drink often I usually do end up paying more because of their alcohol, but then they usually end up picking up the tip or I sometimes order dessert and it just works out. I figure they do a lot for me such as buying a book I might like, or do small gestures at other times and it all evens out.

Women's groups, networking events, and co-workers it is SEPARATE TABS! Nothing is worse than needing an accountant to figure out the bill. I had a salad for $8.95, and the added chicken was $2.00, but someone else added a soup for $1.99 that they forgot about, oh and so and so's sour cream was an extra .50. OMG! Then you have the cheap asses that won't tip the waitress so I always end up kicking in a ton of extra money in situations like that.

Friends, we always get separate checks. My one best friend, when we lived close, we'd alternate our weekly pizza nights, but that's it. It's too hard to keep track otherwise.

Family, my parents pay. If we go out with my grandparents or aunt/uncle, sometimes they'll pay, but if it's myself, my siblings and my parents, my parents pay.

I don't split the tab evenly unless everyone owes roughly the same amount. If someone ordered a $30 steak and I had an $8 salad, there is NO WAY I'd split it evenly.

I hardly ever go out to eat. It is usually just with one friend of mine who is like a sister. If she drives me there then it usually means she has driven us to the mall and to this store and that store the same day so I pay. Same goes if I drive. Or one of us will pay for dinner the other for the movies and the snacks we rent/buy. Or if one of us is celebrating something like a birthday or finishing a semester at uni or getting an awesome job, then the other person pays.

With my other friends we just split the bill according to what we ate usually.

I have only ever gone out to eat with co-workers twice. Each time my boss picked up the tab because it was for our Christmas dinner. When I was at the hotel we all got free meals so no one had to worry about anything there.

With family (myself, my mom, my brother), the odd time we eat out in a year it was usually me paying. I was in a better spot financially so it was the right thing to do. Usually when we have more family over, the girls are in the kitchen at home and the guys watch a sporting event in the living room. I like it this way because it is usually my mom covering the stove/oven, my grandma making salads, and me setting the table and finishing off dessert. Plus the guys are distracted in the other room so they don't come in and eat everything as we make it.

I am clearly in the minority here. When I go out to dinner with friends, we just split the bill. We are normally all having dinner and there isn't usually a great range in price between the most and the least expensive menu items we choose. None of us are big drinkers so the bar bill never adds much, but is anybody has nothing alcoholic to drink, we usually tell him/her how much less to pay.

If I dine out with clients, I pay. If I go with my 18 and 22 yr old progeny, I pay. My parents are deceased, but when I eat out with my two siblings and their spouses, we split the bill according to the number of adults at the table.

Whenever I go out with a friend, or friends, we always just get separate bills and pay our own meals. Unless it is a birthday dinner, then usually the birthday person's meal is covered by someone else.

Hey I think it depends on the individuals. I know people who do each way mentioned. When I go out, everyone pays for what they ordered and we all contribute towards the tip. As previously mentioned, it is not fair for someone who ordered an expensive meal to pay the same as someone who ordered a cheap meal. That is my take on it. I hope it helped!

Immediate family: my parents pay unless it's their anniversary or something where my brother and I will split it.

Extended family: if we go out it's usually split by family (like my parents pay for us, aunt/uncle pay for them and their kids, etc), or if it's ordered in then the host (or grandma) pays.

Date: boyfriend won't let me contribute

Friends: we usually just get separate bills (or separated by couple if that's the case) and leave our own tips unless it's a birthday, in exchange for something the other bought earlier, or divided up by someone buying drinks/someone buying appetizers/someone buying dessert/someone leaving tip. Most restaurants around here actually automatically bring one bill divided into Person 1, 2, 3, etc, so it's really simple.

Work: when I worked as a legal assistant, the lawyers alternated paying for everyone (lunch was a weekly or multiple times per week occurance for whoever wasn't away or in court). There were 4 lawyers and 3 assistants. At my current medical office job the doctors pay for everyone out of the business account. I also work as a lab demonstrator and TA at my university, where the profs I assist usually bring me a coffee, but if I offer to get them one when I go before class they decline and get their own.