YumYumDoughnut wrote:



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.

Never done it this way. I've always a) had to pay for my meal OR b) If it was a working lunch/meeting my manager would pay for it.

Close friends....depends one may pick up the entire tab, we each pay for our own OR split it.

Family... if it's my parents they usually pick up the bill. If it's my husbands side my MIL BoyFriend pays (even if we offer).

If we go out with either my parents or my boy friend's parents they pay unless its one of their birthdays. If it's one of my parents birthdays my sister and I split the bill, one of my boy friend's parent sbirthdays him and his brothers share. With friends the boys tend to pay for them selves and their girl friend. My boy friend and I agreed that he'll pay for food and drinks and well take my car, it works out pretty evenly. For work my boss usually pays. When I go out with friends with out the BF we each pay our own food, unless some one has been doing alot of driving then well either pay them for gas or for their food.

When it's just my family (mum, dad, brother and myself) my Dad will pick up the bill. My brother's a student and I'm still looking for full time employment so neither of us is in a position to pick up the tab. Honestly, I can't wait until I'm in a position to buy my parents dinner. I suspect at that point it'll become a situation where sometimes it's them and sometimes it's me that gets the bill.

When we're out with extended family we tend to work out who owes what, but sometimes we'll just split it evenly. It all depends on what's been ordered and who's been drinking what.

With friends we all pick up our own tabs separately although my best friend and I sometimes just pay for each other.

Boyfriend and I alternate, it's usually mostly him that pays the food bill, sometimes we split it and rarely I get to pay.

With friends, whether they're co-workers, from uni, from dance, or from something else, how we split really depends on the people. I've done it both ways, split evenly, pay for what you have, usually depending on everyone's circumstances. At the minute, if I were to go out for a meal, I would announce at the start that I am not feeling particularly flush lately, so would only be paying for what I was having. That seems to work for me. (The splitting evenly thing usually only happens when it's not really possible for the price of each person's meal to differ wildly!)

I remember, in first year, going out for a friend's birthday to The Hard Rock Cafe. (She chose the venue.) There were people from her course there, people from her halls, and her friends from volunteering in the union (me and others) I wasn't feeling particularly flush, so I ordered one of the cheapest things on the menu (£17 chicken haystack salad and an apple juice) when the bill came, obviously we were going to pay for the birthday girl's meal, and she argued that she should pay for her drinks (expensive cocktails) unfortunately, one of her friends that was seated closer to her (I think there were about 12 to 15 out) said that it was her birthday and she shouldn't have to pay for anything. She had had too many cocktails to argue enough, so I wound up paying almost £30, when I expected to pay just under £20 plus a share of her meal only. I had to borrow money to contribute because I hadn't enough with me, though we were all going out together afterwards, so I went to a cash machine en route.

Since then I've always been more vocal when it comes to dividing things in a way that's best for everyone in the group. I generally make sure it's agreed on before anyone orders anything.

Inviting people out means that I will pay for them, but if I suggest we meet somewhere, then we pay for ourselves.

With family, mum and dad pay. If it's a bigger group, it really depends on what the occasion is or who invited who, it's much too big a family for one person to pay for everyone, unless it's a wedding/christening/funeral.

With friends, we generally just get separate bills. If we forgot to ask, we'll figure out approximately how much we each owe and make sure it all adds up properly after tip. Occasionally someone will pay for the table, which is lovely and generally only possible if they're sneaky about it - most of us are in the fairly early stages of our careers, and the couple of exceptions like to treat without making a big deal about it. It gets tricky with some groups, such as with my boyfriend the chef, his other chef friend and his sommelier girlfriend, when we have a million little dishes, and some of them got comped, and then cocktails and wine - in these cases only, we'll split the bill, because everyone ate and drank a bit of everything.

With coworkers or clients, myself or whoever is most senior will pay the bill and expense it.

With family, it's the elder statesman - usually my dad, these days. Knowing this, I tend to order conservatively and drink whatever delicious wine he's got for the table, and my brother will order steak and lobster

I used to think that people who split hairs at the end of a meal over a bill were total stinges that ruin the atmosphere of a good meal. I awlays believed in just splitting the bill, probably because I never really paid attention to what each person ordered or how much it cost. I never notice that kind of stuff, because I am usually busy talking.

...until I became a vegetarian. Usually when I eat out with my friends from university, we order dishes that we share, then split the bill evenly at the end. The problem with that was that they're all meat eaters and would order 3 or 4 meat dishes, and one vege one. I'd only ever eat the vege one (and I'd have to share it with everyone else, too) so I started seeing how it didn't make sense for me to be paying for 3 meals I didn't touch. Luckily they picked it up before I did and always paid their fair share, while I paid less.

In my previous workplaces, whenever we went out to lunch, management would pick up the entire bill. If I go out with my family, my dad usually picks up the whole bill - but everyone offers and he doesn't let us contribute.

When I eat out with my boyfriend, which is often, its pretty much 50/50. If it is his pay week, he will pick up the bill. If it is mine, I will. It works out pretty evenly in the end since we get paid on alternating weeks.

When I was with work colleagues on the road (and it was actually our per diem money) we were sharp enough to keep a mental tab running.

With my mom and stepfather...they always pay...I see them once a year and they want to do something for my wife and I and we let them. I did totally pay for her birthday bash though which was several hundred dollars.

I have a number of close friends that I regularly dine with and we have a sort of unwritten rule that we take a cue from each other to keep the amounts pretty even...always within a dollar or so of one another. We each give the server a credit card and say "split it evenly." No one abuses this. The same is true when we go out as couples - though it is often the same people that I have lunch or dinner with stag.

One of my lunch dinner friends doesn't drink...so I don't drink either when with him...just to keep it even. Another is a wine connosieur and we split the bottle.

Fortunately most of the people I dine with are financially pretty well off now, but this was not the case when I was in my 20's. In college, it was very clear that I could not afford to pay for my girlfriend all the time...neither of us had that sort of money so we'd buy our own things (which was usually just a burger and coke or once in a great while a pizza...at least until the end of college when all the bills were paid. My devilish scheme though was to get my girlfriend (now my wife) a campus job doing the same thing I did...projecting slides for the Art History department...that way we both had about the same amount of month to month disposible income. After a few months working for that department, I also became the de facto human resource guy. When help was needed the secretary of the department would just ask me if I had any reliable friends who needed a job and I'd do the recruiting.


Jon

Split evenly, 9 times out of 10. When I go out for a meal in a group people tend to order similar sorts of things - virtually everyone will have the steak and those that don't have desserts get brandies or something. It's never been a big deal except for once when two newbies came out with us and kicked up a fuss and ended up storming out after paying their share to the penny. It's just much less effort to divide by ten or whatever, but you pick your audience. A couple of times I requested that everyone pay their share as I was conscious that some people had a lot less spending money to play with than others. It just so happens that when I go out for a group meal, I go with people who eat similar things to me and are also happy to just split evenly. Always much easier if you do pub lunch and pay up front!

If I eat with my friends, we often go places that you pay upfront (Nandos, GBK, pub..) so it doesn't really arise. If it does, we pay for what we have eaten, to the nearest couple of pounds.

If I eat with my housemate, unless we go somewhere crazy, he pays as I cook a lot for him at home.

If I eat with work colleagues, we split the bill. Drives me insane - at a recent meal I had just the main course (I'm gluten intolerant and there wasn't a lot of the menu I could eat). I drank diet coke. My colleagues almost all had starter, main and pudding. 2/3 of them drank wine and cocktails. I think my ACTUAL share was around £12. I paid £35. I could have cried!

With family, Dad generally picks up the bill. If I eat with my Mum I try to get the bill once in a while, but she rarely lets me.

Work usually covers our meals if we go out. Otherwise we pay upfront for our meals.

If it's my boyfriend and I, sometimes I'll pay for the whole meal, and then he pays the next one. Most of the time however, we split it. Say if my meal is $21.50, I'll just give him $22 or $25. Or if I don't have a lot of cash on me (or vice versa) I just give him what ever is in my pocket.

My best friend and I pay for what we order. But generally the same deal with rounding up applies.

Dad usually pays for all of us, including my boyfriend if we go out as a family, but sometimes Tim and & I will hand out some money.

Most of the places we go you actually pay for your meal when you order it, so it's a bit easier, and we can just order separately to ensure we don't have this dilemma

With work, it is almost always paid for with the company card so I pay nothing.

With family usually my mother or older brother pay, even if I insist that I want to contribute.

With my man it really doesn't matter- we have a shared bank account that we both contribute to so it's never an issue.

With friends I tend to find myself paying it all or my friend pays it all and we alternate each time we go out. I think I have only ever split a check once in my life oddly enough. Being fairly frugal I always pick one of the most affordable things on the menu, no appetizers and no alcohol. I don't like the idea of paying for someone elses six course meal.