AITA for refusing to pay double my own meal bill at a family event?

A Reddit user, 30F, attended her Nan’s birthday dinner with multiple family members, where meals were pre-ordered. Since she ordered a smaller two-course meal with a soft drink, she expected to pay around £25, including her contribution to Nan’s free meal.

However, her cousin decided everyone should split the total bill equally at £50 per adult, regardless of what they consumed. This frustrated the user, as most others had three-course meals with multiple alcoholic drinks.

When she objected to paying double her actual bill, the situation escalated, with family members yelling and accusing her of being difficult. Historically, each family paid their own way at such events, but recently the rules have shifted to splitting bills evenly among adults, which she feels is unfair. read the original story below…

‘ AITA for refusing to pay double my own meal bill at a family event?’

We had a family meal out for my Nan’s birthday yesterday. Family included:. Nan Family A: Two parents with three adult children, ages 18,23,25. Family B: Two parents with disabled, adult son.. Adult C. Family D: Two parents with two, school-aged children.. Me (30F)

This was arranged by my Family A 25F cousin, with meals pre-ordered from a fixed price menu. I chose a two-course meal plus soft drink. Everybody else (minus young children) had a three-course meal, two a**oholic drinks & a hot drink each.

(For the sake of maths, I’ve removed the service charge/tips from the bill) The bill arrived, & I expected to pay for my meal & drink, plus ~£2.00 towards Nan’s meal (each of us contributed, so Nan ate for free). My meal was £18.95, plus £2.50 drink, so I was expecting a bill ~£25.00.

The three-course meal everybody else had was £22.95, & each person spent a similar figure on a**oholic & hot drinks, plus their own contribution to Nan’s meal. My adult (18-25) cousins in Families A & B would be paid for by their parents.

My Family A 25F cousin said each adult owed £50.00, including division of school-aged children’s meals amongst everybody. I checked my sums again – my bill was definitely £25.00 – but nobody mentioned that I’d consumed half of what everybody else had because they either wanted a cheaper bill or wanted to go home, so I reminded my cousin of my smaller meal & lack of a**oholic & hot drinks.

I left the room for five minutes, & chaos ensued. Everybody was shouting at everybody, & my Family D brother-in-law started yelling at me whilst my Family A aunt shouted at him ‘She’s not MY granddaughter, so why do I have to pay for her?!’. People then glared at me or avoided my eyes, & Family B aunt said ‘You!

Why can’t you just muck in like everybody else?!’ & when I said I can’t afford to pay double what my actual bill was, she said ‘Then why didn’t you say that at the start? What do we do, not invite you to future events?!’ My Family A 23M cousin paid the bill, & later messaged each person with what they owed him.

For reference, we have never split bills ‘down the middle’. With different, individual family sizes involved including children with an age range of twenty years, it’s not been fair to do so, so historically bills have been paid with each family paying their own way.

Now, with the aforementioned children now being adults, this rule has shifted a couple of times to splitting a bill equally amongst all of the adults, with no thought towards anyone (usually me) who consumed less food & no alcohol.

I challenged this once before, & my Family A aunt announced ‘SHE (me) is paying [£10.00 for jacket potato & Coke], & EVERYBODY ELSE is paying [£35.00 for a two-course meal & two G&Ts]!’, making everybody roll their eyes at me for being difficult/different/a tight arse, etc. AITA for asking to pay only for what I have consumed at this family event plus my contribution for Nan’s meal?

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

DonWilliam77 −  NTA. I don’t understand, why isn’t everyone paying his/her own meal? I am not from and not in the US and in the country where i live it would be totally disgusting to demand that someone who has individually 25 dollars to pay should pay 50 dollars. It might be a cultural thing, but here this wouldn’t be a point of discussion at all.

Ok-Horror-1049 −  NTA- why on earth would someone expect for you to pitch in for their kids’ meals???😡😡 Their kids, they pay… I am sure you don’t need anyone to tell you for future meals ya’ll need to decide how ya’ll want to handle the bill in advance…

getfukdup −  NTA. What do we do, not invite you to future events? “Well you could try ordering meals you can afford too.”

thashortgirlbex −  NTA. You don’t have kids. Why should you pay for them? Or other people’s drinks/food? In future, make a waiter aware that you would like your own bill where possibly. They can fight about who pays for what between themselves on their shared one.

KrofftSurvivor −  NTA – Save up a bit and set it aside for the next large family meal – then order the most expensive thing possible, and when the bill comes around, let them split it evenly and see how they feel about it then.

EnigmaGuy −  NTA. I notice a common theme with these posts of angry friends and relatives wanting to “split the bill evenly” – it’s always the ones that spend waaay more than the other reasonable attendees. For the person whose special occasion it is (in this case your Nan) I would have no issues throwing another percentage down so they eat for free.

The people with two/three kids and the people downing alcohol with their meals (that are typically a third of the price of an entree these days) can go fornicate with an iron stick. You having kids does not mean you get to b**ly others to subsidize their meals, and I for damn sure am not supporting someone else’s drinking.

I have a story about one such group! Partner and I go out pretty frequently and Ive footed the bill the last few times we’ve gone out with family as I knew some of their finances were tight. A few of them started to take advantage the last time so it’s been awhile since I had organized a get together.

Out of the blue my partner says we got an invite to meet for lunch some place by one of these said abusers, which had me skeptical because they’d never initiated the outings before but we had no plans so we accepted. While not a top scale place, it was still pretty nice place (cheapest appetizer was lower $20, entrees on average around $40 to start to give an idea).

We sat down and after seeing the menu items partner and I picked some of the more reasonable, lower end entrees and some waters. Waiter came over and immediately the abusers were ordering multiple appetizers and a round of some cocktails for themselves and I already had a hunch of what they were trying to do.

Gave my partner a look and he immediately read my expression and knew this was going to probably be an event. By the time the had their drinks and we were putting the entree orders in, they were ordering some of the higher end steaks and seafood, it solidified that these guys were hoping to somehow pawn some of this tab on the table.

Appetizers were dropped off about 5 minutes later (stuff my partner and I don’t eat with our diets) and they put in a second round of drinks. I excused myself to the restroom and ran into the waiter and gave him a heads up that my partner and I were on our own bill with just the two entrees. Think he had an inkling of that was going on too and said no worries.

Think they had one more round of drinks throughout the course of the meal and their kids ended up ordering some deserts at the end of the meals. When the waiter finally came and asked if we needed anything else I said nope think we’re all set he dropped down two sleeves with the bills, one for me and one in front of the abusers and they just gave a look and asked why there were two bills.

I looked at him directly in the face with a puzzled look and said oh I got ours split off, we appreciate the invite but there’s no need to pay for us too! He sheepishly grabbed the bill and opened it and I swear I could see the color drain from his face as him and his wife had a quiet back and forth as I put my card in our sleeve and handed it back to the waiter.

He wasted no time and said he’ll be right back with it and he’d grab the other on his way back around. Abuser tried meekly to say he thought we were going to just split the bill evenly, and I asked why we would split it evenly when it was just my partner and I’s entree of about $98 after tip, and theirs was likely over $400 between the appetizers they devoured, the drinks, the upper tier entrees and deserts?

Made no logical sense why we would split the bill especially since they’re the ones that invited us to this particular venue.. Haven’t gotten an invite since.

OwnLime3744 −  Take Nan out to brunch or lunch on your own. Skipping the drama over the tab will be more pleasant for her too.

Owlvivid420 −  nta- start askign for a seperate bill upfront. they are just trying to pass you the cost of their bill

Agreeable-Body-7278 −  NTA, the “let’s just split the bill” people are always the ones with the big tab 🙄

Savings-Actuator8834 −  Nta . I would have put 25 on the table and left.