Old friends, we split it evenly by person in a large group. If just another couple, we more or less alternate pay.
Acquaintances, we tell the server to split the check evenly, unless someone clearly ordered something more expensive than others, especially drinks.
Parents, we pay when they visit us. They usually pay when we visit them, although we’ll pick it up if my parents already paid for a bunch of meals.
Kids, we usually pay, but we let them pay for less expensive meals when they offer.
If it’s in a spreadsheet it’s no different calculating $200, $205 or $203.57. If someone is going to VENMO something it’s the same number of digits to type in. I’m not going to round up or down when it comes to calculating it out. If it comes to $203.57 and they VENMO me $200, I’m not going to take offense and if $205, I’m not refunding the difference. :)
The people we go away with have similar habits to us - drink but not to excess, nicer but not top tier restaurants, excursions, etc. I agree it would be more challenging if someone is itemizing at the item level.
I have done similar in terms of using a spreadsheet to figure out the split, but instead of sending them the spreadsheet I just say “you owe/we owe (rounded number)”. As do other people we know. It’s just the one who has actually sent the detailed, itemized spreadsheet. We don’t go away with people who we think are going to stiff us out of a few dollars!
If I calculate, I always round up if Im sending money and down if they owe me any.
When we were in Poland, sometimes we would pay the check and sometimes my son would, so the waiter didn’t have to deal with two tickets (he said they don’t like doing that). He insisted that he and his wife pay for their share (a few times he let me treat them, but not often). It was confusing with the language and weird taxes / service charges. The tax would be shown at the end, but it turns out it’s also included in the itemized price! A 50 zloty item would be shown as 61.5 zloty, but at the bottom, the 11.5 zloty would be listed separately. The service charge was NOT included in each item.
So I spent a lot of time looking at wadded up receipts, trying to make sense of them and figuring out who owed whom money. I didn’t tell DS, but I definitely “erred” in his favor.
Please don’t be offended by this. Our friend does the same, and then we usually send him a check for a round number. It’s just what the numbers come out as. He will say we owe 442.67, because when you have it all in a spreadsheet, that’s what happens, and we send $450.
For years, a couple friends and I would visit a friend in PA for a hunting trip on his land, often staying at his house. Almost always, we would eat one dinner at the host’s home (his wife is a fabulous cook), and eat one night at a local restaurant. The guests would always pay for the meal out, and we would also bring house gifts like wine for our hosts.
Here are my decision rules for “who pays”:
If I invite someone else for dinner, I pay.
If someone hosts me at their home, I bring some gift - wine, liquor, flowers, etc., depending on what I know they like. If we go out for dinner during my stay at their house, I pay.
If someone invites me to an expensive outing (concert, deep see fishing, etc.) and we go out to eat after, I pay.
If I am out with someone who is not as far along in their career (think niece just out of college), I pay.
If I am out with a contemporary who is not doing well financially (I have a friend who sacrificed his career to care for ailing parents), I pay.
We have some friends who are, “fancy.”
They are extremely well off and very philanthropic. They often sponsor tables at charity events, they have THE fanciest type of box for our local college football games, etc. We have been fortunate to be guests of theirs for several of these things. These things almost always include meals. They are generous people to a fault.
We don’t have the connections/cache/resources to reciprocate at that level, but I always send a handwritten thank you note after having been invited to these types of events. And, I periodically treat the wife to lunch and we have taken them out to a nice dinner. I preface offers with statements beforehand. “You and your dh have been so gracious to treat us to x,y, and z. Please let us treat you to a dinner out. It is the least we can do to show our appreciation. Do any of these dates work?, etc”
And sometimes we play trivia with them and get pizza and just split the bill. Because while they are fancy people, they are also very down to earth.
My friend will expect $442.67!
Everyone loves pizza… even fancy people.
That’s how I approach it.
I would add that for “every day” friends, if we’re getting lunch or a coffee together, we generally will unofficially take turns with a casual “I got it” for things under $20, or one person pays and the other one Venmo’s them a rounded off number of what’s around their share while we’re there.
A friend from undergrad happens to live near me and periodically we’ll meet at a bar to have a burger and beer. We generally take turns paying and don’t worry about who ate or drank more.
If I am hosted I would try to pay for any meal out. Usually we pay for the kids (now adults)when we go out but lately they have paid a few times. If I was meeting someone who was visiting but not staying with me I would try to pay the bill.
Recently I went to an out of town tennis tournament with my doubles partner. We stayed with a friend who is much, much fancier than we are. We ended up going out to Mexican food one night and no one was drinking because we had early matches the next day. We paid for the meal and couldn’t believe how lucky we were to get off so easy.
If we go out with friends, we almost always get separate checks.
I’m fascinated by the splitting evenly or taking turns. It’s so easy now for servers to do separate checks!
Now, we usually do go out with just one other couple at a time, but even if there are three couples, there is no charge for printing out separate checks. We’ve even done separate checks with five couples!
It seems that we had a splitting check thread a while ago.
Splitting checks seemed to be very regional.
In my area of the Midwest, we are always asked if we want separate checks, I can’t remember the last time we were out to dinner with someone other than my husband where I wasn’t asked.
Every time I look at the title to this thread…I think about what I would do.
I pick up the check when I feel like it. It’s happened a number of times, and is well appreciated.
A number of restaurants here are “family style” or, like last night, I went out with 2 friends and we decided to order a few dishes to share rather than each get our own. Separate checks wouldn’t make sense. Maybe it depends on the friends but a number - in fact I’d almost say most - of our dinner outings involve sharing at least starters if not mains as well. In my home country they would balk at an order with shared mains but here no-one bats an eyelid, they just bring plates for each diner to use as well.
~ 20 years ago we were visiting a friend that had moved to Bentonville, AR (home of Wal-Mart). Everywhere we went we were asked if we wanted individual checks. In some cases they didn’t even ask and just did it. At one point we asked about it and the answer we got was that because Wal-Mart Corporate is such a large employer that many of their customers are there on business and to submit for reimbursement everyone needs individual receipts.
I’d guess that might be a dynamic in a lot of areas where one or two large employers dominate the market.
We had 9 at a restaurant table last week, and the hostess warned that they would do max of 4 checks. No problem… the single guy with us that night has an annual tradition to deliver frozen salmon from his Alaska fishing trips to our door… we were happy to pick up his tab.
I traveled with my sister last year. She introduced me to an app called splitwise. Whenever one of us paid for something we would enter it I. The app. At the end of the trip it told us how much we owed.
When I go out with my friends we often just split equally - put down your card. I dont think I ever had a waiter ask us if we wanted a separate bill.
When I go out with some very junior people from work or my staff I would pick up the tab. One of my old analyst(have known him since he was 25) is now doing very well, he will invite me to a private club he belongs to and treats me to drinks on their rooftop.