We’ve all been in this situation before — enjoying food, drinks, and conversation with a group of friends and then you get the bill. The restaurant won’t do separate checks, so it’s up to you to split it up. No big deal, right? Wrong.
After watching a group of high school kids spend twenty minutes trying to sort out their bill at a restaurant over the weekend, I’m now convinced that splitting the bill is the greatest threat to humankind next to global warming. It’s such a serious issue that you’d almost think it would require a team of Caltech physicists to successfully split the bill.
The problem with splitting the bill is that both of the possible solutions have a major flaw. If you just split the bill evenly, the people who ordered less get upset, because they’re paying for more than they ordered. Not good.
If you have everyone pay for what they ordered, people either overpay or underpay, and you spend even more time trying to figure out who didn’t pay enough or who paid too much. There really isn’t a good solution. Or is there?
What if…
- Everyone orders the exact same food.
- Everyone orders the exact same drink.
That’s right. The easiest way to successfully split a bill is simple — eat at a Chinese buffet and drink water.
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my RSS feed or via email for free updates.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Brilliant.
Haha – nice. Having been in that situation before – this is a great idea. I especially liked the Onion link.
This is always a pet peeve of mine on how my friends deal with these situations. A lot of times it’s just how you were raised and experiences you have had in the past. I have friends who sit there and try to pay to the penny what they owe. that bothers me, especially when there is a group. Just split the bill evenly. If you sacrifice a2-3$ big deal. It’s hassle free and you get out of there right away.
Sounds pretty easy!
Haha – good post
This is also a pet peeve of mine. I wish all restaurants gave separate checks.
I agree, it is sometimes a tough call. I always make sure I pay more than my share, and anyone who nickel and dimes me to death, I try not to go out with them anymore.
The best thing is to try and get separate bills. It’s rare that they wouldn’t accommodate that request. However, in situations where you forget, I find that rounding down or not adding tax are the biggest culprits.
If I go out with friends, usually we alternate just paying for the entire meal and we avoid the awkward situation entirely!
Stupidly Yours,
Matt
Another solution, be friends w/ math majors and engineers who are good at math!
Wow!
I’ve never run into a situation where we haven’t been able to split checks, but on the rare occasions when we get a snooty waiter who wants to be difficult, we just split it ourselves. It’s really not that complicated…take your dinner portion and multiply that by your state’s sales tax and add it to your total. That will give everyone what they need to pay. So someone pays maybe a dime more than everyone else. Geez…give them a dime out of your pocket.
This is the least of my concerns when eating out. Of course, if one friend pays a little more than me, I pick it up the next time and vice versa. We don’t make a big deal about it. We also don’t eat a places we can’t afford, either. I dunno, I think high school kids thrive on the drama and that’s why it was such a big deal. I’ve never seen adults do this sort of thing.
Oh boy, you guys seem so relaxed about all of this! I’m vegetarian and a pretty light eater anyway, so my order usually ends up cheaper than everyone else’s. And when I say usually, I mean almost always. This means it’s not a case of “I pay more this time, you pay more next time”. I don’t mind a pound or two either way, but any more than that and I feel cheated. The best thing is to get good at mental maths!
Also, this is made all the more complicated by the fact that people usually don’t have change on them – just a big note. How are you supposed to coordinate change then?
Matt and Kristy: When I was in college, almost every restaurant I went to would do separate checks. Maybe it’s because they were near a college campus, so it was expected.
Now that I live in a big city, it hasn’t been so easy. Some restaurants won’t do separate checks at all. I’ve also been to one that would only take up to 4 different credit cards. Most places will let you use as many cards as you like, but you have to figure out how much to put on each card yourself.
Splitting a check is the type of situation from which nightmares are made.
A minor miracle over the weekend — somehow, my group of four friends and I all managed to order different dishes and have the exact same price. Split it evenly four ways, nice and easy — and we didn’t even have to go to a Chinese buffet, to boot!
I need a new one, who has got one of these:
http://uniquepushchair.blog.com/