[lotsofpulp]

> A penny pincher is the person who goes to dinner with a dozen people and ends up spending an hour trying to "fairly" divide the check among everyone. Or, the one who says a few days later that you should treat him to lunch because he only had a single glass of wine whereas everyone else had two or some such.

Alcoholic drinks in most popular cities are $10+ per drink, if not $18+ in tier 1 cities. If someone that does not drink alcohol is called a penny pincher for not wanting to spend thousands of pennies for others’ alcohol consumption, then what is a person who expects others to spend thousands of their pennies for their alcohol consumption called?

Same situation with vegetarians going out with meat/fish/poultry eaters, since meat dishes cost a decent amount more.

Very odd to me that expecting someone else to pay vastly more for your consumption is considered OK, effectively ostracizing the budget constrained people in your network from dining out with you.

[jkrems]

If food or drink consumption was the primary purpose of going out, there'd be no reason to coordinate and meet. If a group of people meets for food, they don't meet for food. They meet for each other. They meet to enjoy each others company, the mood, and good discussions. The price of food and drinks for the group is meant to facilitate these things. For the group.

That's not paying for other people's alcohol consumption. It's paying a fair share of the expenses that were involved to create this particular communal experience. Which also means that if somebody is budget constrained, the group may want to keep that in mind - no matter what they order. I've been routinely in groups where somebody with budget constraint paid less. Not because they ate or drink less. But because the group decided that it was their fair share, based on the group's perception of fairness.

[lotsofpulp]

> I've been routinely in groups where somebody with budget constraint paid less. Not because they ate or drink less. But because the group decided that it was their fair share, based on the group's perception of fairness.

That is interesting, I have never been in this situation because it seems awkward to bring it up explicitly. That is why I think it is better to simple expect people to pay for what they consume, so it may be implicitly understood that they may be budget constrained without it being a topic.

I imagine most people who are budget constrained simply opt to decline an invitation to meet with friends if they know the average bill will include an extra couple drinks they cannot afford. To me, this is a worse outcome than spending the very little mental effort required to allocate expenses individually.

[borski]

The most common solution to this I’ve seen is “I’ll get this one, you get the next one.” And the person that simply can’t just… doesn’t get it until they can, or chips in as much as they’re able (provided they’re at least covering themselves) in cash to the person getting it.

[j7ake]

I think it also depends how many times a year you are in this situation. If you go out with big group 5 times a year and end up paying $10 more than you should, you end up down $50/year.

If this is a weekly or daily event, it makes sense to make this more fair.

In my opinion, stressing about anything less than $100/year is penny pinching.

[lotsofpulp]

Of course, but it is never $100 per year.

It is just crazy to me that with all the price increases and increase in income/wealth gap, and increases in variety of diets, that it would still be considered taboo to not want (or even be able to) pay for others’ excess.

I go out of my way to make sure if I am having extra to chip in extra, but I certainly would not look down on anyone that insisted on paying for only what they consumed.

[j7ake]

I read the article as a guide for my own behaviour, rather than as a template to judge others.

Definitely true one should not judge when you see someone insisting on paying their fair share. You never know the details of their personal lives.

[foobarian]

To be fair, OP was more specific than "not wanting to spend thousands of pennies for others’ alcohol consumption." The penny pincher also goes out of their way to be compensated, going against the social etiquette.

One can also remedy this by not spending time with people who do not on their own initiative recognize the inequity of the situation and help make it fair. In fact perhaps you can think of it as an excellent investment of one's money to ferret out the inconsiderate, in order to eliminate them from the friend circle.

[lotsofpulp]

Sometimes you go out, and your friends invite their friends, and you are no longer with your core friend circle. I would say it happened most nights in my 20s in a big city.

[nanis]

> penny pincher for not wanting to spend thousands of pennies

Yes, literally, the dictionary meaning of a "penny pincher" is one who does not want to part with his pennies.

The author of the article, on the other hand, seems to call people "penny pinchers" if they do not adopt rules of thumb but instead painstakingly analyze all alternatives. Sure, paralysis by analysis can be bad or there is nothing wrong with focusing one's cognitive energies sparingly etc, but there is very little in the article about penny pinching.

You preferences may say "it is more important for me to save seven bucks in this context." That does not compel other people to enjoy your preferences.

In my life, I have been in groups where if a few people consumed some relatively more expensive food or drinks, they are responsible enough to take care of that.

Also, when you go out with a large group, you do tip the wait staff generously, right?

[lotsofpulp]

> Yes, literally, the dictionary meaning of a "penny pincher" is one who does not want to part with his pennies.

I understood the context to be pennies being insignificant. Thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of pennies are not insignificant (to most people), so penny pincher would be a useless term in that situation. The alternative is where even saving a billion dollars, since it can be translated to 100 billion pennies, is being a penny pincher.

> You preferences may say "it is more important for me to save seven bucks in this context." That does not compel other people to enjoy your preferences.

It is not usually seven bucks when you are out with a decent size group in a city for a few hours.

> In my life, I have been in groups where if a few people consumed some relatively more expensive food or drinks, they are responsible enough to take care of that.

Ideally, but many times I have been out where it needs to be brought up. But that does not make one a penny pincher.

> Also, when you go out with a large group, you do tip the wait staff generously, right?

How is this relevant?

[motohagiography]

Maybe they wouldn't be as budget constrained if they were easier to invite places? I can't invite my teetotaling and vegetarian friends out to many of the casual things I enjoy, and their purity issues create a self-imposed artificial constraint on their life opportunities. Someone with an actual medical issue learns to adapt to life and live it, where someone with a purity constraint selects for oppotunities where they can impose it on others. Not all vegetarians/non-drinkers, etc, but often it's a control ritual that could be satisfied psychologiclaly in other more productive ways. Also, if someone is struggling financially, adding a social purity constraint to their lives seems like a self sabotaging substitute where they are choosing for luck and opportunity to pass them over instead of accepting their circumstances and changing them. As though they can afford purity, without considering what it costs.

Dining out isn't about the food, it's about company and companionship, and I don't eat with anyone I'm not willing to pick up the entire tab for, because the pleasure of their company is well worth it. If their company is not worth that, I'd say that's the definition of wasted time.

[leoedin]

> I can't invite my teetotaling and vegetarian friends out to many of the casual things I enjoy

I'm curious about this. Why not? I'm not vegetarian, but I go out for dinner with vegetarian friends all the time. They order a vegetarian dish, I order a meat one. It isn't an issue.

Similarly with drinking. As long as they want to be there, why would I care if they drink? If they're judging you for drinking, that's a tangential issue.

You say "Dining out isn't about the food" - so then why do you care what food your companion eats? As long as they're happy, what difference does it make?

[motohagiography]

Dining out isn't about the food because you can make anything yourself with a little effort, and splitting the bill based how many calories you ingest misses the point of going out.

If you said to someone "we should get a coffee sometime" and they said, "thanks, but I don't drink coffee," they would have missed the point or were being bizzarely rude. I'm saying many dietary choices have the same effect. If I said, "we should get a burrito," and you said, "No thanks, I'm gluten intolerant," you're not going to get a second invitation, not because you have a medical issue, but because the person inviting you was expecting a, "yes lunch in principle, and we'll deal with details after."

Maybe you legit used your condition as an excuse to avoid socializing, which fine and your own business, but when you decline invitations, they dry up and nobody owes you another one. Being "lame," means too weak or injured to do something, and a lot of restrictions when you lead with them just make people think you are lame.

[tristor]

> I'm curious about this. Why not?

I also have friends that are on restrictive diets or who don't drink and I invite them out with me regularly. The reality though, is that many people take personal choices and turn them into a religion that they then feel the need to proselytize. I simply don't spend time with people like that, but I can imagine those are the sorts of people grandparent has in mind when they wrote that comment.

[lotsofpulp]

> I can't invite my teetotaling and vegetarian friends out to many of the casual things I enjoy, and their purity issues create a self-imposed artificial constraint on their life opportunities. Someone with an actual medical issue learns to adapt to life and live it, where someone with a purity constraint selects for oppotunities where they can impose it on others.

Who is imposing on whom? I did not write the vegetarians and teetotalers force others to not eat meat or not drink alcohol.

> Also, if someone is struggling financially, adding a social purity constraint to their lives seems like a self sabotaging substitute where they are choosing for luck and opportunity to pass them over instead of accepting their circumstances and changing them. As though they can afford purity, without considering what it costs.

I do not even understand what the context of the word “purity” is in your comment. I find the whole theme of the comment to be bizarre.

> Dining out isn't about the food, it's about company and companionship, and I don't eat with anyone I'm not willing to pick up the entire tab for, because the pleasure of their company is well worth it. If their company is not worth that, I'd say that's the definition of wasted time.

I would go out almost every day of the week in my 20s in a very expensive city. With lots of different people, and random people could be invited at anytime by anyone. I certainly do not think it reasonable to want to, or even be able to, pick up the entire tab for all the groups one goes out with.

I am not talking about a small group or one on one meal with a friend you see once every year. For that, yes, paying or splitting evenly is not a big deal, although I would never let my friends consistently pay extra for me outside of occasions.

[tristor]

> Dining out isn't about the food, it's about company and companionship, and I don't eat with anyone I'm not willing to pick up the entire tab for, because the pleasure of their company is well worth it. If their company is not worth that, I'd say that's the definition of wasted time.

Well said. In fact, I've made it a personal rule that if I invite someone out I pick up the tab to simply remove any budget constraint barriers for people spending time with me. Some of the people I most enjoy spending time with are much more budget constrained than I am, but I have no issue with picking up the tab if it lets me have a conversation with them for a few hours in a place where they can be relaxed enough from the stress of their daily life to mutually enjoy it.

[goodpoint]

> Someone with an actual medical issue learns to adapt to life and live it

That's quite harsh to all the people who cannot join you for dinner on a hike because of some illness or disability.

Describing non-drinking as a "control ritual" and "self sabotaging substitute" is an equally harsh description of people's personal choices or medical needs. E.g. pregnancy.

> I don't eat with anyone I'm not willing to pick up the entire tab for, because the pleasure of their company is well worth it.

I never thought of measuring friendship and companionship with money...

[motohagiography]

I have numerous friends who don't drink or eat meat and for different reasons (religious, addiction, medical, health, caste, politics, personal), and they manage because they know how to navigate socially. I can think of more than a few invites I don't get for related reasons.

In the scenario you propose, the disabled person meets us at the bar, the recovering alcoholic drinks cranberry juice, and the pregnant woman buys because she's probably the only one with a job, some chirp back and forth, nobody complains, and we get to be together. It's not hard. The lifestyle vegan isn't there because we have other things to talk about, and we can always see him at crossfit.

If we have something to manage in a social situation, I think it's still on us to show we are capable of enjoying ourselves.

[satellite2]

> pick up the entire tab for, because the pleasure of their company is well worth it. If their company is not worth that, I'd say that's the definition of wasted time.

So you restrict yourself to life opportunities (restaurants) where you can afford an entire group tab?

You naughty penny pincher!

[jayski]

that was very well said.

[vineyardmike]

> Very odd to me that expecting someone else to pay vastly more for your consumption is considered OK,

As an ex-vegetarian (who does drink), i think it's ok and many have ways around this. If someone invited me to a steak-house, and all i got was a salad, i'd probably ask that host to cover the check and i'd buy everyone drinks elsewhere or a meal another day. It hides the "my $15 salad to your $45 steak" issue with a veil of generosity.

Also regarding drinks, I do drink - but if someone at the table didn't drink and the rest of the table did, i'd do the same thing as the steak-eater and cover their meal and make up later, again, act generously. Also, i would never order more drinks than anyone else, or n+1 from the lowest number of drinks consumed as a social policy.

[dghlsakjg]

This is a solved problem up here in Canada, at least in my experience.

Most restaurants will assume you want to split the check by default when you're with a big group, and most restaurant software lets you ring in dishes by the seat rather than by the table, while also splitting shared things across all of the checks at a table (this also helps service teams deliver the right dish to the right guest). Add to that the convenience of chip and pin machines that come to the table, and it is just a non-issue.

I'm American, so I understand that lots of restaurants in the US resist doing things this way. But it is quite silly considering that the software and hardware already exists to handle it all.