Cheapskates who stiff you with the bill

[TXlib]

How to spot a cheapskate
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com

When the check arrives, does your date disappear? Is there a lone dollar on the table after your four-star meal? Does your companion pitch a hissy over the sushi until the restaurant eats your bill?

Guard your wallet. You might be dating a tightwad.

More...

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Be sure to click on each of the ten different cheapskate personalities.

How many people persistently find this to be a problem?

I have generally always settled the matter of divvying up the bill in advance. If I'm treating, I tell the person as I'm asking them to dinner/lunch. Otherwise, unless the other person has volunteered to treat, I assume we will each be paying our own way, and I ask for separate bills. (I am assuming casual friends or coworkers here. When dating, I feel the person who does the asking out has the onus of paying the way.)

Only once or twice did I get stuck paying somebody else's way in grad school; we were dining in a large group, and some of the undergrads skipped out early after seriously underestimating how much they owed, which left us with their balance. (Which they never paid back. They flat out denied they owed that much. Needless to say, we never comingled a bill with them again.)

Arguments over money are destructive to friendships, so I prefer to head them off before they become problematic.

Does anybody out there have a persistent problem with other people sticking them with the bill? Who doesn't agree before going out with casual friends and coworkers how the bill is to be divided?

The way I respond to all the ten personalities listed, if for some reason we didn't agree in advance, and there's no reason to suspect they think I owe it to them, and they seem to be trying to evade the bill, is I become the Itemizer. But it really never happens, because I always ask to have my wife and me put on a separate bill when we're dining out with friends.

I think it's always best to avoid comingling debts and assets of any size with ANYBODY, unless you're married. That avoids the kind of insidious resentments that build up and poison relationships.

Anybody have a different opinion on the matter? I'd like to hear it...

[MUAD_DIB]

1. One poisoned relationship....

A co-worker that was also part of a group of friends would pick off of other peoples plates when we went out to eat.

He would usually make the rounds at our social gatherings moving from friend to friend and getting a bite off of their burger or fries...or whatever they were eating that evening. It was all just part of the conversation process, and nobody really paid it much attention...until the bill would arrive.

Everybody would pony up their money, and so would he...for the two beers that he consumed. It was a great racket.

This went on for a couple of years until he fell out of favor with many of the group for other and various economic slights.

The worst part is that he made 10k+ more than I did. He was just a cheapskate.

[trof]

2. two stories

1. When I was an airline pilot we used "combat eating rules" in restaurants when we were on layovers. When the bill came, we added a tip and divided the total by the number of people at the table. Didn't want any whining about "I only had the chicken salad, etc." Sooner or later it pretty much evens out.

2. One guy was notoriously cheap. He would hang back at the table, always the last to leave. We discovered he thought we were tipping too much(?) and was pocketing what he considered to be the "over tip". Jesus. An airline captain pulling around $150,000 a year back then. We blackballed him from the group.