Man refuses to go on vacation with friends; 'They try to micromanage expenses.' AITA?

"AITAH, if I don't want to go on vacation with my friends because they try to micromanage the expenses?"

I (30m) have a group of five friends from university who are around the same age as me. For the past two years, we've gone on vacation together—first to Mexico and then last year to Egypt.

We've always had a great time, and we get along well. However, when it comes to sharing costs, I find myself struggling. It's not the group that has an issue; it's me who has the problem.

To provide some context, we all met at university nine years ago and have been working for the last five years. Our university was ranked number one in the country at the time (though I no longer keep track of the rankings), and we all landed jobs just a month after graduation.

I mention this to illustrate that we are all financially secure; I know for a fact that each of us earns between €80,000 and €100,000 annually.

In terms of vacation costs, I typically spend around $3,000 for each trip, which is more than my friends spend since I’m more comfortable with spending. Additionally, I'm aware that the vacation money we receive amounts to at least double what any of them has spent on these trips.

So this is the problem I have: every night, they ask for a check, start checking off items for everyone, and then make that person pay exactly that amount.

To me, that's embarrassing: getting nasty looks from the waitress who doesn't make in a day what these people make in an hour...

waiting there for ten to fifteen minutes while they argue about who had what, and then starting to count bills and coins to pay.

I suggested we split the bill five ways, but they don't want to do that. They have mentioned that I'm the only one who drinks alcohol with dinner and that it's not fair if they have to pay extra for it.

We are talking about maybe two euros. I even offered to pay more, but they still refused because some are not big eaters and don't think they should pay extra for others. It's four vs one.

To make matters worse, they spent every night comparing Uber bills because, maybe I paid a couple of euros less for the ride...

So now they are planning a trip for this year, and it could be the last one as some of them want to start families, but I'm thinking of saying no, I can't do this anymore.

I enjoy our trips, but getting a pay request of three euros because I had a couple of glasses of rum someone else paid for at our hotel just messes with my mood.

But I'm also the only one who has a problem with this, and I want to ask if I'm the asshole or if this is just a really strange way to handle finances.

Edit: People keep asking why we don't split the bill, and the answer is that most places we visit refuse to split the bill into five.

Also, some people think I want them to pay for my drinks at dinner, but I have offered to pay for my own drinks, even if we split the bill.

Edit 2: People keep asking how drinking alcohol is only a couple of euros more expensive. Well, it's because while I drink a beer or two, they drink Coke or some other soft drink.

So, at the end of the day, I had two beers, and someone else had two Cokes. Yes, the beer is more expensive, but only a couple of euros compared to the Coke.

Also, some people think I'm a big eater, but I'm not the biggest eater in our friend group. I take ADHD meds, and if you use those, you know what it does with your appetite. Also, my share of the bill is always one of the lowest unless we stay long and I drink more, but again, I offered to pay for those drinks myself.

Edit 3: People keep asking why I don't pay the whole bill and then split it later. I suggested that we try it. But then that night, people started arguing about who had what, and there were items on the bill nobody said they had ordered. So they went back to do it at dinner so there would be no discussions about who had what.

Let's see what readers thought:

dagi writes:

Splitwise is great for this situation. We’ve used it on group trips with 5 families with kids, 20+ people. Everyone can enter expenses and assign the costs by dollars or percentages.

So it doesn’t matter who pays for any one bill — everyone can see what they owe, and if there is disagreement you can adjust it in the app. So Tom can buy all the groceries for the vacation house,

Jim can pay for dinner for everyone at the nice restaurant, and Sally can pay for tickets for everyone’s kids to go to the water park. They put each bill in the app, split it, and everyone sees what they owe.

And if Jim wants expensive wine with dinner that no one else drinks, he can assign that cost to himself and split the rest of the bill. Any discussion about specific items or extra costs being assigned to someone can happen after the bill is paid without holding up servers or service providers.

The hidden benefit is that people see when they are falling behind on paying their share, and then tend to pick up the next tab so they don’t owe as much at the end.

wingeda writes:

YTA. Paying for what u drank and ate as an individual is normal. Whenever me and my friends go out, we pay only for the food and drinks we individually bought or someone else pays the entire bill and asks everyone else to send what they owe to the person who paid.

I understand it's frustrating, but it also helps others stay on budget. You might think it's not much, but it can add up. It's unfair for you to expect them to pay for someone else's food and drinks if they haven't bought food that costs the same.

How much you earn doesn't matter. Money is money. What's okay with you might not be okay with anyone else. Especially when it's only you who's having this problem. (edited to add verdict)

tb12 writes:

YTA. Speaking from experience, your friends may be trying to limit their own expenses by not ordering the most expensive thing on the menu (even though they really want it) or not suggesting a specific outing/experience (even though it seems really fun) without having to say out loud that money is tight this month, or it’s a stretch to even make it but they wanted to be here with you.

You may know what their salary range is, but it isn’t fair to assume you know exactly how their finances are balanced right now. It isn’t fair for them to pay more costs than what they were able to control because you’re embarrassed to split the check. Is this really something worth not seeing your friends over?

offcut4 writes:

NTA because holidays are supposed to be relaxing and clearly this is stressful for you but E S H cause your group's system doesn't seem to be efficient and causes stress for the group and wait staff you're dealing with.

If you're on a group holiday like that why not use something like Splitwise so one person can pay the bill and split out shares afterwards and you can equally split Ubers and stuff between you, keeping a running total for the holiday and you can all settle up between you at the end without this daily back and forth.

Any group trips I've done we've done this and there's a clear tally of who owes what which makes it transparent with transferring money. I love it when I book the hotel or accom because then someone else might pick up dinner and it spreads things fairly

forgeont writes:

NTA. It's shocking that a group collectively earning around half a million a year needs to quibble over a few euro.

There was a lot of people mentioning apps that would split the bill for you later or at the end of the holiday, but I saw your comment when you'd tried to split the bill later one evening and some of them wouldn't own up to having eaten something on the bill. It does seem a little like you can't win.

Maybe pay the bills in one, but have people own up to who had what before leaving. That's a lot of messing around every day, though.

ambroisethe writes:

YTA. So this whole "problem" is you, feeling ashamed that your friends want to split the restaurant bill according to what everyone ate?

I don't understand why you are ashamed of this but at the same time you suggest to split the bill evenly between each other without the drinks and then add the total amount of your drinks to your own personal bill. Why is one embarrassing and not the other? In both case, you need to stay at the table and do some calculation.

Because lets be clear here. The only reason you are embarrassed is because you are afraid people at other tables will judge you if you try to work out what amount one owes the other, right? So if you have to do it by adding up your drinks or by splitting exactly what everyone owes, then there's no difference.