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Together we can put an end to the stress of paying the bill. (Image: Archi Banal)
Together we can put an end to the stress of paying the bill. (Image: Archi Banal)

KaiApril 9, 2022

The art of splitting the bill

Together we can put an end to the stress of paying the bill. (Image: Archi Banal)
Together we can put an end to the stress of paying the bill. (Image: Archi Banal)

It can ruin a good meal and make a bad meal worse: splitting the bill is, in many instances, the worst part of dining out. But it doesn’t need to be.

Dining out with a group of friends, and friends of friends, can be an especially merry time. With one big asterisk – before you leave the restaurant, as lovely as your night may have been, you’re doomed to the nightmare that is splitting the bill. In most cases the conundrum isn’t so much to split or not to split, rather, it’s how we split.

The whole state of affairs can create a barrage of uncomfortable emotions. There’s the ceaseless awkwardness of chasing people up for money. The lingering guilt of being the person who doesn’t pay their fair share. The bitterness of paying far more than you owed when you’re already skint. The indignity of having to pull your calculator app out at the table to do basic arithmetic. The added chaos at the till when you realise your maths was very much incorrect. And unfortunately, with the rising cost of living, anxieties around settling the bill at the end of the night are only going to be foregrounded more and more often.

So how best to navigate this nightmare? These are your options.

The even split (at the till)

In the first instance, splitting evenly seems to be the most egalitarian and classy way to go about settling up without all the palaver of dissecting who ate what. 

The even split (after the fact)

This involves nominating one person to pay, who is then transferred even amounts by the group. This is far more efficient than your whole group loitering around the till. Even better, it’s far easier for the likely harried person working at said till. The only downside is that for the person who paid, it comes with the burden of following up with unreliable friends (and there’s always one).

Someone gets too drunk and shouts everyone

Always a great outcome, just say thank you and enjoy it.

The rising cost of living will only exacerbate the stress that comes with splitting the bill. (Photo: Getty Images)

So far, so good. But there are of course instances when one person at the table (we all know this person) orders two dozen Bluffies, incessant bottles of natural wine, a $32 main and a panna cotta to finish – only for the bill to be split evenly at the end of the evening. Those who ate an austere meal of olives and a pint of beer at the other end of the table has to pony up for someone else’s far more sumptuous dining experience. And you can bet they’re going home feeling swindled. 

As Ann Perkins in Parks and Recreation says, “I’m not a big fan of group dinners where everybody splits the bill no matter what they get. I ordered a Tyranna-Caesar salad, and that’s all I’m paying for.” 

Going dutch

And so, at the other end of the spectrum is going dutch – transactional pedantry – the extremities of which involve a carefully itemised breakdown of every last item eaten, perhaps assisted along the way with a set of scales to assess who really got the lion’s share of the starter plate of pani puri. This is also egalitarian, in the sense that everyone pays for what they got, but in an individualised way. It can also be a pain for the person at the till, and sometimes items ordered are missed out of calculations, leaving the last to pay a nasty surprise. 

High-school level maths didn’t prepare us for the complexities of splitting the bill.

The socialist approach

If there are big earners at the table, they pay the bulk of the bill, with everyone else splitting whatever is left over. Alternatively if it’s known that someone is a student or having a tough time financially, everyone else picks up their share. 

When you get down to the heart of how best to split a bill, you realise that in this economy equal doesn’t necessarily mean fair. And if you can afford to be generous, why not be generous? Yes, perhaps your friend who’s in between jobs may have shared that plate of spicy eggplant with you, but if you can afford to, why not cover it for them instead of dividing it to the precise percentage point – that’s something we could perhaps apply more broadly to our lives and society too. 

And despite the social norms against discussing salaries, wages and our financial situation in general with those around us, being more aware of what our buddies earn would actually help in these niggly social situations. Thankfully, times are changing and, according to The Washington Post, it’s a taboo that’s being broken increasingly often by millennials. If we want to progress beyond the unnecessary awkwardness of splitting the bill, it might pay to start being more transparent about how much we get paid, or don’t get paid.

Still not convinced? Here, let Friends explain it for you:

The point is, this final part of sharing a meal out has the potential to sap some of the joy from what should be an experience we can’t wait to repeat again soon. So whatever you do, try to resist the urge to pay in an ultra-persnickety way. Once your bill calculations start looking like a quadratic equation you’ve gone too far. In other words: paying for a third of a plate of a som tum salad, half of a serving of pad Thai, espresso martinis times two and “one glass’ worth of the bottle of white” is too far. Your equation should absolutely only have one kind of mathematical symbol in it: either plus or divide.

If you’re in charge of organising a group meal out, pick a spot that facilitates sharing: places with grazing-style dishes that suit your groups’ dietary requirements, or set-menus and importantly, affordable options. When everyone’s spent their night happily sampling delicious and reasonably priced helpings of food, there’ll be a lot less resentment when the bill shows its mean little face.

The key here, like so many things in life, is communication. How the bill will be split should be something agreed upon from the get-go. If you’re organising a dinner, there’s plenty to be gained from considering your friends’ backgrounds and financial situations. For people who belong to particular cultural and religious backgrounds, evenly splitting the bill and indirectly paying for types of food or drink that are prohibited by their beliefs might put them in an uncomfortable position. 

Anyone who has ever been in a tight spot with money knows that the buzz of eating out with friends can be drowned out by the uncertainty around whether you’ll even be able to afford the number that pops up on the Eftpos machine at the end. Nobody wants that, so be cognisant of your friends with limited budgets and don’t be afraid to be honest if you can’t afford to splurge.

Keep going!
Hot-cross-buns

KaiApril 8, 2022

Hear me out: Hot cross buns are too big now

Hot-cross-buns

They should be short and wide, argues Mad Chapman.

For a long time, there was one tried and true method to enjoying an easter hot cross bun. Make your way to your local chain supermarket or bakery, spend approximately $3 (supermarket) or $8 (bakery) on half a dozen buns, slice one in half, press between palms a little to flatten if required, toast, butter, enjoy. If one is feeling fancy, one might order a single hot cross bun from a cafe and have it be prepared by someone else.

I know these two methods and know them to have a reliable outcome of 1x delicious hot cross bun. There’s no need to worry about logistics or science or economics because if I follow those simple steps, I will be able to consume (in mere minutes!) a lovely toasted bread roll with raisins and spices or maybe even chocolate. What a beautiful thing to have such certainty in life.

Well rest in peace to that beautiful life because hot cross buns are too big now. 

They’re literally too big. 

When did hot cross buns get so tall? Everywhere I look there’s hot cross buns the size of small cars being advertised for sale. Every boutique bakery has their own version and nearly all of them are gargantuan creations, a parody of a hot cross bun, stretching to the heavens as if to be closer to god on this holiest of holidays. 

Typically I would say more is more and appreciate an unnecessarily large offering, but not for this. Because with great height comes great cost. What once was a reliable low-to-mid range price for a snack has become a game of gambling one’s life savings on a bag of carbs. I will never forget the day I left work, walked past the nearby eatery advertising hot cross buns, thought yum, walked in, ordered a six pack, then looked down at the eftpos machine to see $36.00 on the screen like some sort of taunt. And yes, this whole silly article is due to me not being able to forget that day in 2019. 

Left: a lovely height. Right: Way too tall.

But the real low point was when I got home and opened the packaging to reveal six gigantic buns. Paying $36 for six hot cross buns is unholy. Paying $36 for six hot cross buns that then do not fit in the toaster is the first sign of the apocalypse. Toasting a hot cross bun is a simple human pleasure and being unable to toast one because it’s massive is counterintuitive, in my opinion. 

Put it in the oven, you might be thinking. Sure, that’s an option, but if I accepted that argument, the world wouldn’t have the crack-up gif at the top of this article. And besides, anything toasted is a convenient snack and a hot cross bun is supposed to be the definition of a convenient snack. Introduce an oven into the prep and you’re entering meal territory which is not where we want to be when eating a lone bread roll. Plus, an oversized bun cut in half with a standard lathering of butter suddenly feels too dry, like a scone. Whichever way you slice it, a large hot cross bun does not have the correct ratios.

There are some places that do, seemingly by coincidence, make a fancy and flat hot cross bun. Brumby’s tends to produce a wide bun, as does Daily Bread, the 2022 supreme winner (though be prepared to spend $$$ for their ones). So evidently it’s not a rule that expensive hot cross buns have to also be as tall as possible. And if it’s not a rule, why are so many unnecessarily large?

Let more bakeries follow the lead of the oft-rightfully-maligned supermarkets and bring back the small hot cross bun.

Postscript: I’m not just here to complain (though I do love to complain) so I’ll end by sharing a practical tip for all those struggling with over-inflated hot cross buns: slice them into thirds then toast and butter three parts.

But wait there's more!