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Splitting the costs of a weekend with friends

Money is the part of a group weekend that gets decided by accident, and by accident usually means one person pays. Decide it on purpose instead: what is shared, who fronts it, and by when everyone has paid their share.

27 items

Makes your own editable copy. No account needed.

The items

  1. Decide what is shared before anything is booked
  2. The house
  3. The food for the shared meals
  4. Fuel and tolls
  5. The one activity everybody does
  6. Decide what is not shared
  7. Alcohol, if only some of the group drinks it
  8. Restaurant meals not everyone joins
  9. Anything anyone buys for themselves
  10. Work out the per-person share and say it out loudBefore booking. A number people agreed to is a number they pay; a number they discover is a number they argue with.
  11. Decide how children countHalf a share, or nothing, or a full one. Any answer works. Not deciding is what does not.
  12. Decide how a person who comes for one night counts
  13. Pick one way to collect the money
  14. A bank transfer to the person who paid the booking
  15. A shared kitty in an app everybody already has
  16. Cash, if the group is small and the weekend is cheap
  17. Set the date by which shares are inBefore the cancellation deadline, so the organiser is not exposed for money they do not hold.
  18. Name one person who holds the pot and does the sums
  19. Keep the receipts, photographed on the spotOne album on one phone. A receipt in a pocket on Sunday night is a receipt in a washing machine on Monday.
  20. Log each shared spend the day it happens
  21. Note who fronted the deposit and when it comes back
  22. Settle up within the week
  23. Post the total and the per-person figure, with the sums shown
  24. Net the transfers instead of everyone paying everyone
  25. Return whatever is left of the kitty rather than keeping it for next time
  26. Handle the person who cannot pay quietlyA word in private beats a line in a spreadsheet. Somebody is usually having a harder month than they have said.
  27. Write down what this weekend cost, for the next one

Makes your own editable copy. No account needed.

Questions people ask

Should everyone pay before or after the weekend?
Before. A share transferred in advance is a booking; a share owed afterwards is a favour, and it is the organiser who ends up asking for it three times.
What belongs in the shared pot?
The house, the food, the fuel and anything the whole group uses. Not the round someone bought in a bar, not the souvenir, not the person who came for one night. Say where the line is at the start.
How do you handle people who drink and people who do not?
Take the alcohol out of the shared pot and let it be bought by those drinking it. It is the difference that causes the most quiet resentment, and it is the easiest one to remove.