How to split a bill when some people don't drink

How do you split a bill when some people don’t drink?

Use two pots. The first pot holds the food, the tax and the tip, and everyone at the table shares it equally. The second pot holds the alcohol, and only the people who drank share it. Anything the whole table shared stays in the first pot.

Say six friends have dinner. The food and non-alcoholic drinks come to $210.00, and three of them also order alcohol that totals $96.00. The subtotal is $306.00. Tax and tip add $76.50, which is 25% of the subtotal, so the check is $382.50 and one person puts it on a card.

1. Find the drinks total. The alcohol is $96.00.
2. Share the first pot equally. Food of $210.00 plus tax and tip of $76.50 is $286.50. Divided by 6, that is $47.75 each.
3. Share the drinks among the drinkers. $96.00 divided by 3 is $32.00 each.
4. Add them up. A non-drinker pays $47.75. A drinker pays $47.75 plus $32.00, which is $79.75.
5. Check the total. Three people at $47.75 is $143.25, and three at $79.75 is $239.25. Together that is $382.50, the full check.

How much do non-drinkers save compared with an equal split?

On this check, each non-drinker pays $16.00 less than they would in an equal split, and each drinker pays $16.00 more. An equal split of $382.50 across six is $63.75 a head, which leaves the three non-drinkers covering part of $96.00 of drinks they never ordered.

Person	Equal split	Two pots
Each non-drinker (3)	$63.75	$47.75
Each drinker (3)	$63.75	$79.75
Whole table	$382.50	$382.50

The saving is $63.75 minus $47.75, which is $16.00. The drinkers’ extra is $79.75 minus $63.75, also $16.00. It always balances, because what one side saves the other side pays.

Should tax and tip follow the drinks?

Sharing tax and tip equally is simplest, and the example above does it. The other way is to let tax and tip follow what each person ordered, so a larger tip on a bigger drinks bill falls on the people who ran it up.

Here each person pays 25% on top of their own pot. A non-drinker’s pot is $210.00 divided by 6, which is $35.00, and $35.00 times 1.25 is $43.75. A drinker’s pot is $35.00 plus $32.00, which is $67.00, and $67.00 times 1.25 is $83.75. Check: three at $43.75 is $131.25 and three at $83.75 is $251.25, which makes $382.50.

The gap between the two methods is $4.00 a person. It equals the tax and tip rate times the drinks, shared across the table: 25% of $96.00 is $24.00, and $24.00 divided by 6 is $4.00. Agree on one method before the check arrives, because the gap is small enough to start an argument and not large enough to be worth one.

What about a shared bottle, or a round one person bought?

Give each of those its own line, and charge it only to the people who had a share.

• A shared bottle. A $60 bottle of wine shared by two people is $30 each. If four people shared it, it is $15 each. Everything else in the drinks pot works the same way.
• A round one person bought. Say Sam buys three beers at $8 each, $24 in total, for himself and two friends, and pays for it separately from the table’s check. If it was a gift, leave it out of the check and there is nothing to record. If the friends will pay him back, record it as its own expense paid by Sam, split among the three who had a beer. Each owes $8.00, so the two friends owe Sam $16.00 between them.

How do you enter it in EvenOut?

EvenOut can hold the whole check as one expense. Both routes below are free, and both end with a status pill that tells you whether the amounts add up.

Exact amounts.

1. Tap “Add expense”, type $382.50 and name it.
2. Open the split chip and choose “Exact amounts” in the “How to split” sheet.
3. Type $47.75 for each non-drinker and $79.75 for each drinker. The pill reads “All assigned” when the amounts add up to the total. A typo shows “$X left to assign” or “$X over the total”.

By item.

1. Choose “By item” and tap “Add item”.
2. Add a line named “Food, tax and tip” at $286.50 and select all six people. It reads “$47.75 each · 6 people”.
3. Add a line named “Drinks” at $96.00 and select the three drinkers. It reads “$32.00 each · 3 people”.
4. The pill reads “All assigned” when the lines add up to the expense total, $382.50.

Each By item line splits evenly among the people you select, so if the drinkers had very different amounts, give each drink its own line and select only who had it. Tax and tip have to go in as items too, and they are shared evenly among the people on that line. EvenOut does not show per-person totals while you build a By item split, so do the sums above first. To make tax and tip follow orders, use Exact amounts.

If you would rather keep it simple, save two expenses. The food pot is one expense split equally among all six. The drinks are a second expense split equally, with the three non-drinkers tapped to leave them out (“Not in”).

What should you do next?

Say the rule when the table orders, then do the arithmetic once. The split bill by item calculator works out the version where tax and tip follow each person’s order: enter the food as shared dishes, each drinker’s drinks as their own items, and the non-drinkers as people who only had shared dishes. If someone objects to the numbers, what to say when a table disagrees about the check has wording that keeps it calm, and four fair methods for splitting a restaurant bill covers the cases where drinks are only part of the story.

EvenOut keeps a running balance with each friend, so the person who put the check on a card can see what each person owes them and record each payment as it comes in.