When family visits who pays?

[Anonymous]

I don't pay admissions or restaurant checks but I do provide use of car and nice meals, etc. at home. It would be nice if guests acknowledged this in some way, with a gift or a meal out (that's what I do as a houseguest). My husband's siblings and their families have never contributed anything, though they come to visit regularly. My own sibling recently came for an extended visit and brought Xmas gifts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We pay for everything when we have guests. Usually, they buy us one meal as a thank you. I thought that was pretty much the norm.

+1

Except when the guests are my parents or ILs. Then they usually pay for meals out (we always offer and they say no, though sometimes they let us pay for one meal).

[Anonymous]

It depends on who is visiting. If it's my parents, we typically split. My one sister-in-law and her husband like treating us to a meal or two if they're staying with us (and we do the same for them when we stay with them). My other sister-in-law and mother-in-law are much less well off than we are, so we always treat them.

Similar philosophy for friends. If we stay with friends we typically treat them to a meal or two and split the rest. If friends stay with us, what they do usually depends on what they can afford. Some friends who can afford it go out of their way to treat us. Some could barely afford the plane ticket, and if that's the case we'll happily treat them.

[Anonymous]

In my culture, parents should never pay for anything, regardless of who is visiting. I think it's very odd and rude that you expect them to treat you while you visit them.

[Anonymous]

My family is like yours, OP. Growing up our main visits were with a certain aunt and uncle and when we were at their place, they’d pay. If they were at our place, my parents paid. To this day, even in my late 30’s, neither one lets the “kids” pay, lol.

As far as ILs go, my DH’s mom is dirt poor. Like, lives in a trailer driving a 1990’s truck poor. But she’s a wonderful woman and we love her to pieces so we would not dream of going tit-for-tat on things. We try to pick up the check for her whenever we can. She buys and cooks all the food for Thanksgiving and Christmas herself though, and I think this is a point of pride for her. She does do a great meal.

[Anonymous]

Whoever has more money, whoever is hosting, whoever is older.
We host and pay for everything - meals, transportation, outings, shopping, entertainment and spending money when our parents and siblings visit. We pay for home meals, allow use of our car for free when friends visit. When we visit family (who we outearn) we keep our demands low and pay for all expenses + give them spending money.

[Anonymous]

Haha, we go to visit FIL/Stepmom and we go out to dinner with the two of them, plus: SIL, SSIL+her fiancé, Stepmom’s parents. So 9 of us total. They pick up the check for everyone...except for us. They asked us to come visit, picked the restaurant, etc.

Some people are SO cheap.

[Anonymous]

We pay for MIL, everything right from the plane tickets. My parents are much wealthier than us and won't allow us to open our wallets while they are here. They always try to give us money before leaving. With siblings it's more casual. They pay for their travel, and will pick up a check or two. And they always take us out at least once.

[Anonymous]

It really depends on who is visiting.

[Anonymous]

When my parents visit, we pay for pretty much everything, although my dad will always try to get the check for at least one meal out. If they do something on their own while we're at work/the kids are at school, they usually pay for that. If they do something with the kids while we are at work, we give them some money to cover it.

When we visit my parents, they pay for most stuff, although we are more aggressive about getting the check if we eat out (they are retired and not wealthy). We also fill up their gas tank at least once, and, although they buy most groceries, we do pick up things while we're there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When people come to visit us we pay for everything from the moment they step off the plane or out of the car until the moment they get back into the car or step onto the plane. Also, sometimes we will pay for the plane or car expenses, too, if we know that those expenses would keep them from being able to visit. But I think we're unusual in this. We're not mega-rich but we're comfortable and this is how we choose to operate because we don't want to get all tied up about it. Every once in a while someone will offer to pick up a restaurant check but we usually try to avoid things like that because frankly if they could afford the restaurant tab they probably would have chosen to stay in a hotel rather than with us!

When we go somewhere, though, we fully expect to pay the full freight for our crew. We're a big family (5 kids) and there is no way we can expect others to pay for us.

I wish you were my SIL or BIL. I do the same as you when people come to visit me. My in-laws do nothing (they actually expect us to pick up all the tabs and go to the grocery store for food they will then eat), and there are four kids in their family (two in ours), so we more than double the amount of people feed when they visit and they don't bat an eye nor offer to chip in at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we fly to visit my parents they will pay for everything. We will steal a check once in a while but it's their turf.

I was thinking you meant you'd steal a check out of their checkbook to use to buy yourself something later, which sounded like an awesome idea to me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My philosophy is that whoever has the most money should always pay.

That's bullshit. My husband and I have more money than his sister and her husband because we both work and we're smart with our money. She hasn't worked in 15 years (and has a kid every three years as an "excuse" to not go back to work - her words, not mine), they burn through their money on ridiculous things, and they are constantly relying on my in-laws to bail them out when they can't afford their mortgage (because they've done something like bought tickets to go see Hamilton in Chicago for a family of six).

[Anonymous]

Dh and I are younger (30) and make less than both of our parents, but when they visit we pay for all meals in our house. When we got out, we either go dutch or split every other meal. Our parents haven't ever paid for us since we were 21 with full time jobs.

DH's sister and her husband make us pay every time we go out. I assume because they think we make more money, but in reality we probably make the same and are just more frugal (and thus had money for a nice house).

[Anonymous]

In general if I'm staying with family then I try to make sure that our family of 5 is paying for our share of groceries and meals. If someone is visiting us then I'm happy to host and provide everything but I definitely appreciate the gesture when someone buys us a meal.

One of my best memories is taking my grandparents out to lunch when I had my first real job. I took the check at the end of the meal and the look of surprise and pleasure on my grandmother's face was priceless.