When family visits who pays?

[Anonymous]

God, I wish I made enough money to treat guests. I just can't.

And who are you people spending $5k in a week when you're staying with family???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We usually have to go grocery shopping as soon as we arrive because no one has any milk for our toddlers or any sort of fresh fruit in the house. We pick up ingredients to make a meal also.

Maybe we're weird, but I've always had milk in my fridge, even before I had kids. Why don't grandparents pick up a jug?

Not everyone drinks milk. When my child was an infant, I only bought enough for my husband's cereal.

[Anonymous]

It depends. Dh's parents are extremely wealthy. Even though we are comfortably UMC, his parents insist on paying for everything. FIL would find it insulting if we tried to pay. This is their way of passing their wealth on to the next generation. My parents are WC. When they visit, we pay for everything including transportation to get there. There was never any awkwardness because their financial circumstances are so different.

[Anonymous]

We live overseas and have lots of visitors. We always make sure to have our home stocked with lots of food (I usually ask visitors in advance what I can have on hand, especially since our grocery stores carry different products then they're used to at home), and I also make sure their bedrooms have plenty of toiletries and appliances so they don't have to pack them. We typically cover things like public transportation and uber, since we have the local currency in small amounts and accounts with uber. Beyond that, it seems like we end up splitting other things, like meals out or tourist stuff. My parents have a rule that they will pay for any meal at a restaurant when they come to visit, and we cover everything else. My in laws are the same, but my mother in law also makes a big run to the grocery store for us.
Our guests inevitably come bearing gifts of things we miss from the US too.

[Anonymous]

My parents are local so this doesn't really come up much with them. The one time we'd took my parents out to dinner, it totally freaked my dad out. In his mind money travels from parents to kids. My ILs are not local so there are actual visits back and forth (always a true the other's home, no hotels). We usually split stuff when we are out with them. Sometimes they pay for everyone if the other sibs are there (all other sibs are students so have no money). When they invite relatives to our house, they generally provide the meal, otherwise we generally do the cooking and grocery shopping. They always offer to cook for us, but I usually insist on cooking. When they visit they usually grab a couple bottles of wine and occasionally some other groceries. When we visit them, which happens less often, we usually pick up some groceries at some point, especially the kid-specific stuff, but generally they do most of the cooking and grocery shopping.

My SIL will hide a $20 bill in the house before she leaves because she's so afraid she is imposing, which is sweet but infuriating but that's another story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Right, I'd rather make my DC-based son, wife and young kids pay for us for everything when we houseguest with them.
They can inherit our money later, for now, they pay! They live here in America and DC, where everyone is rich and the streets are paved with gold.

Why would parents NOT pay? Our parents have higher salaries, no daycare, no student loans and their houses are paid off. They're just sitting on piles of cash and are working for fun.
-signed someone who goes dutch with parents because my parents order up the bill more than my family can afford.

agree. our two sets of retiree parents are doing just fine. one is cheap as hell (except for iPads) so we'll be inheriting $2M whilst they mooch off others now. the other is about gifting experiences, loves eating out and argues to pay each bill. unlikely we'll inherit much unless something bad happens within next 10 years.

[Anonymous]

So are these houseguests people who are coming specifically to visit the posters and their families OR are they people coming to visit the DMV and want a free place to stay?

When we moved to our current house and word got out we now lived 3 blocks from a close in metro, had a guest suite, and a bigger house, the requests started to flood in, including from friends of my DH I had never met and relatives who had never had the time to visit us before then. Pretty soon it became clear all these new visitors just wanted a free place to stay and save hundreds on hotels. A few times we’ve had huge families stay in our basement for weeks. Look, I’m giving you a nice, clean place to stay for free, nice towels, access to laundry, a big yard for your kids, private entrance, private bath, big play area, etc. you can help yourself to any food in the fridge, and if people give me advance notice you will be home when we eat dinner I will make extra and we can all eat together.

But I cannot deal with people who just want to come to DC on a vacation to visit all the smithsonians and other free sites, park their car for free at my house, and stay for free at my house and then on top of everything expect ME for free to provide for all their meals? All of them. Really?

[Anonymous]

To the people who pay for everything- how long are these visits?

[Anonymous]

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

Interesting philosophy. So we both have families who make less then us. Everyone feels like we are the rich ones and expect us to pay. We now started to avoid all our relatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Interesting philosophy. So we both have families who make less then us. Everyone feels like we are the rich ones and expect us to pay. We now started to avoid all our relatives.

yeah, interesting.

My spouse and I both work UMC jobs and pay for childcare, grad school debt, a mortgage, high taxes and try to save for retirement and kids' college.

Our 70 yo parents are retired from middle class pension jobs, are frugal, have several rental properties and live in a low cost area.

On a net basis, the probably have more disposable income each year than us. And on an assets/savings level they absolutely have more money than us.

Luckily they are so cheap they hate vacations and hate eating out, unless someone else pays their way. So I guess all that's left is them vegging out at our house a week or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Interesting philosophy. So we both have families who make less then us. Everyone feels like we are the rich ones and expect us to pay. We now started to avoid all our relatives.

We stopped vacationing with one side of the family after getting stuck with $20/person admission tickets for everyone, 8 person dinners out, constant grocery shops 100% on our credit card AND NOT EVEN A THANK YOU or RECIPROCATION.
Same if they visit us or we visit them. It's embarrassing to both of us and aggravates both of us.

[Anonymous]

It depends on the scenario!

When my parents visit us we stock the fridge for them and pay for a few activities/meals out that we plan. They often will initiate other (more expensive) meals out and activities, which they often pay for. When we visit them, we pay for our travel, but they typically pay for just about everything once we are there...just bc they have tons more money and they like to pay for things. We would usually pay for a nice dinner out as a 'thank you'.

When we had our son baptized, we paid for everything for the godparents, including their travel. They don't have a ton of disposable income but mostly we felt it was the appropriate thing to do. This was not a vacation for them but a favor for us.

We recently visited good friends in Florida at their new home. We paid for our travel, stayed in their home, but we helped purchase some groceries bc we were there for a week. However, we split all meals and activities except for a few cheaper things that didn't really matter...like lunch at Chipotle. We discussed in advance how we'd handle the $.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Crazy opposite in my Asian Japanese culture. It is expected that the elders who are better off pay.

[Anonymous]

I agree that they sound odd. It’s not typical to have family fly in and then pay full fare at a membership club. In general, we pay more often but the visiting family does cover a meal or two out during their stay with us.

[Anonymous]

Where is the poster who will inevitably complain about reviving a 6 year old thread and comments that the OP should have figured things out by now?