When family visits who pays?

[Anonymous]

We pay when we invite them (though most offer/insist on many things) However those who invite themselves because we’re in a place they want to visit we don’t pick up much. Certainly we have food in the house and provide equipped guest space, but they’ll need to pay otherwise. We can’t finance everyone’s vacation!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We pay when we invite them (though most offer/insist on many things) However those who invite themselves because we’re in a place they want to visit we don’t pick up much. Certainly we have food in the house and provide equipped guest space, but they’ll need to pay otherwise. We can’t finance everyone’s vacation!

This. Hate in-laws who expect to use our house as a hotel. We were not put on earth to save them money.

[Anonymous]

Well, it depends.

It sounds like you are doing a lot of tourism on your visit and expect your relatives to pay for your entertainment. That’s very entitled and presumptuous.

If it was just visiting family for a meal, I’d expect the host to make arrangements and pay, but not a meal in a restaurant or a venue.

And if sharing a vacation home, split costs by use/ family size. Otherwise don’t expect to ever go again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It just depends on the family and their culture. My parents want to pay for everything and give us a little "mad money" before they leave. His parents expect him (us) to pay for everything. The solution is to only give what you can give without feeling bad about it.

This is very true. My MIL didn’t even have dinner when we drove over two hours from home to meet her at her Airbnb last year. We had to stop at a drive through on the way home because our kids were starving. It was bizarre but they had been arguing when we arrived so I think they just forgot about dinner.

[Anonymous]

The rule I always heard growing up is that when you visit someone, you should pay for several meals depending upon how long you are staying. My parents always bought groceries too. No one should show up at someone's home and expect a free ride. I also never expect people to pick up the tab when we go do an expensive outing. If we go to the movies etc, I expect to pay for my family.

[Anonymous]

We host, provide a place to stay, provide meals when we eat at home, and will pay for special touristy outings (tour, tickets to something, etc). For meals out, my extended family is very generous and everyone fights for the check. So one is typically a “thank you” meal for hosting them and the rest, we kind of rotate on who picks it up. We never go Dutch - someone always gets the full meal. We only have one sibling who couldn’t afford to buy a full meal for the group, and they always offer to cook a meal for everyone at our house.

It really helps that everyone in my family wants to contribute, wants to be generous and wants to be a good guest. It works smoothly that way. It would be really difficult if that wasn’t the ethos and some wanted to freeload.

[Anonymous]

It depends on who is visiting

[Anonymous]

To those of you who pay for lots of things when you're hosting, what if your guests have invited themselves?

An old friend of mine used to invite herself to stay with us for 3 to 4 days, because we lived in an area that appealed to tourists.

She would sometimes go Dutch (but not always) and mostly expected us to pay for meals out, etc.

She never paid for a thank you meal.

From then onwards I started saying we were busy or on vacation whenever she wanted to come and stay. She never stayed with us again. In fact, she simply tried her luck with a mutual friend who lives in a desirable area (for tourists).

[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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To those of you who pay for lots of things when you're hosting, what if your guests have invited themselves?

An old friend of mine used to invite herself to stay with us for 3 to 4 days, because we lived in an area that appealed to tourists.

She would sometimes go Dutch (but not always) and mostly expected us to pay for meals out, etc.

She never paid for a thank you meal.

From then onwards I started saying we were busy or on vacation whenever she wanted to come and stay. She never stayed with us again. In fact, she simply tried her luck with a mutual friend who lives in a desirable area (for tourists).

She sounds like a moocher. Those never get a second stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Growing up my family always had the philosophy that if someone travels to visit us, we pay for them if we go places. My parents explained it that we're the hosts and the visitors were our guests so we should pay. Also they had spent money on flying or driving to see us already so they didn't need to spend more on doing things.

Obviously if someone wanted to take us to dinner or something to say thank you for hosting, we were fine with that but on the whole our philosophy was "put your wallet away while you're here." DH and I feel the same way and try to treat relatives when they come to visit.

His family definitely doesn't do the same though and when we visit them they never offer to pay even though they're both in high earning jobs. I'm not ever going to make a big deal of it because it's not worth causing strife over a dinner bill, but I just wonder how common this is.

For example, last time we visited they took us somewhere where they have a membership. We had to pay the full rate for our family to get in and they never offered to even chip in. Even if we go get a coffee, they wouldn't offer to buy it, the expectation is we'd have two separate orders.

Is this common? Notplanning to do anything with the info other than know - like I said, not worth rocking the boat over some meals and activities. It just seems odd.

Your post barely makes sense.

The examples are terrible and don’t make any point.

If you are walking around and only you want a coffee yeah, pay for it. If you don’t want to go to an outing and pay your way, don’t go. It’s not like you paid their way.

And you kick it off by saying you were conditioned to always pay for everything when hosting.

The best guests- family or not: (a) only stay a few nights; (b) are tidy, gracious and bring a gift or take you out; and (c) if they start longer pay their way or start splitting bills, groceries, transportation, outings’ costs. Or do their own thing entirely, since now they’re functioning as roommates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The rule I always heard growing up is that when you visit someone, you should pay for several meals depending upon how long you are staying. My parents always bought groceries too. No one should show up at someone's home and expect a free ride. I also never expect people to pick up the tab when we go do an expensive outing. If we go to the movies etc, I expect to pay for my family.

+1

Eliminates the funny business and having anyone taken advantage of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Growing up my family always had the philosophy that if someone travels to visit us, we pay for them if we go places. My parents explained it that we're the hosts and the visitors were our guests so we should pay. Also they had spent money on flying or driving to see us already so they didn't need to spend more on doing things. Obviously if someone wanted to take us to dinner or something to say thank you for hosting, we were fine with that but on the whole our philosophy was "put your wallet away while you're here." DH and I feel the same way and try to treat relatives when they come to visit. His family definitely doesn't do the same though and when we visit them they never offer to pay even though they're both in high earning jobs. I'm not ever going to make a big deal of it because it's not worth causing strife over a dinner bill, but I just wonder how common this is. For example, last time we visited they took us somewhere where they have a membership. We had to pay the full rate for our family to get in and they never offered to even chip in. Even if we go get a coffee, they wouldn't offer to buy it, the expectation is we'd have two separate orders. Is this common? Notplanning to do anything with the info other than know - like I said, not worth rocking the boat over some meals and activities. It just seems odd.

we only pay if it's a weekend trip to visit us.
if they are staying longer, they pay - whether it's grandparents, parents, cousins, families, solos. we are not their cheap vacation. and if you want quality time with us, plan an actual vacation with us, don't live in our home while we go to work and school all day.

So true.

We have some chronic houseguesters-only family members who never take a vacation unless someone else puts them up or pays their daily fun and eating. And this sent of 70 yo parents has $10m in rental properties throwing off $200k of annual rent.
Yet they won’t tip, don’t do real gifts or presents, hate eating out yet when you schedule their Mother’s Day or bday dinner will eat three courses plus a bottle of wine, and won’t fly Friday-Sunday ever. It’s a sport to them to be cheap, frugal and get their adult children’s family to pay for them.

Our brothers are friends since our wedding and when my younger brother invited them to his wedding, my FIL’s first question was: who will we stay with?
As if the $130 block price was just too much.

[Anonymous]

To be clear their passive rental income is in their retirement and on top of 30 years of corporate job savings, benefits, and pension.

[Anonymous]

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

Our philosophy is whomever has the most net money pays.

So if one family is still staring at 2 retirements, 3 kids’ colleges, k-12 sports and expenses, 5 plane tickets only during school breaks and making $300k/year versus a 2 person household of retirees sitting on $3M+ of assets and $100k/year of dividends and SSA who travel on Wednesdays off season, let’s not be dense.