One friend orders two cocktails. Another 'just wants to try' that £16 truffle arancini starter. But you stuck religiously to tap water. So when the waiter places the card reader on the table at the end of the night, you are facing a social minefield, writes Yasmin Rufo.
Even if you are sober enough to manage the mental arithmetic, you will be hard-pushed to overrule the jolly friend who shouts: 'let's just divide it equally!' That is the reality for Ella, a 23-year-old communications assistant from Leeds, who says she never suggests to her friends they all just pay for what they've ordered as 'it just feels awkward'.
“Only 4 in 10 adults feel comfortable talking about money with friends, research finds.”
Ella earns over £30,000 but some of her friends earn more and she finds it hard to say no if they want to go somewhere a bit fancy that she can't really afford. Instead she matches her order with theirs so she isn't left feeling short-changed. It is worse when it's a big ticket item like a holiday. Rather than tell her friends how she feels, she scrabbles around for extra money. 'I'm probably on the phone to my mother in secret asking to borrow that extra bit of cash,' she says.
Her reluctance to speak up reflects a wider trend. Research from the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) in 2025 found that only four in 10 adults feel comfortable talking to friends about money, with women significantly less likely to feel okay discussing finances with friends (39%) compared to men (50%).
Ella says money is almost never discussed within her friendship group. They have booked a four-night beach holiday costing around £680 each for flights and accommodation and they are using a bill-splitting app to log expenses before balancing everything at the end. 'We never really consider if something is affordable or not,' she says. 'We all pay the same, no matter your salary.'
But Laura Pomfret, chief executive of women's finance community Financielle, says speaking up early is the best way to tackle the problem. 'If you know you have a limit on what you can afford, say it at the beginning rather than sitting through the meal hoping someone else suggests paying separately,' she advises.
Chloe, 31, who runs a tech startup and earns around £80,000, says she and her friends are very open about salaries and what they can afford, partly because they have been through tough times together. 'We talk about money all the time - pay rises, investments, whether we can afford something.'