Who Pays For What

[manealca]

going on holiday with my daughter ,son in law & 2 year old granddaughter, we are renting a cottage and hiring a car and I say I should pay a third of the total cost but my son in law says I should pay half. Who is right please.

[jno]

a quarter - it's up to your daughter and her husband to pay for their child, not you.

[Peter Pedant]

family quarrel..... I should keep away

usually it is the girls who go for renegotiation after the fact....

pay half and dont go on holiday with them again.

[zebo]

Decide not to go, let them pay the lot, and have no free baby sitter.

[jakep]

IMO you should pay a third. There are three adults in the party and that is how it should be divided.
You must get on well as you are holidaying together so I hope this does not spoil it.

[jakep]

Though I now think zebo for best answer!

[chrissa1]

When my children were young, we went to Aviemore for New Year at a hotel. We invited my parents to join us and because we could afford it at the time, we paid for their accommodation.
If we couldn't' have afforded it, we wouldn't have asked them.

Can both parties afford this holiday? If you can't, maneaica, don't go.

[maggiebee]

Don't get me started...........daughter and I hired a luxury holiday home last year in the north of Scotland. We paid half each but when I thought about it later I think I was "done". Daughter brought my two grandsons (naturally), one grandson brought a friend and son-in-law turned up for 4 days of the week.

[UKSWF]

I have to agree with Zebo, you will end up becoming a babysitter and paying for the privilege.

[boxtops]

whose idea was is that you should all holiday together? If it was their's then certainly they should only expect you to pay a third (i.e. your percentage). I'd have thrashed this out before you booked! How can they justify asking you for half of the cost, when there is one of you and three of them?

[rockyracoon]

A third is fair IMO, there's 3 of them and 1 of you so I'd be curious as to how he worked out that half was okay. But as jno says, a quarter would be more correct if you wanted to get down to the nitty gritty.

Although after I've typed all that, I'm thinking he's basing the cost of the holiday on amount of bedrooms and how much room you'll all take up, you will presumable have one room whilst the others will share one room. Half would be right in that case, if you were in a hotel and had to book two rooms presumably you'd pay for yours, and they'd pay for theirs.

[gingejbee]

This sounds like it's going to be a fun holiday....disagreements before it's even booked.... (I'd pay one third, or not go)

[EcclesCake]

There is no right or wrong answer as it depends how you cut the cake.

My gut instinct is to go for a 1/3 but I can also see the argument for 1/2 as if it is a 2 bed cottage it has been divided equally from an accomodation perspective.

Can they afford to pay 2/3, can you afford to pay half?

Ultimately it may seem unfair but if you can afford it I'd not rock the boat too much as the fall out might be more costly, emotionally, in the long run.

[crisper]

I'm sorry Manealca.. I cant tell you who's right or wrong in this situation.. but in a few weeks were taking mum in law away for a few days.. wev'e paid for the accomodation and train fares.. for us two and MIL... we were going anyway..and invited her along.... we don't want her to pay towards the accom..or train fare.. our 'treat' so to speak...she's offered to treat us to a couple of meals, and to pay for us to get into a few places of interest as her cotribution! Could you suggest something like that to you son in law ? Hope you have a nice time what ever happens !! Mrs C x

[jake-the-peg]

In my experience of this site questions of the form:

I am in dispute with x: they say A I say B who is right?

Are almost never actually looking for an answer to the question but rather for people to validate position and tell them that they are totally right and not to give in to the other p[erson who's totally wrong.

So on that basis manealca - you're completely in the right

[Maydup]

It very much depends on who initiated the joint holiday. If you were invited to join them you should pay nothing. If you decided to find a 2 bed place when they would have managed with a one bed, you're advised to go halves.

[spudqueen]

When our children were small we used to rent a holiday cottage for a week with my in-laws. That made 4 adults and 2 children, but the in-laws always paid half. I think that they knew we would have struggled to have a holiday without their contribution. My mother-in-law would also do things like ring up and say that they know we aren't going to have much room in our car, so if I tell her what size nappies I need for the youngest she'll bring them with her. Which was of course her way of helping us out even more by buying the nappies! I really appreciated those holidays, and now my mother-in-law says that those are amongst her favourite memories, of spending a whole week with her grandsons, playing in the sand with them etc.

[zebo]

Actually Spudqueen, in case anyone thinks I'm a nasty piece of work based on my earlier reply, that's exactly what we did with our daughter, and family, though they argued we shouldn't even pay half! In the end, we didn't go, house move occurred, so they got it to themselves.

[Jennykenny]

Can I comment on this as having been at different times, part of a couple and, a single on holiday.
As part of a couple I, without thinking, expected single friends to take alternative turns at paying for meals. Then I went on holiday with a couple and found myself paying for three people every second meal.
Please folks, think about it.