Owen hosted a few friends who came to visit Boston. To make things easier he paid for everything up front for their trip and then sent them an itemized bill when they returned home. His friends were under the impression that he was going to pay for everything and are now shocked that he sent them a bill. Do you think they are justified in being surprised by the bill? Or are they bad friends for expecting Owen to pay for everything?
Jonathan: And today, for panic button, we have Owen. Your problem is people are “owin’” your money. I get that.
Owen: You know what? I actually haven’t heard that. That’s a good one. So I had some friends visit. And, you know, we had a great time. They’re from out of town, and they flew in from Ohio.
Jonathan: Mm hmm.
Owen: I was happy to host them. I was driving them all around everywhere. I had them at my house. I just wanted to be a good ambassador in Boston for them and show them a good time. So as we’re going around, I’m paying for everything, for all the restaurants, parking, the tourist stuff. And I just said I’ll take care of it and we’ll figure it out later. And so later comes and I’m figuring it out. I made an itemized list so that I could see exactly what I spent on parking receipts, the gas, the food. We went to some really nice restaurants, the aquarium, all kinds of stuff. I showed him exactly what it was, sent that to them and said, Here’s my Venmo, just pay me whenever you can..
Ayla: When they had already gone back home?
Owen: Yeah. They had flown home. I didn’t want to interrupt any of our hanging out time with this kind of stuff.
Ayla: With a bill? .
Owen: Exactly. I just thought it’d be easier if one person did it, and then we all split it up later.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Owen: So that’s exactly what I did. And they get home and I was really reasonable about it. I just said, pay me when you can. And they threw an absolute fit. They, for some reason, thought I meant I was paying for it when I said, I’ll handle it now, we’ll figure it out later. They thought that was I’m paying for all this. Not I’ll figure it out later.
Jonathan: Later? Like, you know, in the afterlife where you’re old. Yeah, I’ll get extra karma coming towards me because I’d be such a nice person.
Ayla: I know there’s not really a direct flight from Ohio. They probably spent all day traveling just to visit you, right?
Jonathan: There are direct flights from Ohio. Where are they from? Cleveland.
Owen: They’re from Cleveland.
Jonathan: There are direct flights from Boston to Cleveland.
Owen: Regardless, I agree with you hey flew in. I appreciate that very much. But I mean, I can’t pay for a few friends full weekend. You know, that’s a lot of money. It feels crazy that they even assumed I would. I could get a couple things maybe. But the fact that they are mad at me for asking for money back? I think that’s a pretty reasonable request.
Jonathan: Right? I think at a certain point you need to start charging interest.
Ayla: No. He said whenever you get to it.
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s what my bank tells me to do. Well, whenever you can pay this, of course, if you miss it, then there’s a bunch of penalties and interest. So you don’t think what you did was unreasonable? I mean, did you split it evenly or did you pay still pay more than then?
Ayla: Sounds like he paid for everything and then just split it.
Jonathan: On the itemized bill, did you split everything down the middle or did you still end up paying more?
Owen: I actually covered a couple rounds of drinks, which I thought was really nice.
Ayla: Oh, generous on your own.
Jonathan: I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. I think this is a perfectly fine thing to do. Especially if you kept saying, well, we’ll deal with it later.
Ayla: But did you invite them over? Like, Hey, come visit me any time. I’m sure you did. I’m just trying to pull the emotional part out of this that they probably were like, Wow, we spent 900, a thousand bucks.
Jonathan: And I get it. They live in a much cheaper place to live in Ohio in Cleveland. And then they get a message in Ohio and going hey, how about you freeloaders pony up some money cuz I ferried you all around Boston.
