In our weekly series, readers can email in with any financial dilemma and enter the Money Moral Maze.
Are your friends racking up big drinks tabs and then trying to split the bill equally, is your partner spending overspending on your joint account? No matter your dilemma, email in anonymously, and i‘s money and business team will do our best to answer.
This week’s dilemma can be found below – email us at money@inews.co.uk with yours.
The dilemma
Me and a group of six friends are planning and watching the Euros final between England and Spain on Sunday evening.
We wanted to watch the game in a pub for a better atmosphere, rather than in a flat, and so one of our group said they would book us some seats at a screening.
Little did I know that actually the screening charges £35 per head – albeit with some of your beers or drinks pre-paid for.
To be honest, if I’d known it’d be this much I wouldn’t have gone along with it, as I rarely drink anyway and £35 seems a lot for something I could watch for free at home.
At the same time, I appreciate it can be tough to book these things and you have to get in quickly to do so, which is no doubt what my friend was doing.
Should I still pay the £35?
Callum Mason, i Deputy Money Editor, responds
It sounds like your friend took the initiative and sorted out for a group of you to see the game, which can be helpful in a friendship group. You say you all wanted to watch out at a pub, and there is plenty of competition for spaces.
It is very common for pubs and other spaces showing the football to charge customers for big sports games – whether rightly so or not.
It’s likely your friend was worried if they got permission from everyone first, the spaces would have gone.
However, as you also say, this doesn’t sound like a good deal for you and is quite a lot to spend on something you can see for free.
If you really do not want to go, could a good compromise be to ask if anyone else wants your space in your place? That way your friend won’t miss out on the cash but you won’t have to pay.
I would imagine that given it is a Euros final, it should be quite easy to find someone willing to pay.
If that doesn’t work out, you could quite reasonably challenge your friend, especially if the £35 is unaffordable to you.
But you have to consider whether the argument that could ensue is worth risking, given it could damage the friendship.