Who pays for birthday dinners?

I feel there is a subtle difference in nomenclature: If someone invites you to a birthday party they are making for themselves or another, then they should pay. If they say, “Do you want to come out to celebrate my birthday?” then I would assume that each person pays. I do agree with you, however, that there is an age factor and that younger people probably just pay for themselves or chip in for the birthday person.

It’s part of whoever organizes the dinner party to either say they’ll pay or that it will be dutch treat with everyone pitching in for the birthday person.

If I don’t go, I expect to pay my part, unless I am told differently beforehand.

When you can’t afford to treat your guests out, you make an affordable meal at home.

What if you suck at cooking? haha Potluck party. My opinion still stands.

I’ve never been to a birthday dinner where the person whose birthday we were celebrating paid for everyone or even themselves (even when they asked us to go out to celebrate with them). It’s always been that one of us or all of us attending paid for the birthday person’s dinner.

Like I replied in your other question :P Depends where you live and how you want to do things. You can always change how things are done and when you have some money do a party [ Swedish buffet with some drinks]. Eventually people will like the idea and you might get invited to others too.

If we do it at home or at some restaurant somewhere we [the hosts] pay even if it’s out birthday. Some don’t like it but they see they are a total success so they enter in the game too.

@chelle21689 and remember you can always make great food without being a good cook. Lasagna is a good example. There are a lot more or even easier recipes.

I’ve never thrown my own birthday party. Usually someone lives me enough to throw one for me.

I don’t see why we can’t ask each person to pay.

If it’s a group of our own peers, everyone usually pitches in for the birthday…erm, person.

If we’re invited out by their parents, the parents usually pay.

I’ve only been to one birthday party where the meal was paid for by the host, but the host wasn’t the birthday celebrator, it was a friend of hers. Usually, on someone’s birthday, if we we take them out for dinner, we pay for our own meals and chip in for the birthday person’s dinner. In the case of the dinner that was paid for, the person wanted to throw her friend a big bash. I think many few people would have come if they had to pay for their own dinner. I would have been financial burden for some of the birthday some of the friends so the host decided to pay for it all. It was fun and no one had to decline celebrating our friends birthday because we couldn’t afford it. So it was really more of a practical thing and an act of generosity on the part of the host for her friend rather than an issue of etiquette.