How much do you tip?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Wow according to Emily Post- I really over tip.
Its conditioning left over from when I was in cosmetology school and all the blue haired ladies from Medina would tip $0.20 after fussing with their roller set for hours ( inc backcombing *just so * )- when they drive up in a Bentley- you see the irony.</p>

<p>No to mention my equally cheap grandma could afford to take me out to lunch at the time- but left an embarrasingly small tip so I would always make some excuse and go back to add more.</p>

<p><a href=“http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/238532_tipping30.html[/url]”>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/238532_tipping30.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>But I leave about $5 a day when we stay in a hotel- even when I tell them we don’t need service until we leave. ( and we don’t stay where it costs over $100 a night)</p>

<p>I also tip 20% in restaurants- no matter what kind of food it is- even at hamburger joints I put money in the cup.
I am getting better at not tipping so much when I order coffee or tea. It is a little extravagant to tip $1 when the drink is $2.75
Hard habit to break though</p>

2

<p>I am one of those people who doesn’t always know when to tip. I didn’t know you were supposed to tip in a hotel. Do you just leave it in the room? (We rarely stay in hotels, so I haven’t thought about it much.) I’m sure there are other places I am supposed to tip and don’t, just due to not knowing. I remember when I was a young adult, I stayed one night in a hotel once. A porter offered to carry my heavy suitcase to my room, but I did it myself just because I had the idea that I was probably supposed to tip him, but had no idea how much. We didn’t go out much when I was a kid, so I was never taught this stuff!</p>

<p>I DO tip in restaurants. Even I know that! I usually tip 15-20%.</p>

3

<p>There are many websites with tipping guidelines; here’s one-
<a href=“http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/tipping/[/url]”>http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/tipping/&lt;/a&gt;
DH and I both waited tables in college and usually tip generously; that extra few dollars probably means a lot more to your server than it does to you.</p>

4

<p>I usually leave 18 percent in a restaurant when the service is good, 20 percent or more when the service is exceptional, and exactly 15 percent when the service is perfunctory (or worse). I’ve only had truly awful service a handful of times - like twice - and just couldn’t bring myself to leave no tip, though it would have been completely justified. Foolish, I know, but it felt like committing an egregious social gaffe to walk out without leaving a tip. I’ve never been a waitress, but I feel a kinship with them after so many years of serving a difficult clientele. </p>

<p>My parents always left a tip for the hotel housekeeper, so I do the same. $5 per day seems right to me unless you’re staying in a 5-star palace, which we never do! We always seem to get enough towels and extras of those little toiletries, however.</p>

5

<p>I always agonize over what to leave when the service bad. What I really want to leave is a note with some “tips” on providing better service. (Mt father actually did this once; his tip was “Value your customers’ time.”)</p>

<p>I think it is appropriate to leave a dollar tip for a cup of coffee. Your waitperson has hopefully been keeping your cup filled and making sure ther’s nothing else you need. You have been tying up her table so no one who might order a full meal can sit there.</p>

6

<p>15-20 percent for restaurants, a little more if it’s downright spectacular, 10 percent if the service is sub-par, 37 cents or a like amount if the service is actively atrocious…I don’t want them to think that I just forgot to tip and leave nothing. Hotels, $5/room/day to $10/room/day, the latter being in places like NYC. Mmph. Memory says I may have left $20 sometimes in the latter.</p>

7

<p>1moremom- re: the coffee don’t forget I am in Seattle- I don’t drink coffee from a pot- I was talking about the $2.75 I spend on a drink from an espresso cart. :slight_smile:
If I was at a restaurant, I would tip more, but I am more likely to get coffee at a drive/walk through- </p>

<p>Every winter we stay for a week at a family run place that we have been going to for 18 years. I know that you aren’t supposed to tip the owners- but since it is holiday time, we usually bring a few bottles to serve at Christmas dinner or maybe some Cougar gold cheese to serve beforehand.</p>

8

<p>I will tip at between 15%-20% depending on the service and how close the bill is to the next highest amount in $10 increments :slight_smile: I tend to tip a lot more at places where the food is cheap, because these people would need the money a lot more than at a fancy restaurant. Why should someone who brings me a $5 burger only get one dollar when someone who brings me a $50 burger get ten bucks? They did the exact same amount of work. So I would be more inclined to give each person five bucks in this situation. No kidding. 100% tip vs. a 10% tip. I don’t eat at fancy places that much though.</p>

9

<p>I tip 20% if service has been what it should be – less on the rare occasions when it is not. </p>

<p>When my kids were small, I would often “overtip” when they were with us at restaurants, as the price of their meals was not commensurate with the extra service we often got. The kids left more of a mess on the table, as well. So we tipped generously when dining out with wee ones.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I do NOT tip at self-bussed coffee, bagel or pizza places. </p>

<p>When I am paying by credit card (which I do when I can for the points and convenience) I usually add the tip to the credit card bill. But I often wonder how that works for the staff. Can someone who has been a server tell me if this is a problem for waitstaff? </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

10

<p>Always 20%…</p>

11

<p>We overtipped a bit recently in China and Hong Kong. Service fees are built in, kind of like the 15% six to a table thing. About a buck a bag for our porters however, and our guides/interpreters were given nice tips for their excellent service.</p>

12

<p>I’m exactly with thedad on restaurant tipping, although I often forget to leave anything for hotel maids. The only exception is when they do something proactive to make me remember them, and then it’s usually $5/day. For most of my young adult-early middle age life I was strictly a 15% tipper, and would exclude bottles of wine from the calculation since I was already paying a 300% markup on that (typical Republican, I know.) Having become mellower with age, I don’t worry about that any more. The extra $10-15 means a lot more to the wait staff than it does to me, even if the wine prices are a rip, and I just don’t need people wishing bad Karma on me.</p>

<p>Two years ago, we stayed at the Lenox Hotel in Boston over New Years weekend. We arrived late, exhausted, and the particular helpfullness and courtesy of a senior bellman prompted my H to give him two twenties despite our only having two average bags. That guy became our personal advocate in the hotel for the next three days, immediately getting us changed to a different room so we could see the fireworks and parade (something we hadn’t even considered), looking after our kids when they were roaming the lobby, and ensuring that we got into the restaurant even when we showed up at the last minute without a res, and many other favors. Talk about feeling connected. We later agreed that we got a lot of bang for our $40, and were reminded that TIPS is really an acronym for To Insure Prompt Service, meaning that in certain circumstances, your money will be much better invested if you tip ahead of time, rather than after the fact.</p>

13

<p>Does any one tip their for hair cuts? I was reading the article linked here and it says 10-20%</p>

<p>What about when the “tipee” is the owner, I have always been told not to tip the owner?? A friend of mine used to own a sandwich shop, in it’s early days it was not yet profitable and he worked the counter along with the girls, but he never shared the tips, even though if he were not there, a paid employee would have been there and the tips would have been divided for the three people, whereas if he worked, the same amount was divided by two people.</p>

14

<p>I confess that I was well into middle age before I was nudged into leaving tips at hotel rooms. Just had never heard of it before. Now, when traveling with D, I give her money to leave on the bed in the morning. Particularly in resort/tourist areas…I absorbed some of NICKLED AND DIMED just through the ether without having actually read it.</p>

<p>I do tip for haircuts but am probably considered “cheap.” On one hand, the woman comes to my house to cut our hair…otoh, she’s the “boss”/entrepreneuer. And, yes, it sounds horribly decadent, but we met her first when she was doing children’s cuts at The Yellow Balloon, a local chain, and it was a really grueling, noisy place to work. Over the years she moved from salon to salon…at least five by my count…before going into business for herself in a way that gave her a flexible schedule while she started going to community college and pursuing a counseling degree. In her own way, she’s a remarkable success story of someone who totally blew college and responsibility off when she was young and is making up for it in middle age.</p>

15

<p>20% at restaurants – the math is easier. A buck a bag for bellhop service at hotels. A few dollars a day for housekeeping. Usually a few dollars for a haircut – there’s so little left that I usually have to get back up almost as soon as I sit down. I rarely put money in the tip jars at fast food places. At bars, I usually leave a heft tip at the first round, and make sure the bartender sees it, then I feel comfortable just leaving small change for awhile.</p>

16

<p>20% in restaurants is my standard. 15% if there was some sort of deficiency in the service. 10% if it was really horrible.</p>

<p>Hotels: $1 per bag for the bellhop. A couple of dollars a day for the housekeeper (I leave it with a note saying “thank you housekeeping”. If they do something special for me, like oragami toilet paper or making flowers out of my towels, I tip more. </p>

<p>Taxis: I tip about 15% for good service (a little more if I’m late for a meeting in NYC and I expect him to “get me there in time!”). Of course, there are also the drivers who tell me they’ll reduce my stress by singing to me or making rhymes out of everything I say. They get more for the entertainment factor ;)</p>

<p>If I’m in a very poor country where the staff is paid very, very little, I tip much more. Example: Dominican Republic </p>

<p>Haircuts: I don’t get my hair professionally done. But, son tips for his haircuts (I think 20%), which gets him priority in the chair. I know many guys who give elaborate tips to their barbers because they want to be taken without delay on future visits. This seems to work well for them. </p>

<p>I have a fledgling business that involves villa rentals and yacht charters (I need a website built if anyone is so inclined to give me a good deal), so here is my tipping strategy for those when I am fortunate enough to combine a little business with pleasure:</p>

<p>Villa/Vacation Home rental: depending on the size and cost of the villa, I tip for the housekeeper who normally comes once a week + usually around $50, but this is for an entire home to be cleaned. I also tip the “greeter” who picks us up from the airport, dock or whatever and escorts us to the villa (amount depends on the extent of his/her services).</p>

<p>Yacht Charters w/captain and crew: 15-20% of the cost of the charter, always handed to the captain with instructions to distribute to the crew (this is standard charter practice, fyi). If a crew member was especially helpful, I ask that they recieve more than an equal distribution.</p>

17

<p>When paying with plastic, a cash tip is always appreciated.</p>

18

<p>EK my son used to work a Ladro in Seattle, if you ever tipped him thanks. I tip according to service, frequently 20% sometimes more, sometimes less, 15% works for me if the meal is at the counter or if you rarely see the server.</p>

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