I loved the money and marriage episode for anyone looking to listen to this one again!
They do such a great job about addressing feelings around money and breaking stigmas around talking about money. I continue to be amazed by these hosts and how they discuss money.
I’m so behind!! It was my commute show. Maybe I’ll make it my stroller walk show.
For anyone still listening to this one, the most recent episode around tipping was really interesting.
They express a lot of similar emotions I have around tipping - for full service restaurants and haircuts/services I am a solid 20% tipper. But fast casual, pickup, and other various situations it is really muddy and can feel icky that the business is even asking for tips. For me tipping has always been in the vein of tipping for service not tipping to replace wages for the employees. Maybe I am wrong in that belief? IDK I really hate when there is someone staring at you with an iPad that was set to 30% tip for my cup off drip coffee and a bagel. And to go lower than 25% you have to manually enter it and then look cheap.
So many emotions around tipping. I would rather pay a couple bucks more and not deal with the emotional strangeness around tipping in most situations.
The hosts talk about how it can be a significant portion of your budget and how tipping is much more emotional than anything else.
Anyone else have thoughts?
I wish I thought of tipping as a way to thank someone for service but I have too many service industry friends so I know it does supplement their wages in a real way. A lot of the restaurants around us added an automatic 20% gratuity during the pandemic and kept it. I like that a lot. Still wish we paid these folks more so tipping wasn’t even necessary.
I feel this too. I think what makes tipping hard is I behave in a way that I don’t agree with (by tipping to sustain a person’s wages instead of paying them a living wage, baking the cost into the product or service, and then a tip is a bonus for above and beyond) which reinforces the culture. BUT if I didn’t tip I am not hurting anyone except the person who needs the money to supplement their lives because that is how their compensation is structured. Me not tipping will not change the system, but it will cause more harm to the people in my immediate community (the person giving the service).
So I behave in a way I disagree with because I know the cost benefit of the moment is not worth it. But I wish there was a real way to change it.
I have seen the automatic 20% gratuity and I love it. I hate it when this is the case AND there is also a tip line or screen when you get the receipt with the expectation to tip even more on top of it. LIKE NO. STOP. WHYYYYY.
I’m listening to this now! I definitely see tipping as paying wages, not as a bonus, since husband and I are both former service industry people. I see over-tipping as a bonus. So if I tip a waitress 30% I see 10% as a bonus and 20% as her core pay.
I too find tipping emotional too but in a great way, like I love tipping. I relate a lot to what Kiersten said about how gift giving is her love language and how she sees tipping as part of that. I relate a lot to Julien too, about how he was saying tipping changes when you’re a service person to a service person- like when I worked in that industry it was tip only and usually no check at all. So in that case the tip is way higher because you aren’t actually being charged for anything else, but that’s a very industry thing.
For drinks I tip $2 a drink. For takeout delivery I tip $8. For grocery delivery (rare) I tip $10-$15. For hotel people it depends, like a bellhop I’d do like $5. For maids I do more, I think like $10-$20 a day. When I’ll be in a scenario where I’m not sure the going rate I look it up because I don’t want to become one of those people who is using outdated numbers. I also tip the woman who cleans our apartment building. I do it annually before the holidays, this year was $100. She works her ass off.
I love tipping for a few reasons:
Tipping is one of my favorite ways to spend money because I know for a fact I’m giving money to someone really hard working. I look at above and beyond tipping as almost an extension of charity. Standard tipping is just paying wages, but the way I tip a lot goes beyond that so it’s like, me doing my part as a super fortunate person.
I just always thought, when I was struggling so hard and working service, “if all these rich people who can clearly afford it because look at what they’re spending just tipped well I wouldn’t be struggling.” For me it’s an easy way to directly impact my community and actively do something about income disparity.
And I’m kind of conflicted with the argument that we should move people to hourly wages. The main reason I went into a tipping job was because I could make way more at that than at an hourly job, like retail. I don’t have a problem with tipping culture at all, actually. I think it makes a lot of sense. So many other jobs get bonuses, commission, etc. The only difference with tipping is the consumer pays it, and I think that’s why a lot of people don’t like it.
I made a lot more at tipping jobs than at any hourly job I ever worked (excluding those with commission structures). I also found it empowering because I had more impact over my income at those jobs. If I sold higher priced items I made more in tips. If I waited more tables on one night I got paid more, if it was a slower night I got paid less. In retail you’re running just as wild but It’s like $12 no matter what. If you sell $3k in clothes you still get $12 an hour. If you sell nothing you still get $12 an hour. At least in restaurants if you’re running your ass off you know you’re walking out with a couple hundred+ dollars. Plus there’s the under the table aspect that no one wants to talk about, lol. Tips are usually cash.
ETA: Oh I do think service workers should get PTO, benefits, etc. tho. I think major reform in that area is needed.
I totally agree. It’s frustrating! I try to remember that I’m thankful I have the ability to tip.
I do really love being a “high roller” in this area lol. Plunking down a large bill and saying keep the change—look ma, I made it!
I might find this part irritating instead of empowering because I never worked service jobs where tips had that much impact, and my sister did. So we worked the same number of hour, and I served more customers than she did, but because I worked at a deli and she was a waitress at a fancy restaurant I made an extra $1/hour in tips and she made like $200/ night. One summer I did a research internship and made $9k and she worked the busiest 3 weeks of the summer season at the restaurant and made $12k. I think service jobs should make way more money, but it bugs me that working at a fancy restaurant nets you soooooo much more than other jobs that are the same amount of work.
Husband just got a huge bonus and raise and is in line for a promotion in 6 months. Last night we were looking back on our lives and talking about our favorite things about being rich. His #1 was paying a restaurant bill without looking at it and then tipping really well. 
I knew it too because I can see this flicker in him when he just hands the card over without looking. Like it feels so good. We had a lot of fun doing a sort of retrospective of “can you believe we made it?!”
I remember when I wanted to get a drink or meal out and couldn’t because I knew I didn’t have enough to tip well and now I can walk into any place and know I can give that person maybe their biggest tip that night. Or like, tipping extra big during the holidays. It truly does feel like a rich person thing!!
I get what you’re saying but I would argue that the work isn’t totally the same, and also that this same structure is true across the board in other industries. Like, if you work at Target, which sells clothes, you make less than if you work at Nordstrom. If you’re a software dev at a tiny company vs a major company I think the pay would also be different. Even different regions value the same job differently.
At higher end restaurants the level of service you provide is different because customer expectations are way higher. You have to know where ingredients came from, and you have to act a certain way. When I worked in greasy spoons you didn’t even have to be nice or make eye contact, haha. But at higher paying places you have to wear a uniform and joke around with people and offer wine recommendations, etc. There is 100% a class (and appearance) advantage/element to it, but I think a better route would be to offer training to people (somehow for free) to help them level-up in the service industry and teach them how to serve higher end places. I think it’s really hard to offer high end service if you’ve never been in a high end restaurant. And most places like that don’t want to train people on things like how to clear plates elegantly or open a bottle the “right” way, etc.
I think the industry stuff that bothered me most was the lack of PTO, benefits, and not having any HR.
I always forget I’m supposed to tip the hotel folks if we have them turn over the room (eta: we go to a hotel maybe once every two years?). It isn’t a decision, I just clear forgot for both the hotels we stayed at during our last trip. (mitigating factor for the first one, NZ doesn’t have tipping culture? idk what that does for the hotel industry) And in Vancouver, we just didn’t have any cash. We would have needed to go find an ATM if we had remembered to do it.
At one point my massage therapist’s machine asked for a tip. That felt odd, but I get that it’s a weird place for some folks between personal service and medical? The place I’m going to now does not.
NZ not having a tipping culture is so easy, you just tap and go. And you aren’t having to calculate anything (since tax AND tip are both in the price shown on the menu). Hair stylists, I am never sure if I was tipping appropriately or not.
What do people think about tipping mail carriers? (I don’t tip them!)
I wanted to give ours a gift last holiday season but I was reading the USPS rules around that and I couldn’t figure out what to get her—maybe some kind of Starbucks or Dunkin card? Tough
We get so little mail, I have no relationship with them, it seems distinctly odd. I’m not sure if this is big city thinking, Canada thinking, or obliviousness.
Ugh yeah, no cash or gift cards allowed.
Hah, I agree! I’m also a city person so maybe that’s why. I have no idea what my mail carrier even looks like, but I did in my last city and we were weirdly friendly- I still didn’t tip him. It seemed strange to me to tip someone who was (at the time) making more money than I was, and had benefits, a 401(k), etc., while I didn’t. But maybe this is unfair on my part. It feels the same as tipping someone who works at the DMV (department of motor vehicles), which I also wouldn’t do.
But I’m open to being convinced in the other direction!
We gift our mail person cash despite the rule. We just leave it inside a card so it’s not visibly in violation lol. I feel like we get enough packages delivered that it’s well deserved so 
Also they have that policy but then they also have official usps Thank You cards for tips that he always leaves us in return! It’s so confusing.
Hahaha no way!! Sometimes I am a rule follower to my own detriment