Holiday Tipping

A few weeks ago, I wrote about holiday spending and how to ensure you don’t have regrets once the bills start rolling in. For those who were so gracious as to read what I had to say, you’ll remember that having a spending plan is crucial to keeping that Christmas cheer going well into the New Year. To be completely successful, your holiday spending budget needs to not only take into account gifts, but also all the other aspects of the holiday season, such as food and drink associated with the season’s parties and special dinners, greeting cards, decorations, and one part of the season I didn’t mention in the post – holiday tipping.

Ahhhh, yes, tipping. To some it brings an aching to the stomach, akin to having just eaten a pound of chocolate delights. Who exactly should I tip during the holidays? And if I should tip, how much should I tip? It’s enough to make you want to crawl in a hole to avoid the tipping situation altogether.

I tend to fall into that “find me a hole” category. Confession time – I’m a frugal guy who likes to keep hold of his money. That doesn’t mean that I don’t spend on people I care about, but I do think tipping can get out of hand. If you live a certain lifestyle, where you have a lot of individuals providing you services throughout the year, Christmas tipping can get extremely expensive. The flip side of that, I guess, is that if you can afford a lot of services, then you can easily afford to tip them come the holidays.

I, however, don’t use a lot of services, so my tipping is fairly limited. There is one service I do use on a regular basis. I’ve used the same barber for a number of years. His haircuts are outstanding and he’s an entertaining guy to talk to during that twenty minutes or so each month. He gets a holiday tip. How much? Well, many years back I wasn’t sure, so I looked for help and luckily found for that type of service, the cost of a regular cut is appropriate for a holiday tip. Fair enough, tipping done.

While getting that info for tipping my barber, I came across tipping guidelines for a number of other service providers. It was interesting to see the how many were included in these guideline lists and how much the lists recommended for tipping. Out of curiosity, I check a number of sources annually to make sure I’m not being cheap when it comes to my barber and to see if the guidelines have changed since the last holiday season. Usually, things are pretty much the same year to year.

I do find some of the service providers included in the lists interesting, though. Which brings to mind the bigger question I have about tipping: When is getting paid to do your job enough and when should a person be tipped in addition to what they’re paid? To illustrate this point, I read a while back a comparison that makes you really think about the act of tipping. When checking baggage at an airport, you usually have the option of using the skycaps at the curbside, or going into the airport and using the airline’s agents. It is customary, if you use the skycaps, to tip them for checking your bags – usually a couple dollars per bag. But, if you go into the airport and use the agents at the airline check-in counter, you would never consider giving them a tip. Both do the exact same thing, check you in for your flight, put routing tags on your bag and get it on its way. The only difference, one is outside and the other is a hundred yards further through the sliding glass doors.

Okay, I diverged from my focus of holiday tipping there for a moment. With the airport example in mind, though, here are a few professions I find interesting from the usual holiday tipping guides.

The garbage collector. Yes, they have a very dirty and physical job, but why do they warrant a holiday tip when they’re getting paid to do that job? How do I even know the same guy picks up my garbage every week? To me, it’s just a truck with a big claw-like appendage that grabs the garbage can and dumps the contents into the truck. Needless to say, while I’ve considered tipping them because of the guides I’ve read, I never have.

Teacher. I guess this one is justified on the basis of this person spending so much time with your child. While teachers do provide a valuable service, and their jobs can be extremely difficult, especially when little Johnny is not behaving as he should, aren’t they getting paid, and in some cases extremely well, for that job? I’ve always wondered if teacher gift giving is more of a bribe to make little Janie not seem as bad as she really is?

Mail carrier. Similar to the garbage collector, carrying the mail in all kinds of conditions, and braving the wild animals – and sometimes people – that they may encounter, makes this a not so glamorous occupation. But why do they merit a holiday tip? An interesting side note on mail carrier tipping, I remember my grandfather giving the mailman (and that’s who it was, a man, so I’m not being politically incorrect there) a bottle of booze as his Christmas tip (gift). Now that is quite some tip. I sure bet that guy had a Merry Christmas!

I’m not alone on my questioning of holiday tipping for certain service providers. Last December, Consumer Reports put out an article entitled How Much Should You Tip This Holiday Season? in which it lists a number of service occupations, and the percentage of people that give money as a tip, a gift as a tip or nothing at all to each of those occupations. Check it out and see where you fall. As a teaser, 90% of people give nothing to the garbage collector, 79% give nothing to the mail carrier and 53% give nothing to their child’s teacher.

Holiday tipping is a difficult maze to maneuver. Because of this, I thought I’d leave you with an etiquette expert’s view of holiday tipping. Who better than Emily Post to help us navigate those treacherous tipping waters? Not only does her site provide a tipping guide, but it also provides a list of things to consider when deciding whom, and how much, to tip this holiday season. You can read her thoughts here.

The article is filled with very good information, but I especially like her very first suggestion, which is to keep your budget in mind when considering tips. Which brings me back to my recommendation of having a spending plan, which is appropriate for your personal financial situation, in place that takes into consideration all of your holiday spending. Tips included. Doing so will make for a holiday season not only filled with the joy of giving, but also filled with peace of mind, knowing that your financial house will still be in order when the new year finally arrives.

image courtesy of nuchylee/freedigitalphotos.net