Comments on: How Do You Decide To Tip Or Not?

By: James

James — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:06:12 +0000

I must be quite tight because I always tip around 10% not the 15% or 20% mentioned by some people. The only time I tip more than that is if the person providing the service has been extra friendly and helpful.

By: Credit Karma, Career Advice and A Huge Island of Trash @ The Roundup

Credit Karma, Career Advice and A Huge Island of Trash @ The Roundup — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:51:23 +0000

[...] Two Dollars would like to know what criteria we use for tipping. I tip when the service is significant enough to merit a [...]

By: Praveen

Praveen — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:58:04 +0000

I do not tip more than 10-15% at casual/fine dining restaurants..I hate tipping at bars….

By: fitwallet

fitwallet — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:56:12 +0000

I consider myself a generous tipper. If I’m sitting down and being served, I tip 20% for normal service. If it’s above average or excellent, I may go as high as 25-30%. If service was below average, I tip 15%. If a server was rude or really screwed something up, then I’ll go lower.

Bars are tricky and I’m never sure how much to tip, but I try to leave a buck or two each round, depending on how many $1 bills I have.

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:35:48 +0000

If they give me better than average service, I’ll definitely give a tip!

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:18:35 +0000

I have pretty much the same criteria – if I get it myself, I don’t usually tip, but if I am served, I usually tip. I don’t usually like carrying around coins, so I often drop them in the cups that are for charity.

By: Angela

Angela — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:44:01 +0000

I only tip if a service is being provided. I wrote a blog on this myself. Too many tip jars out there and what they heck are people tipping coffee for when they waited in line to get it!

By: Rini

Rini — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:00:50 +0000

It’s definitely level of service to me. I’m not above refusing to tip at Olive Garden if I can’t even tell who my waiter/waitress is… But I’m not below leaving $5 in the tip jar at Coldstone Creamery if the staff is fun, friendly, and super-wonderfully-helpful, either.

I believe that a ~15% tip should be the standard for a sit-down restaurant in which you receive average service, and a 0% tip should be the standard when you serve yourself. But I also believe that the size of your tip can and should be adjusted – in both directions – to reflect the actual service you receive.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:08:29 +0000

I’ve got a bit of an inside view on this because I work for a restaurant company. There are actual government wage guidelines around whether a position is tipped or not. Servers (except in a few states like California) are paid an hourly tipped wage which is actually less than minimum wage. Their tips are expected to make up the difference (this is actually a law; if a server makes less than minimum wage after tips the company must pay the remainder to get them to minimum wage).

So I follow this same guideline and avoid any moral ambiguity introduced by all of those tip jars. We tip employees making tipped wages, so restaurant servers and bartenders, and we usually tip 20%. No, I don’t tip the guy at Moe’s who made my burrito or the ice cream shop kid.

One other note on the earlier comments. Your tip should be calculated on the pre-tax total, not after tax.

By: srwebber

srwebber — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:56:36 +0000

The ONLY time I never tip is if the experience is so horrible that I want to walk out mid-meal. I have a few horrific experiences, where I probably should have refused to pay or accept the meal – but let them walk over me. Once I was as Senor Frogs in Honolulu – I ordered bbq chicken meal that was supposed to have potatoes and corn as the sides. they bring me the mexican chicken platter complete with rice and beans. When my husband pointed out that the meal was not what I ordered – this was one bite into the chicken breast- they took the plate back to the kitchen. They then re-emerged with the same plate and chicken – the only difference was that they had dropped the chicken in bbq sauce and put it back on the plate. I could even see where the one bite had been taked out. they offered to bring me corn if I would like. What horrible service. I can’t believe I paid for the meal. I didn’t tip anything because a waiter should realize that a customer doesn’t want whatevers convienent – they want what they ordered and paid for. The restaurant was completely un-appologetic Worst Experience Ever!