The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: Holiday tipping etiquette

Today, I’m talking about how and how much to tip for the holidays. 

If you missed yesterday’s episode on who to tip, go back to that episode so you can first make a list of everyone on your nice list this year who you want to express your gratitude to. 

Once you have that list, a good next step is to make an overall budget and write it out so you can plan your tip spending and make sure it isn’t going to cause you to go into debt come January or otherwise cause a financial hardship for you. As I mentioned earlier this week, you should only tip for the holidays to show your generosity - not because you feel guilty or obligated to. 

With that said, I did some research online to figure out how much to tip for each service provider, and it can vary quite a bit. So just keep in mind that a good option to default to if you’re confused about how much to tip in a given situation is to default to the tip amount equaling one service session or if you’re on a tighter budget, a fixed dollar amount, like $10, $20 or $25 works too. 

So if you pay your landscaper every week for services, a good and generous guideline would be to pay them a tip of whatever you would normally pay them in a given week. Same goes for your hair stylist, your dog walker, or house cleaner. 

If you have a caregiver for your mom or a nanny for your kids like I do, then the tip amount usually increases in line with how involved they are with you and your family. Our nanny comes to our home twice a week and has the huge responsibility of caring for my kids, so her tip will be substantially more than what I would tip the pet groomer. 

Generally for these caregivers, a tip of a week’s worth of services is suggested. 

So make your list, set your budget, then decide an appropriate amount to tip each of those people in your life who makes life easier or makes your hair look it’s best or fits you into their schedule in a pinch. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.    

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance