Holiday Tipping Guide For 2022-2023

The holiday season is an amazing opportunity to show gratitude to all of the important people in your life. We’re all spending more time with family and friends, putting effort into finding the perfect gifts, and donating more to the causes we care about. The holidays are also a great time to bump up your tipping to the people who provide services that you depend on every day — your babysitter, your housekeeper, the server at your favorite restaurant. Including their tips in your holiday plans can be an easy way to show your appreciation for all they do throughout the year. 

But just like with buying gifts, tipping can be complicated. Who do you tip? How much do you give for different services? Is it better to tip through cash, card, or even Venmo? And, yes, we’re closing out a year that has had record-high inflation. Which means that tipping is more important than ever, yet also harder than ever to fit into our budgets. We all want to be as generous as we can — even during tough times — which is why in this episode we’re talking with Barbara Sloan about ways we can all make our tips more thoughtful, more intentional, and more effective. Barbara spent two decades working in the service industry as a server, a bartender, and a stripper. During that time, she found that there were not enough resources to help tipped workers manage their money for their specific situation. That inspired her to become a personal finance coach and found her own company, Tipped Finance. It also inspired her to write a book for people working in the service industry on how to save money and build wealth. Her book is called: “Tipped: The life changing guide to financial freedom for waitresses, bartenders, strippers, and all other service industry professionals.” 

Listen in as Barbara shares how tipped workers have to approach their budgeting and financial planning differently. She also elaborates on why we should be tipping more when we can, not only because of inflation, but also because tipped workers depend on our dollars — if you can’t afford to tip, then frankly, you can’t afford the service being provided. (In some cases, if you don’t tip, your server or hairdresser or other service person might actually lose money, because they have to tip out others who work with them!) 

Barbara also shares her general guidelines for tipping workers in different industries — how much should we aim to tip at restaurants versus hotels, salons, housekeeping services, and so on? 

You can read more about Barbara here.