Tip Your Waitress

Before going out to a happy hour with friends last night, I took the time to figure out how much I wanted to spend. $10 seemed like a reasonable amount, since we had some money in our Misc fund. Then, instead of buying $10 worth of food, I first computed how much of it should go towards the tip.

I came up with $3, which is a bit high for a $7 purchase (42%), but I figured that it'd be a busy time and I know waitresses can normally use it.

This led me to ponder whether it's ever appropriate not to tip. I tend to think that one should tip at least 15%-20% 99.9% of the time. And most of the time it should be towards 20%.

It's probably because I've lived with waitresses. Many make less than $3 per hour and rely on tips to get them even to minimum wage (or above). Plus, they have to split tips with the busboy and sometimes the cook.

I also know that if the food takes a long time coming, it's often not the waitress's fault and I shouldn't penalize her.

If a waitress is very rude, completely ignores you, etc, (and there isn't an apparently good reason for her neglect, like a full restaurant or she's the only one on staff) then I can see leaving a smaller tip. Perhaps no tip. But it'd have to be really bad for me not to leave anything.

And for goodness sake, don't leave a tract. Well...I'll amend that. Feel free to leave a tract, if you leave a good tip. Your waitress will not want your religion if it leads you to stiff her. Believe me, you'll be a horrible "witness." But if you leave a huge tip and a tract, you're being a great witness about how generous people of your faith are and she might actually care. (I could write a whole post about how I feel about tracts, but if you want to leave them it's your business.)

Is not having the money an excuse not to tip? NO! says Lynnae at Being Frugal. Her rule of thumb: "If you can't afford to leave a tip, you can't afford to eat at that restaurant."