Tip of the Day: Tip

This is a follow-up to last week's tip of the day where we showed you how to find restaurants where your kids can eat for free.  Really!  Go check it out if you missed it, it's a good one!

shameless plug for my favorite (cheap and delicious!) restaurant Shang Hai

When you go to a restaurant and are served by a waiter, you must leave a tip.  Not just if the service is good. And not just a buck or two.  A full 15% or more.  If the service is lousy, tell a manager, but leave a full tip.  If the service is great, tell a manager and leave more than 15%.  But no matter what, you must leave a good tip.  You must.  If you can't afford to tip well, you can't afford to eat out. It is simply part of the cost of eating out.

If you have never had to live on tips, you probably don't understand how important they are to some.  Unless you've earned them yourself, you probably think of tips as just extra money you give to someone, like a gift.  It's not.

What you may not know, is that in many places people survive on tips alone.  In most states, the minimum wage for waiters is far below the minimum wage for regular employees.  Wait staff are expected to earn the bulk of their income through tips. 

During the first five years of our marriage, my husband and I survived on the tips he earned as a waiter.  As a waiter, he earned a wage of $2.13 an hour.  Yes, 2 bucks an hour.  And it's not like it was the fifties.  This was in the year 2000!  We often paid our bills in rolls of quarters accumulated from a month's worth of waiting tables.  Tips matter.  They are real money to real people.  So don't be a scrooge.  Tip.  Tip big.  And when it doubt, round up.

And tip on the whole amount if your meal was free.  Or your kids' meals.  Or you used a coupon to buy-one-get-one-free.  Or whatever.  There are many ways to save money while eating out, but shorting your waiter is just not one of them.


Marcia