- Everyone always gets confused about how much to tip during the holiday season.
- With the help of an etiquette expert, we put together a handy guide on the best holiday tipping practices, and on the appropriate tip amounts for everyone in your life.
- If you’re not sure how much to tip a service provider, a rule of thumb is to tip the cost of one extra service.
The holidays can be stressful.
And one of the things that people tend to stress over is how much to tip everyone in their life.
So, to make things a bit easier, we put together a handy guide on the best holiday tipping practices and the appropriate tip amounts.
"The holidays are the traditional time to show appreciation for the people who make our lives more pleasant through the year," Patricia Napier-Fitzpatrick, etiquette expert of The Etiquette School of New York, said. "Always show your gratitude in some form, whether it's a monetary gift or a handwritten thank you note."
Here are a few of the best practices when it comes to holiday tipping, according to Napier-Fitzpatrick:
- If you live in an apartment building and are tipping the staff, the amount you give depends on how long you've lived there, whether you rent or own, how large your apartment is, and how much you use their services. For instance, if you work from home and get a lot of deliveries, you might want to tip more.
- If you're going to give cash, it's better to give it earlier in the month than later, if possible. Recipients might be using those tips to buy gifts for their own families.
- You don't want to give less than you did last year, unless you really, truly can't afford to.
- If you have a personal relationship with a service provider, such as your regular hairdresser or housekeeper, you might want to give a more personalized gift in addition to a cash tip.
Napier-Fitzpatrick also helped Business Insider outline the appropriate tip amounts for everyone in your life, which you can see below. If you don't see a specific service provider you want to thank, a rule of thumb is to tip the cost of one extra service.
Megan Willett, Libby Kane, and Tanza Loudenback contributed to an earlier version of this post.