I went for a couple of pints of Guinness with my buddy Josh last night, and watching him calculate his tip to the penny reminded me that this post was overdue.
This I believe:
- Nearly any server needs the money more than I do
- 20% is your starting point for tipping, only truly bad service (not bad food, bad ambience, ugly patrons) should influence your tip below 20%
With these principles in mind, here’s my 3-step, 5-second process to calculating your tip:
- Round up your total (including tax) to the nearest dollar
- Double the total, then divide by 10
- Round up to the next dollar
That’s your tip. Simple. Let’s look at this step-by-step, using my $18.62 total for 2 pints and one fish and chips entree (beer-battered, of course):
- Round up to $19
- Double to $38, then divide by 10 to get $3.80
- Round up to $4 to get the correct tip amount
Backing out the tax from my original total, I can assume that my food and drink total was around $17.20, so my $4 tip amounts to 23%. That’s an above-average tip, which is about where I want to start. If the service was good, I’ll throw in an extra buck or two. It’s only a buck or two but it increases the tip to the 30% – 35% range. That’s a good deal.
Now, let’s compare this with Josh’s process and the tip amount he arrived at:
- Review the check to determine the pretax total of $17.20
- Calculate 20%, using my simple “double then divide by 10″ trick to get $3.44
- Add $3.44 to $18.62 to get your check total of $22.06
- Realize that you saved only 56 cents for the effort of doing that math with two pints of Guinness coursing through your brain
- Realize that for your 56 cents in savings, you demoted yourself from an above-average tipper to an average tipper
Isn’t it so much easier to just round everything up, do the simple math, and be an above-average to good tipper?
(photo by fensterbme)
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
My method is quicker. Double the total of the dollar amount which your brain do fairly quickly. $18.62 equals $1.80 times two which quickly calculates to $3.60. Round up to $4.00 and you’re golden.
Actually, dear, your method is the same as mine, except you wrote it as a sentence instead of numbered steps. The only thing I do differently is round up the total first, so you have a simple even number to double.
Hey Ed,
If I remember correctly, it wasn’t about tip being the proper percentage, but making my check total a round number like $21.00 or $22.50. I actually strive to be a pretty good tipper, to be honest, but if I round down to 18% instead of rounding up to 22%, does that make me a bad tipper? Probably not.
As a matter of fact, I’m a pretty good tipper on most occasions, except for the times when I can’t fit “If you have dried candle wax on your carpet, use a hot iron and a paper bag to remove it,” on that little line on the receipt.
What makes you think you’re the Josh in this post, eh? Okay, you are. But I hope I didn’t imply that you were a bad tipper; that was not my intention. Only that people spend way too much time trying to calculate a tip precisely, when it’s much easier and more generous to simply round everything up. Let’s go out for another Guinness soon and test my theory.
PS, I get your “tipping” joke. I wonder if anyone else will?
i swear, sometimes i feel like you have to be in or have past experience in the service industry to know how to tip. there is nothing tackier than a bad tipper. good suggestions!