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:

1. Round up your total (including tax) to the nearest dollar
2. Double the total, then divide by 10
3. 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):

1. Round up to $19
2. Double to $38, then divide by 10 to get $3.80
3. 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:

1. Review the check to determine the pretax total of $17.20
2. Calculate 20%, using my simple “double then divide by 10″ trick to get $3.44
3. Add $3.44 to $18.62 to get your check total of $22.06
4. Realize that you saved only 56 cents for the effort of doing that math with two pints of Guinness coursing through your brain
5. 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)