Tipping at Christmas

[strictlygoingtomissstrictly]

There's a thread on here currently about tipping your cleaner at Christmas.

An interesting point was made that often people send a Christmas thank you gift to their regular customers. My firm sends bottles of wine or hampers etc.

My friend is a self employed (and a one man band) designer, and also sends small gifts to his customers.

It would appear that cleaners and hairdressers don't give their regular customers a thank you gift? Instead customers give them a gift.

I'd be interested to know what professions give a thank you gift/tip to customers and which generally receive one, and why.

I want to make sure I'm giving a thank you to the right people!

When my son was young my cleaner would buy him some chocolate & I would give her a bottle of wine she likes & a little extra money

We also used to tip the bin men who would knock on the door and wish us merry Christmas but there we live now they don't do that - not sure if it has gone by the board or just this area

We tip the cleaner, postie, bin men and our Christmas supermarket delivery. Also more recently drop in some nice chocolates or biscuits to our GP surgery and pharmacy as one of us has used them quite a lot over the past 2-3 years, and they have always been amazing.

We tip our Binmen, postie and milkmam.

For those that tip then bin men how much do you give?

At this time of year I tip the binmen, postie, milkman and the two nearest supermarket delivery drivers to Christmas.

£20 for the bins as there's lots of them and £10 each for the others. They are worth every penny. If I'm away the bins always get put back in the garden rather than left on the pavement!

Forget about giving to 'the right people' and give a gift to those you like or have deserved a thank you or a bit extra. There are not hard and fast rules, no one's situation will be the same. We own a small business and give a gift to particular delivery drivers or bookkeepers or suppliers who have been good, but not across the board.

I don't know why some services are tipped and others aren't.

I tip my hairdresser but not my nail technician or the woman who does my brows.

It's probably just a long-standing thing that I've tipped a hairdresser.

I think it's weird too that in some places you give a gift to a customer but in others the customer gives you a gift.

My 15 year old is a paper boy and he has received around £60 in tips so far, it’s so lovely of people to recognise him as he has got up at 6 every single day for this last year apart from when he has been ill or we have been away, and done his round in snow, ice and rain!

The only right people to tip are those that you feel have provided you with a particularly good service in exchange for what they’ve charged.

You aren’t obliged to tip any of them just because they exist.

I gave my cleaner a big box of chocolates. She's supposed to do two hours. And I know she doesn't. So I'm
Already paying for time she's not working.

How do people tip their bin men? I’m usually at work when ours come, and as far as I know they don’t knock on doors or anything. Same with postman.

I tipped our cleaner a week's wages. Left a fiver in a card for the postman and the milkman.

It would never even occur to me to tip the bin men! I don't know why, they've got the worst job of all so I probably should!