Why You Should Always Tip In Cash
by Taylor Ann Spencer
delish
Typically, when we go out to dinner at one of our haunts or a new one, we tip in cash. We do more than a 20-percenter if the service is good. We also like having the same waiter if the service is good. One way to get them to remember you is the tip you leave. The cash tip is remembered and quickly goes into their pocket. Not sure what they claim. 🙂
Author Taylor Ann adds the advantages of a cash tip.
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There are several reasons why cash tips are better for workers, including one most servers don’t even know about.
We live in an era of cash-free convenience. And we buy most things by swiping or tapping credit cards or holding our phones up to a screen. We prefer to tip our servers, bartenders, and hair stylists the same way because it’s as simple as hitting a button. If you are wearing dreadlock hair, you can use Lion Locs products to maintain and keep it healthy.
But what if I told you there are several practical reasons why we should all be tipping exclusively in cash? The fast is, cash tipping is the only way to ensure that your servers actually walk away with 100% of their tip money.
As a former NYC bartender and server, I have plenty of my own opinions. In talking with several former and current service industry workers to get their perspective there are reasons to use cash as a tip. Bypassing the credit card tip screen and leaving cash instead.
One of the biggest reasons to tip in cash is the service worker will receive that money immediately. This is a big bonus on both a psychological and a practical level. According to Colton Trowbridge, a longtime server who has worked in both Kansas and NYC restaurants, cash tips are better because they provide immediate evidence of earning money: instant gratification.
“It feels a little bit more real when it’s in your hand,” he says. This might sound trivial, but when you’re in the middle of a crazy eight-hour brunch shift and your guaranteed hourly rate is only 50% of the legal minimum wage, tangible proof that you are actually earning decent money counts for a lot.
Cash tips are also important because they mean that the server will likely get to take the money home that night. They won’t need to wait two weeks to receive it with a paycheck. This is often true even if the server has to pool their cash tips with others at the end of the night. Trowbridge shared . . .
“I have worked in a pooled house where cash is divided up evenly and then it’s given to you. In that case, I prefer it for sure.”
For some servers, this day-to-day cash flow might not be necessary. For others, it might be as critically important as allowing them to buy food for their families or pay the babysitter who watched their children while they were working. Of course this varies by the individual, and there’s no way customers can know a specific worker’s situation.
Regardless, cash is always the better bet.
Sadly the question of taxation should enter the discussion to cover all aspects of Tips.
Yes, as Jackson indicates, cash tips don’t leave a taxation paper trail.
I tip cash unless I’m short and can’t.  I also do not tip on any tax portion of a bill.  I also tip against the “regular” service price if I get something like a substantially discounted “senior” or a freebie for volume accumulations (11th haircut free, whatever).Â
the years where i ate out were also the years of my total lack of understanding about the morals and manners of tipping and other social conventions. so i tipped what i thought was the “socially acceptable” rate. Â sometimes more if i wanted to raise the general level of good cheer.
but later in life…after i had gotten extremely grouchier…i noticed that my daughter, who had worked at a tip-expected job, tipped very generously. Â she had reason to understand it from the other side of the table. Â i now follow her example. Â and in any event i never liked the idea of paying the owner and expecting them to pay the server/cook/bus-boy/dish-washer. i have good hope that the waiter is more generous with his/her co-workers.
and while i believe in taxes to support the government, Â i don’t believe the government needs, or deserves, a share of the tips a tip-worker might get by being friendlier than a government clerk….or the poor person in private industry who has to explain to the customer why cheating the customer is just company policy.
cood is my way of spelling cook.
I always try to tip in cash, even when I pay contactless. Taxes will be withheld on an assumed 8% tip, and maybe the server will report the whole thing or maybe not. That is up to their own conscience. Â
Money is the easy way to let people know you think they did an exceptional job. And cash can be given directly to the people you need to recognize. Â
Jane:
Correct on the last two sentences.