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, 2008 |
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Living a Better Life Don't Forget the
Tips! * * * For anyone living on a budget, every expense should be planned for. The problem is, there are hidden and unexpected expenses everywhere. Vacation or Business traveling can be one of the worst. Budgeting for these activities involves more than travel, hotel and food expenses. Whatever you do, don’t forget about the tips! When traveling by plane, if you check your bags at the curb with the skycaps, $2.00 per bag is what’s expected, as a tip! This is fine if you are traveling alone and have just one or two bags, but on our recent vacation we had 9 bags to check in. My husband and I took turns carrying the bags into the airport lobby by ourselves. The biggest problem was that, apparently, you cannot leave your bags unattended in the airport at any time or they will be confiscated by airport security. So, you can just imagine the tag team effort we made in order to attend the excited children in the van, and the luggage in the airport lobby all at once. Okay, I realize this is pretty cheap on our part, but that $18 we saved in tips can feed our family of six for two days at home. And yes, I’m pretty sure the skycaps would have been just as happy with a $10 tip, or maybe even $5. But it was just the principle of the matter that compelled us to do the work ourselves. And the reality is, in setting aside money for our vacation, we did not budget for tips! On our first chance for dinner out while away from home, we chose a local and inexpensive restaurant. Our cheerful waitress told us that she had just served three groups of people that had left her no tip. And I don’t believe this was a matter of bad service, just thoughtlessness (and maybe lack of budgeting) on the customer’s part. I do know that many restaurant servers make a very small salary and depend on tips to make a living, especially the ones in the inexpensive restaurants. 15% - 20% is what’s expected for food servers. Next, came the hotel bellhops, though I’m sure they have a fancier name now, am I dating myself? Anyhow, you should have seen the look on our attendant’s face when I told him we would take care of our own luggage. I believe he was actually offended, and though I was shocked by his reaction, it turned out to be my inspiration for writing this article. It never occurred to me that any of these service attendants would be offended, or feel ripped off, because we took care of our own bags - therefore eliminating the need for their tip. It's something to think about. I reflected on this for several days. And looking back, at the time of the offense, it was just he and I standing in the hotel lobby. He was still unaware that we had 4 children and a total of 13 bags. And to be honest, it felt good taking care of the bags ourselves since it was such a big chore. The problem was, our hotel room turned out to be on the second floor, and there was no elevator. Thank God they only had two floors! Yet it is my hope, that as the attendant later saw our large family and may have noted some of our other money-saving efforts during our stay, that somehow he was able to realize we were just a family trying to save money, we meant no offense. Later, when I was discussing this with my sister-in-law, she reminded me that the hotel housekeepers expect to be tipped also. Fortunately, we had only missed the first day! Of course there are probably many people who offer no tip at all, and feel they should be able to use these services for free. After all, these attendants do earn a salary, and hopefully a decent one. But tipping is still common courtesy, and one that is expected by almost everyone in a service position. Including hair dressers, mail couriers, flower and pizza deliverers, bathroom attendants, you name it! It was a revelation to me that one needs to budget for these expenses, and I’m just guessing that no one does! By the way, never, never, order room service! We were tempted, but of course our money-saving conscious prevailed. When you order room service, not only are the prices 2-3 times higher for the food and beverage items themselves, but an extra room service charge of 20% is included, as well as a per delivery charge of a few more dollars. Although walking to a nearby store netted us a quart of milk for over $3, it would have cost twice that much (each day) to order it through room service. If you think this is the end of my story it’s not. We had one more stop along the way, with another airplane and another hotel. This time there was no family to pick us up and take us to the hotel. Are you ready for this? (1st) Tip for the airport attendant to help us get our 13 bags and 4 kids to the airport shuttle, half a mile away. (2nd) Tip for the airport shuttle driver to get us to the hotel, loading and unloading our bags from the vehicle. (3rd) Tip for one hotel concierge to put our bags in storage and hold our bags until the room was ready. (4th) And lastly, tip for the second hotel concierge to bring our bags to the room once we got there. Then, repeat all of that for the trip home! So, have we learned our lesson on budgeting for tips yet? And hey, if you set too much aside you can always put it back in the bank when you get home. Though needless to say, we had no money leftover to put in the bank! * * *
Copyright 2001 by Michelle Jones Read more Frugal Traveling & Automobile Tips Get Free Auto Insurance Quotes Sign up for our free monthly newsletter!
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