It starts with a swivel. You’ve barely put your credit card in the reader when the screen flips, your heart does a little lurch, and there it is: the silent, illuminated judgment of the digital tipping screen. Are you an 18%, 20%, or 25% person today?
This question, once reserved for a leisurely, sit-down dinner, is now posed for a muffin, a bottle of water, a single scoop of ice cream. You’re not just imagining the constant pressure; you’re experiencing “tipping whiplash,” a uniquely modern anxiety born from a system that feels both broken and inescapable.
This is more than a daily annoyance. It’s a direct and relentless assault on your budget, wrapped in a blanket of social obligation. Get it wrong, and you’re not just a bad tipper; you’re complicit in an opaque system, a chump paying for services you performed yourself, or a cheapskate in the eyes of the person just trying to make rent.
Ignoring this cultural earthquake means you’ll be blindsided, overspending, and constantly second-guessing every single transaction. Here are 16 things you are not expected to tip.
The Takeout Counter
Do you recall the ‘contract’ in the order, a straightforward and uncomplicated takeout? You also did the work: you drove there, waited, and transported the meal all to avoid the service charge of eating in.
That contract has been broken. When you arrive to pick up your online order of a bag of pad thai, that screen has added an unusual level of digital begging that complicates what was once the simplest kind of food transaction.
This feeling of pressure is a documented phenomenon. A 2023 survey by Bankrate found that nearly one-third of Americans (32%) are annoyed by pre-entered tip screens for takeout. Annoyance, however, doesn’t stop compliance.
Restaurant technology platform Toast, in its Q1 2024 Restaurant Trends Report, revealed that tips for takeout orders are a fixture, averaging 14% via credit card.
Experts attribute this to a “convenience tax” built into the software and a lingering post-pandemic sense of duty toward restaurant workers who are still taking orders and ensuring their accuracy, even if they never show you to a table.
The Coffee Shop Barista
The hiss of the espresso machine, the friendly-but-brief nod, that used to be the whole transaction for your morning coffee. You paid the price on the board. Now, that simple exchange ends with a moment of digital theater.
This isn’t an isolated annoyance; it’s a documented cultural rewiring. A landmark 2023 Pew Research Center study on tipping revealed that coffee shops are now the second-most-tipped venue in the United States, just behind sit-down restaurants. A staggering 72% of Americans report they always or often tip for their coffee.
Why the compliance? According to Michael Lynn, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, these POS systems are masters of “psychological architecture.” They leverage our deep-seated fear of social disapproval.
The default options, the public nature of the transaction, and the speed at which you must decide all conspire to make hitting that 20% button the path of least resistance.
The Fast-Casual Restaurant
Fast-casual chains like Chipotle, Sweetgreen, or Cava have built their empires on a promise of high-quality food served quickly. This model neatly sidesteps the formal service and tipping of a sit-down restaurant. That line has been erased.
After you’ve shuffled down the line, pointing at the exact ingredients you want, the final act is a confrontation with the iPad, asking for a gratuity for the person who spent thirty seconds scooping your food into a bowl.
This category is a primary driver of tip fatigue. The same Bankrate survey found that 41% of U.S. adults are actively annoyed by tipping prompts at these establishments. Yet, the tips flow. Payment processor Square reported in late 2023 that the average tip at fast-casual restaurants in the U.S. had climbed to 15.8%.
The business model effectively outsources a portion of employee wages to you, the customer, leveraging social pressure to subsidize their payroll for what amounts to assembly-line service.
Home Repair and Service Professionals
You would never have tipped your dentist, so why your plumber? For decades, skilled tradespeople, such as electricians, HVAC technicians, and painters, were viewed as professionals whose fees included their labor. That understanding is eroding.
A new, unspoken expectation has emerged, suggesting that a job well done deserves a bonus, transforming a professional service call into a transaction that feels uncomfortably like a hospitality service.
Although there is no universal database of plumbing service gratuities, both etiquette experts and numerous industry publications confirm the trend. The New York Times stated in a 2023 article that providing a tip of $20 to $50 is now considered a “thoughtful gesture” for an exceptional job.
According to the author, this is more common for services in emergencies or those that are particularly challenging. This trend indicates a real softening of boundaries, pulling skilled work that has high-fee promise into the ever-expanding universe of tipped labor.
Furniture and Appliance Delivery
The team that just navigated a massive sofa through your narrow hallway or spent 30 minutes meticulously leveling your new washing machine is at the center of a modern tipping debate. Are they merely delivery drivers? Or are they skilled installers performing a physically demanding, high-stakes service?
The consensus is increasingly landing on the latter, and the expectation for a substantial tip has become explicit. This is not simply a passing fancy; this is becoming a consumer norm. The critical aspect is that there is no guidance as a percentage, which would be awkward on a $3,000 refrigerator.
This acknowledges the distinct combination of physical effort, care, and technical skill required to transport large, expensive items into your home safely.
The Liquor Store Clerk
You walk into a place, grab a bottle of wine off a shelf, and place it on the counter. The clerk rings it up. This is pure retail – it is the same transaction as buying milk at a grocery store. Increasingly often, though, this is now followed by a tipping screen.
This request feels particularly out of place for the simple reason that there are no pretenses to personalized service, but this is an entirely different issue, one that is establishing a foothold in retail through tip creep.
This trend has been documented by news outlets like The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer since late 2022. They report that while it’s more common in smaller, boutique shops, the software is being adopted everywhere. The justification is often that clerks can provide expert recommendations.
However, the prompt appears whether you received a 10-minute lesson on French Burgundies or grabbed your usual six-pack, leaving customers to wonder precisely what they are tipping for.
Pet Groomers
Dropping your dog off for a spa day was always a service, but for years, tipping was an optional bonus for a job exceptionally well done.
That has changed. A pet groomer is now understood to be a multi-skilled professional: part hairstylist, part animal handler, and part behavioral therapist for a creature that is often stressed and uncooperative. The expectation to tip now reflects the complexity and patience this job demands.
The gratuity guidelines have been standardized to match those for human stylists. The major pet service sites, Rover.com and Wag!, also updated their published etiquette guides to recommend tipping for shampoo services in 2024 and to explicitly suggest a 15-25% tip for grooming services.
This formalizes the recognition of groomers as professionals, while also acknowledging that grooming is a personal, skilled craft performed on a valued (and sometimes challenging) family member.
Hotel Housekeeping
As we move toward a cashless society, the subtle tradition of leaving a few dollar bills crumpled on the nightstand is becoming a relic of the past. Unfortunately, those who have continued the practice are the hotel housekeepers, who undertake one of the most demanding roles in the entire service industry.
The hotel industry is formalizing the tipping process for employees, ensuring that essential workers are not overlooked. Major hotel groups, including Marriott and Hilton, began employing QR codes on in-room amenities linking to virtual tipping sites for housekeeping staff.
The American Hotel & Lodging Association’s 2023 “State of the Industry” report encouraged the use of such technologies amid declining cash tipping. The tips have also become more targeted: etiquette experts now recommend $3 to $5 per night, paid daily, because employees can be rotated out on a daily basis.
Self-Checkout Kiosks
Perhaps the most surreal and audacious example of tip creep is the self-checkout tip screen. You have become the cashier. You scan your items, you weigh your produce, you bag your groceries. Then, as a reward for your unpaid labor, the machine you operated yourself has the gall to ask for a tip.
This bizarre request has sparked a firestorm of mockery and resentment online, representing for many the absolute zenith of tipping absurdity. First reported in late 2022 at locations such as airports, stadiums, and tech-forward cafes, this trend is a result of the use of payment software.
A 2023 Wall Street Journal investigation found that these tipping options are often a default setting in the software packages sold by companies like Toast and Square.
While the vast majority of consumers choose “No Tip,” its very existence is a form of psychological conditioning, designed to normalize the act of tipping in virtually every commercial transaction.
Movers
Hiring a moving company has always been a service where a tip was a kind gesture. It is now a non-negotiable line item in the cost of a move. This crew is performing hours of intense, back-breaking labor while being entrusted with the care of every single one of your physical possessions. As a result, the social expectation for a significant gratuity has become ironclad.
This is no longer anecdotal. Forbes Home’s comprehensive 2024 moving guide establishes a new standard, recommending a tip of 15-20% of the total moving cost or a flat rate of $40-$60 per mover for a full-day job. This reflects a broad consensus that moving is a uniquely stressful and physically demanding service that demands a substantial reward for a job done carefully and efficiently.
Car Wash Attendants
The simple, automated drive-through car wash remains a tip-free zone. But the moment a human being touches your vehicle, whether with a towel for a final dry, a vacuum for the interior, or a brush for the wheels, the tipping clock starts. These attendants often work for minimum wage in extreme weather conditions, performing the detailed finishing work that the machines can’t.
Industry groups are now actively promoting tipping to help supplement these low wages. A 2023 report from the International Carwash Association emphasized that gratuities are a vital part of the compensation structure for any full-service or flex-service car wash.
Etiquette guides from consumer outlets like Good Housekeeping now recommend a tip of $3 to $5 for a standard wash that includes a manual towel dry, and up to $10 for more detailed interior and exterior work.
Food Delivery App Drivers
While tipping for delivery isn’t new, the stakes and the mechanics have become brutally transparent. In the early days of apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats, many users mistakenly believed the “delivery fee” went to the driver (it rarely does).
It is now common knowledge that tips constitute the vast majority of a driver’s earnings on any given order, transforming the tip from a “bonus” to their de facto salary.
This system’s cold logic was laid bare in a 2023 analysis by The Verge, which confirmed that orders with low or non-existent tips (known as “no-tip trips”) are routinely ignored by drivers. This can leave the order languishing for hours until the platform increases the base pay enough to make it worthwhile.
To ensure timely delivery and avoid cold food, a tip of 15-20% is now considered the mandatory cost of using the service effectively.
Tattoo Artists
Getting a tattoo has evolved from a subcultural act to a mainstream form of personal expression. As it has professionalized, so has the etiquette surrounding it. Tipping a tattoo artist was once a gray area; it is now as standard and expected as tipping your server.
You are commissioning a permanent piece of custom art on your body from a skilled artist who may spend hours concentrating on their work. The industry has solidified its stance on this.
Premier tattoo publications, such as Inked Magazine, and major artist guilds now uniformly state that a 20% tip is the industry standard for good work.
In a 2024 industry roundtable, top artists noted this has become even more critical post-pandemic as a means of supporting independent creators who often pay a significant percentage of their earnings to the shop for their chair space. Not tipping is viewed as a profound insult to the artist and their craft.
Budtenders at Cannabis Dispensaries
With the legalization of cannabis spreading across the nation, a new and vital service role has been created: the budtender. These individuals are far more than retail clerks. They are specialized consultants, guiding customers through a complex and often overwhelming array of products, from strains and terpenes to edibles and tinctures.
As this role gains legitimacy, so does the expectation to tip for their expert guidance. This is a tipping norm being born before our eyes. A 2023 Forbes feature on the evolving cannabis business landscape noted that, although not yet as rigid as in restaurants, tip jars are a standard fixture at dispensary checkout counters.
The common practice, especially for a consultative sale, is to tip a few dollars or round up the total on the purchase, a small gesture of thanks for receiving educated, personalized advice.
Grocery Store Baggers & Curbside Pickup
For generations, major grocery chains strictly forbade their employees from accepting tips. That long-standing rule is now bending under the weight of new service models, particularly the surge in curbside pickup.
The person who meticulously shops your entire 50-item grocery list and then loads it into your trunk is providing a massive time-saving service, and customers are creating a new tipping script in real time.
While corporate policies at chains like Kroger and Walmart officially remain no-tipping, a 2023 report in Progressive Grocer, a leading industry publication, observed that customers are increasingly ignoring these policies and tipping anyway.
The emerging etiquette suggests $1 to $3 for a bagger who helps you to your car, and a more substantial $5 to $10 for a complete curbside pickup order, recognizing the significant labor involved.
Valet Parking Attendants
Tipping the valet attendant who retrieves your car is a time-honored tradition. The new, emerging expectation is to tip twice. A growing number of etiquette experts and savvy travelers now advocate for tipping both the attendant who takes your keys at drop-off and the attendant who brings your car back at pickup, especially at upscale venues.
Travel authorities endorsed this “two-tip” method in a 2023 Travel + Leisure feature on modern travel etiquette. The logic is that you are interacting with two separate individuals, both of whom are responsible for the safety and care of your vehicle.
The new gold standard is a tip of $2 to $5 at drop-off to ensure your car is taken care of, and another $2 to $5 at pickup as a gesture of appreciation for the prompt retrieval.
Key Takeaways: Your Tipping Playbook
Navigating the modern tipping landscape can be stressful, but developing a clear strategy can help ease the process. First and foremost, it’s essential to tip the person who provided the service, rather than the technology that prompted the payment.
Consider whether a human went above and beyond or performed strenuous work; if they did, a tip is warranted. However, if you picked an item off a shelf or handled everything yourself at a self-service kiosk, it’s completely acceptable to opt for no tip.
When it comes to the percentage to tip, 20% has become the new standard for exemplary service in situations where tipping is customary, such as in restaurants, hair salons, or during food delivery. The previous minimum of 15% is now viewed as merely adequate service.
Another practical approach is to tip in cash, as this ensures that 100% of your gratuity goes directly to the service provider, allowing you to bypass corporate intermediaries. Finally, it’s wise to budget for gratuity as part of your overall expenses.
Instead of seeing tipping as an optional afterthought, incorporate a 20% gratuity into your financial planning for services, transforming what can often be a stressful surprise into a predictable and manageable cost.
Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information. It is not intended to be professional advice.
16 Grocery Staples to Stock Up On Before Prices Spike Again
16 Grocery Staples to Stock Up On Before Prices Spike Again
I was in the grocery store the other day, and it hit me—I’m buying the exact same things I always do, but my bill just keeps getting higher. Like, I swear I just blinked, and suddenly eggs are a luxury item. What’s going on?
Inflation, supply-chain delays, and erratic weather conditions have modestly (or, let’s face it, dramatically) pushed the prices of staples ever higher. The USDA reports that food prices climbed an additional 2.9% year over year in May 2025—and that’s after the inflation storm of 2022–2023.
So, if you’ve got room in a pantry, freezer, or even a couple of extra shelves, now might be a good moment to stock up on these staple groceries—before the prices rise later.
6 Gas Station Chains With Food So Good It’s Worth Driving Out Of Your Way For
6 Gas Station Chains With Food So Good It’s Worth Driving Out Of Your Way For
We scoured the Internet to see what people had to say about gas station food. If you think the only things available are wrinkled hot dogs of indeterminate age and day-glow slushies, we’ve got great, tasty news for you. Whether it ends up being part of a regular routine or your only resource on a long car trip, we have the food info you need.
Let’s look at 6 gas stations that folks can’t get enough of and see what they have for you to eat.
