Holiday Tipping Checklist Builder
Turns the sprawling 'who do I tip for the holidays' question into a personalized, budgeted checklist.
Select who you employ or see regularly:
Select at least one provider to build your checklist.
Figures reflect common practice, not a fixed rule — scale down or substitute a card for any category that doesn’t fit your budget this year.
How it works
Build a personalized end-of-year tipping checklist and budget for every service worker in your life.
Select which recurring service providers are part of your life — a mail carrier, a regular house cleaner, a doorman, a dog walker, a hairdresser, and so on — and the tool builds a personalized checklist with a customary suggested amount for each one, along with a running total so you can see the full holiday tipping budget at a glance before you commit to anything.
Holiday tipping is one of the more genuinely confusing categories precisely because it's a sprawling list of different relationships, each with its own norm — a doorman's building may pool tips differently than an individually-hired dog walker, and a regular hairdresser is typically tipped differently than a one-time holiday-season visit. The checklist keeps each relationship distinct instead of flattening them into one guess.
Every figure on the checklist reflects common practice rather than a fixed rule — if the running total climbs higher than fits your budget this particular year, scaling back a category, giving a smaller amount, or swapping in a handwritten note in place of cash for one or two entries is genuinely fine; this tool is a planning aid, never an invoice.
Worked example: a household with a weekly house cleaner ($20-50, roughly one visit's pay), a regular dog walker seen three times a week ($20-30), a hairdresser visited monthly (the cost of one session), and a building doorman ($25-100, building-dependent) lands on a combined holiday total somewhere in the $85-260 range depending on service frequency and local norms — a genuinely wide range because these are genuinely different relationships, not one flattened category. Building the list item by item, rather than picking one round number for 'the holidays,' is what keeps the total honestly tied to your actual life rather than a guess.
The reasoning behind scaling suggested amounts to service frequency deserves a plain explanation: holiday tips are widely understood as roughly equivalent to the cost of one extra visit or session for services seen regularly (a weekly cleaner, a twice-weekly dog walker), which is why more frequent relationships land at a higher suggested figure than occasional ones — it isn't an arbitrary escalation, it's the same 'one session's worth' logic applied consistently across every entry on the list.
Mail carriers and other government or postal employees are a specific edge case worth flagging directly: USPS carriers are permitted to accept gifts worth $20 or less per occasion (not cash, per federal ethics rules), so a small gift card or item under that threshold is the appropriate category for that entry specifically, distinct from every other cash-based entry on the checklist.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to tip everyone on the checklist every year?
No — the checklist is a planning aid covering common relationships, not a requirement; skipping a category some years, or adjusting amounts based on your own budget, is completely normal and won't be noticed as a slight.
Should I tip more if someone has worked for me for many years?
It's common and reasonable to tip a bit more for long-standing relationships as a way of acknowledging the years of reliable service, though it remains a discretionary choice rather than an expected escalation.
What if I can't afford the full suggested total this year?
Scale down proportionally across the list, prioritize the people you interact with most regularly, or substitute a thoughtful note for a monetary tip in a few categories — a smaller, genuine gesture is always better received than skipping entirely out of embarrassment.
Can I tip my mail carrier in cash?
No — USPS ethics rules prohibit carriers from accepting cash or cash-equivalent gifts, but they can accept a gift worth $20 or less, such as a small gift card, which is why that entry on the checklist is treated differently from every other cash-based category.
Why does the suggested amount for my dog walker differ from my house cleaner even though both visit regularly?
Because the checklist scales each suggestion off that specific service's own typical per-visit cost — a holiday tip is generally framed as roughly one extra session's worth of pay for that particular provider, so two providers seen with similar frequency can still land on different suggested holiday amounts if their regular per-visit rates differ.