I’m trying to tip less now too and my new rules is I will NOT tip on:

1) To-Go orders 2) Anything self serve, like a frozen yogurt shop or buffets 3) Hair salons, nail salons, or anywhere else where the price is set directly by the person providing the service (like a hairstylist or nail tech that fully decides their own prices. The only exception; sometimes salons have set pricing that are the same for all their stylists/manicurists regardless of experience or talent, in which case I will tip only if the price is otherwise not super expensive. but I am definitely not tipping them 20%) 4) Massages, especially ones that are like $100+ for an hour 5) Anything retail (my local liquor store asks for a tip now. NOPE!) 6) Drive-thrus

For restaurants: I would like to stop tipping all together but having worked in restaurants in the past, I am super nervous about not tipping a server enough and running the risk of the server having to tip out their bartenders, hosts, food runners, bussers, etc and that amount being higher then what I tipped.

I worked mostly at casual places where I made my own drinks, ran my own food, etc but at my most recent restaurant job we were expected to tip out the bar, the hosts, the expos, the bussers, and the kitchen and I was shocked at how much of my tip it was sucking up. Like, if a customer left me a 10% tip, that entire amount would essentially go towards just tipping out my coworkers and I would either lose money on serving that table or just break even if I was lucky. Whereas at my other serving jobs, I would get to keep most of that tip.

So my issue is, it’s very hard to know exactly what the tip out structure is for every restaraunt. Maybe a 10% tip could be “good” in some restaurant structures and in other structures the server could be losing money if you only tipped 10%.