Tipping. Everyone’s got an opinion. The thing I hate most about tipping is the feeling of “I’m not doing this right”. To better understand it, I read a book about tipping by a veteran waiter. There are now several “tipping guides”, but I like Everything You Don’t Know About Tipping via Abnormal Returns because the author has a similar perspective. He’s not ranting about how tips should be abolished or how we should tip every person we meet 30%. He just wants to understand expectations and avoid the “dreaded Ambiguous Tipping Situation”. Am I under-tipping? Am I over-tipping? Should I tip at all? Here are the results:

I put on my Weird But Earnest Guy Doing a Survey About Something hat and hit the streets, interviewing 123 people working in New York jobs that involve tipping. My interviews included waiters, bartenders, baristas, manicurists, barbers, busboys, bellmen, valets, doormen, cab drivers, restaurant delivery people, and even some people who don’t get tipped but I’m not sure why, like acupuncturists and dental hygienists.

Later in the post, the author explores how being a low, average, or high tipper means for your budget in terms of dollars. Keep in mind that the numbers are for New York City.

I’m probably in the “low spender” range, as my little-kid lifestyle doesn’t include frequent visits to establishments that involve tipping. On the other hand, I have discovered the joys of tipping a skycap at the airport and seeing 3 car seats and multiple suitcases disappear at the curb. For the most part, I think that tipping on the “expected” level shouldn’t break your budget. These are mostly optional services; It’s not like you have to tip the grocery store cashier, the gas pump, or your landlord.

For me, tipping goes in the bucket of “I would change if I was omnipotent, but in reality I’m going to waste my life energy on it.” I simply aim to keep everyone happy (or at least satisfied) and move on with my day. This guide may not be perfect (there’s always someone with a gripe) but it helps.

Many promotions will offer a “$50 cash card” sent to you in the mail. I recently received such a $50 American Express Prepaid Rewards card that looks exactly like the image shown in the top-right corner. I am horrible with gift cards and coupons (basically anything to do with shopping in general), so I prefer to consolidate them and buy Amazon gift certificate codes. We buy certain food items via Subscribe and Save, and that eats through the balance over time.

Usually, I can just take a $50 prepaid card and buy a $50 Amazon gift code with it, but this time the purchase was declined. I called up the American Express customer service number on the back of the card, and they told me that Amazon put a $1 hold on the card and that I could only charge $49 on it at Amazon. What about the $1 balance? The CSR told me to spend it at a local store. (If you do this, ask for a split tender transaction from the cashier.)

$1 balance hold solution. However, I figured that Amazon just puts a $1 temporary hold on any new credit card on file, not on every purchase, and I was right. I waited for the $1 hold to expire after a day or so, and then I was able to buy another $1 Amazon gift code with the same card, finally zeroing out the balance. (You can buy an Amazon gift card for any amount of at least $1 and you can reload your Amazon balance for any amount 50 cents and above. Look for the “Enter Amount” blank form.) Here’s a screenshot below.

Anyhow, I’m sending this out into the search engine void in case it helps someone else out.

Starwood Hotels sent me an e-mail with the subject “Family Traditions at St. Regis with Nacho Figueras”. I had no idea who Mr. Figueras was, but you mention “family traditions” and I’m going to click on that like a sucker. It turned out to be a 2-minute YouTube video for a fancy hotel in Aspen, Colorado. Embedded below:

Don’t get me wrong. I have my chosen luxuries, and some of them probably seem stupid and overpriced to others. (I did recently downgrade from Charmin Ultra to Costco toilet paper though. Kids don’t appreciate the good stuff…)

My observation is that there is always a “nicer” version of everything. You can add a zero to the end of any price tag. A meal can cost $5 or $50 or $500. A purse can cost $30, $300, or $3,000. A car can cost $10,000, $100k, or $1 million. I looked it up and found that the St. Regis Aspen runs $1,500-$3,000 a night during the ski season! Likewise, I can have a ski day followed by a board game and s’mores for 1/10th of the cost.

This is why achieving financial freedom is not only about earning more money (although that is certainly important). There are lots of people with high incomes that will work forever as well. You are also challenged with finding a level of spending where you stop look for nicer things. You need to find balance, peace, enough. Otherwise, you will never take control of your time because you’ll stay on that treadmill, going for that something “better” that is just out of reach.

(In case you’re wondering, a standard room at the St. Regis Aspen can be had for 30,000 Starpoints per night.)

Well, it’s official, Toys R Us (and Babies R Us) has announced that it will close all of its 700+ US stores by the end of the year, while other reports have the business running out of cash by May. They stated that they “expect” to accept gift cards and rewards dollars for another 30 days. However, I would spend any gift cards or store credit as soon as possible. We went over the weekend to do just that, and most of the “commodity” items like food, formula, and diapers were already starting to sell out. According to AOL, about 17.7 million in Borders gift cards were left outstanding when they shut down in 2011.

I’ve been reading a lot of nostalgic stories about Toys R Us, but my wife and I both commented that we hardly ever went into Toys R Us when we were kids. Even counting my visit this weekend, I’m pretty sure I’ve been inside one less than 10 times in my life. Sure, we saw the commercials on TV, but we never visited the physical stores. I guess I was never a “Toys R Us kid”.

The New York Times has a free 7-Day Financial Tuneup that asks you a few quick questions and then sends you a series of (somewhat) customized e-mails containing financial advice. I did the survey twice with different answers to reveal more possibilities, telling it that I had credit card, mortgage, and student loan debt. Here’s what came with my introductory e-mail:

Thanks for signing up for The 7-Day Financial Tuneup. Based on what you told us, we selected the seven tasks most relevant to your financial situation that we recommend you complete this week to optimize your individual financial situation. We will send you an email every day with a task that you can complete immediately, or choose to leave until later in the week when you have more time. These tasks will help you take important steps to educate yourself, trim your spending and determine your financial priorities. Check your inbox tomorrow for the first day’s task.

I haven’t gotten any e-mails yet, but here’s what I have to look forward to:

• Day 1. Optimize Your Thinking. Prepare for the week ahead by taking a few moments to figure out how you think about money. (Good news: There are no wrong answers.)
• Day 2. Trim Your Budget. Cut costs on things you don’t use, and lower your spending on the essentials.
• Day 3. Find the Best Credit Card for You. Make sure you have a credit card that matches your needs.
• Day 4. Plan for Your Retirement. Take a moment to save for retirement, your future self will thank you.
• Day 5. Understand Your Credit. Learn how to read your credit score and figure out how to make it better (if you need to.)
• Day 6. Save on Health Care Costs. Make sense of your flexible spending plans and figure out the right amount to set aside tax-free.
• Day 7. Student Loans. Organize your existing loans and set a reasonable plan to pay them off.
• Other possible topics include “Compare Insurance Rates” and “Funding your Emergency Funds”.

Altogether, I would think of it as a free, short personal finance book. Sounds good to me.