What's The Deal: Holiday Tipping Guide

Gift giving can bring stress during the holiday season, but so can deciding who in your life you should give a tip to and how much.

Fortunately, our friends at MoneyTalksNews are here to help with a tipping guide.

Deciding who to shop for during the holiday season is enough of a challenge. But what about deciding who in your life should get a holiday tip?

Who you tip and how much boils down to three things: how often you use the service, how much you can afford and then, etiquette.

So let's start with etiquette.

It is considered proper to tip people who give you services, such as hair dressers, garbage collectors, and personal trainers.

It's not considered in good taste to offer cash to a teacher, and some workers aren't allowed to take cash, such as postal workers.

But you can give a postal a worker a small gift or food item worth 20 bucks or less and you can give a teacher a gift card.

Either way, be sure and give a nice card with that gift, and if it's to the teacher, make it from your kid too.

Next, think about people who provide regular services.

Here's a list if people and suggested tips from the Emily Post Institute:

A babysitter or nanny should receive one week's pay, and a gift from your child.

Your hairdresser would get the amount of one service.

A daycare provider: $25-70, lawn care person: $20-50 and trash or recycling collectors: $10-$30 each.

Finally, the longer your relationship with that service provider, the nicer your gift could be, but never overextend yourself to give a tip.

Bottom line: tipping is a great way to say thank you to the people who take care of you all year

But you should never feel bad if you can't afford to give a tip.

You might feel bad, though, if you can't afford to at least give somebody a note or say "Thank you".