Need Advice Tipping the newspaper carrier?

We got a card in our Wall St. Journal with a personal address included for tips, I assume? Do other people tip them? Is it just me, I find this ridiculous. I'm a great tipper in resturants, hair salon, etc. But, I pay a lot for the paper to be delivered. Delivered by car, she may have hundreds of houses. That doesn't seem like when we were young a newspaper was delivered by a kid who got on his bike every morning. Do other people tip for this?

 

We get the Sunday Post delivered and every year the delivery people put a flyer in with the paper. "happy holidays, here's our address". I'll send them a check every few years for $10 or $20 because they do their job well and the subscription itself costs me so little.

 

I remember when I was a kid and I had a paper route for a couple of years with my brother. We made more in tips at the holidays than we did from the route the entire year. We also delivered the route on foot or our bikes, putting the paper either on the front doormat or inside the storm door every weekday afternoon or weekend morning. I won't forget the jerk who refused to pay for his Saturday paper one week when there was such a bad blizzard that the papers weren't delivered to us until Sunday morning and he received both on Sunday. I still had to pay the company for that paper. Hands down, it was the hardest job I ever had in terms of the commitment it took both to deliver and then to collect every week.

That all said, it's a personal call if you want to tip the paper delivery person. They don't do quite as much as they used to. The people I'd rather tip are the garbage collectors who work their tails off every week in all kinds of weather.

 

Yep--Patriot is amazing. I'm also tipping our phenomenal mail lady. Just curious, how do you get your tip to the right garbage guys?

 

I tipped our mail lady too. She is awesome!

 

It's customary to tip for paper and mail delivery but not required.

PS. We seem to have a different mail carrier every day!

 

Actually what makes me less inclined was earlier in the year we received a plea for rent money with our paper. No joke...I felt compassion, but there are a lot of people out there who need help but don't ask for handouts from their customers. For some reason this just doesn't feel right.

 

I provide a small tip with each quarterly billing, yet my paper is always at the edge of the street, sometimes on the sidewalk and often in the gutter. I agree if the papers were delivered they way we used to I would be more inclined to give an extra Holiday tip, but not with this delivery