Think You Tip Well? See how it Ranks Among the Highest States

There are varied opinions on what constitutes a good tip?  You have probably noticed when out to dinner or drinks with friends or family that each person can tip differently.  Same may over-tip, or if you have a couple friends like I do, feel embarrassed when you see them clearly short a tip when throwing in money for their share and the rest have to make up the difference.  Although there is not a written rule on what is required to give, generally speaking, 20% is typically what left, provided you have received good service.  Do you leave more if service is outstanding and no tip if service is poor?  If you think you tip well, according to a recent study, it may be that the part of the country you live can mean you are more generous than others when leaving the tip.

How do you figure out a tip to leave?  Well you do not need your “Wizard Tip Calculator” from Seinfeld to decide what to tip because “God forbid they should refill the water”.  As a rule of thumb, if you take 10% of the total bill, double it, and round up to the nearest dollar, it should leave the server with an adequate tip of a little over the 20% standard.  For Example, if the bill is $36.50, 10% of that would be $3.65, doubled would be $7.30, rounded up to the nearest dollar would be $8, or about 22%.  If service was nothing special, you could also round down to $7, still leaving a decent tip at around 19%.

According to a recent study from Lavu, and iPad point-of-sale system, tipping data from more than 1,000 restaurants that use its service was collected to determine the states with the best tippers per check average.  Although this is a limited sample from transactions only made on Lavu and does not count the data from the many point-of-sale systems on the market, it is fun to look and see where the highest tippers in the country live.  Does there seem to be a pattern in certain part of the states?  Below are the results:

Top 10 Highest Tipping States (by Average)

10. Missouri 20.62%
11. Virginia 20.83%
12. Kansas 20.88%
13. Rhode Island 20.91%
14. Mississippi 20.97%
15. Louisiana 20.98%
16. South Carolina 21.1%
17. New Hampshire 21.14%
18. Maryland 21.96%
19. Oklahoma 23.89%