A neat trick to push back on tipping without looking cheap

I have finally found a good reason to pay with cash instead of debit or credit cards.

Paying with cash gives you a graceful way to avoid being railroaded into those pre-set tips used on payment terminals. You can still tip, but you decide how much. It might be as simple as saying, “keep the change.”

When I wrote about tipping in a recent newsletter, a couple of readers mentioned that they use cash to give themselves more control over tipping. And then I found an online list of reasons to pay cash, including “less pressure to tip.”

I’m not a fan of cash, particularly since we got those plastic $5, $10 and $20 bills. Fold them up and they stay permanently creased. When you try to straighten them out, they fight back. My current favourite way to pay for stuff is by debit or credit via Google Wallet. I have at least half a dozen payment apps loaded on my phone.

I listed some uses for cash in another recent newsletter, including having money to buy a poppy for Remembrance Day, to give to homeless people and buskers, and to tip people on the fly in hotels when travelling. Cash is also a tipping hack, but you have to prepare.