I NEVER split the bill evenly, and I never will.
I am very surprised that you, as a frugality advocate, support splitting the bill evenly. Unless you all went out and ordered the exact same thing, there will be disparity.
It’s also not likely that it will even over time – the people who tend to have more alcohol and order pricier meals are likely to always do so. As a nondrinker who prefers simple food, I have no desire to subsidize someone else’s dinner, just because we ate it together. If I took them out and paid for the whole thing, that would be one story. But in this case, I expect everyone to pay for what they ate.

If I were specifically trying to save my money and live a very frugal life, the last thing I’d want to do when I went out and made careful choices is pay for someone else who can’t be bothered to do the same.

I am not a fan of setting a flat percentage for tips, whether it be 10, 15, or 20. On many occasions, I have eaten a meal that cost about $15, and the waitress had exceptional service. Let’s say I tip 20%… that makes $3. On the other side, if I eat at fancy restaurant where the total comes to $60, but the service is OK, but not all that great. Even if I drop the tip down to 10%, that still makes $6. Does the mediocre server deserve twice as much tip just because the food is more expensive?

I usually will just estimate about $5 for every 2 people. Then I just adjust that amount based on how well the server does. Good service: maybe a buck or two more… bad service: less. That makes the gratuity more of a TIP, and less of an obligation.

I’ve met several people who have been on the US IMO team. I would not be at all surprised if some of them would struggle to calculate a 15% tip in their head.

It’s a completely different mindset and it helps me remember that no, I’m not poor. I’m making deliberate decisions with my money. I can afford to do just about anything I want — but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to pay for it.

Example. My local tax rate is something like 8.5%, so a tip equal to double the tax is 17%, which is a good amount to tip. Round up or down as you see fit.

Take out a calculator and do the actual math on that one, unless you’re in some sort of situation where you need to decide whether to sign the mortgage or lease documents in the next 30 seconds.

Better advice would be to never ever find yourself in that situation.

Perhaps you could find the time to pull out a calculator and determine whether you can afford the house while the mortgage lender is doing a credit check on you, or while you’re waiting on a home inspection, or during the time that the seller is considering your offer, or (better yet!) before you go shopping for a home.

My verdict on the final tip: bizarre.

Often my girlfriend and I will be cooking dinner, but find that most recipes are made for double the amount of people we have. It’s just the two of us, and many recipes yield 4-6 servings. Most units are given in fractions (i.e. 1/2 cup, 1/8 tsp, etc), and she wants to know the quickest way to find out what half the measurement is. My response? Double the bottom number of the fraction. Half of 1/2 cup becomes 1/4 cup. Half of 1/8 tsp becomes 1/16 tsp. It’s a quick and easy way to get the proper measurements.

ATM, it just means that a certain minority elite is very good at math.

Yesterday I had a similar discussion with my mother. She couldn’t quite comprehend that if you have 500 EUR including VAT of 21%, just substracting 21% will not give you the original sale price. (she got 500-(500*21%) = 395, while it should be 500*100/121=413.22)

So, it’s not only Americans that are math illiterate.

The reason 10% is still a fine tip is that a good meal in 1957 probably cost about $2.50-$5.00 at a high end place at home. 10% would be $.25 – $.50. Now a good meal can cost from $12-$35 or more. 10% would be $1.20 – $3.50. And most help is paid the minimum wage (not all). If they do not earn it from their tips, the owner must make up the difference.

Mike the Red #23 When I ran a local savings and loan, the formula was 25% of your gross monthly income and when utilities went much higher, we added $100 for utilities to the payment in order to decide if we could afford to loan you the money. Not actually, just as a guide to help see if you could afford the loan.

As one radio commentator said – it was not the banks that screwed up completely. The government forced them to make unsuitable loans. He asked why the banks would change a system that made them lots of money for way more than 100 years and take on loans that could, and did, bust many of them. Our busines was very conservative and came out well, no thanks to the government forcing them, by law, to loan to people who were not good credit risks and did not have sufficient income to make good on their debts.

There are greedy people in every business, but when they are forced to do stupid stuff by the people we voted to protect us, all bets are off.

Initially I was of the opinion that US citizens are really bad at math and the schools in US dont encourage kids to develop critical math and analytical skills. But I guess I was thinking wrong because when I saw the results in the Internation Mathematics Olympiad, US students consistently were in the top 7 of all countries. This olympiad is conducted every year.

It is altogether a different issue that China tops the list every year only getting a second place occassionally.

So I think the infrastructure is there in place in US educational system but people need to use it.