We get two papers and like your parents, I appreciate having my papers early and always here. I give them $10 each. I don't know if that's enough or not, but I usually get a thank you note from one of them.

Ours is pretty good too. Every now and then ours is late, but no big deal. I give them $20 in a card. Our carriers are a husband and wife team.
My DN delivers papers before going to his job. He apparently is well liked and does a good job, one guy has tipped him $20 twice so far this year! Came to the door in his underwear one morning in order to catch my nephew! LOL

I sent ours $10, and now I feel that was cheap and wish I had sent a bit more. But if I were delivering papers, I'd love the $10.

We give them $10 and box of homemade peanut butter meltaways a friend makes, same with the postman. We give the trashmen a case of beer, not sure why the difference but that is what DH wants to give them!

Thanks for your help. Mom always tips him $20 cause he does a good job. I told her she was doing good.

We give our lady $20. She has been our carrier for at least 4-5 years, maybe more. She always is on time and double wraps when there is rain or snow. We had a horrible experience one year we lived in an apartment, so I appreciate good service. I"ve known a few delivery people that do it in addition to a full-time job, so I can help them out.

We also give our trashmen $20 each. In their case, they have a stinky yucky job and I am THANKFUL that they do it. Every year they seem very appreciative.

What if your trash carrier belonged to AA?

We get the newspaper on Sunday only (no weekday delivery out here in the boonies). We have had the same delivery guy for 16 years--he has never missed one paper!

Our bill every 3 months is $24.00; we always pay $30.00, so there's $6.00 for tip...which works out to $24.00 a year.

My newspaper carrier is a girl/woman, I have never seen her so I don't know. She leaves a Christmas card (in an envelope with an address label where she signs the card) with the paper in early December; which I realize is a not-so subtle hint.

I send her a card with $10 each year. While this is a driven route, I have my paper left on my porch, not in the box, which means she does have to cross the road to do that; I also know that that is part of her job, and I only get the Fri/Sat/Sun papers. She has good aim, never misses and the paper is sometimes on the chair beside my front door.

I don't know if anyone else in the neighborhood gives her anything or not.

Sue

Our paper carrier deserves a medal along with the $20 tip we just gave him. We live out in the sticks and he gets that paper here through rain, ice and driving snow....

daily paper. $25.00.

ML

Thanks for the reminder. I only get the Sunday paper, and there's a high turnover rate with the carriers. I have no idea what my carrier looks like......all I know is that sometimes I don't get the paper, and in summer it was often thrown into my flower bed (poor irises!). Still, I feel I should give some sort of tip, if only because that job is one that I would hate to have to do.

I don't get a paper, so I don't know about tipping there. However, I do tip my letter carrier $10. I put the card with a check in it in my mailbox for him.

I actually have wonderful trash collectors. They are neat, careful, and often take things I'm not sure they will (noting hazardous, but, for example, the other night I put out a few 12' long pieces of wood/molding in bad shape that I'd pulled out of the house. They took them no problem. But I don't know how to tip those guys! I'm at work when they come, and I can't imagine taping a card and check to the trash can (of course!), so I don't know how to get it to them.

I'm tipping $10...this carrier was hired only a couple of months ago, after the previous carrier was fired for skipping deliveries multiple times.

This carrier has only skipped once, and been late twice. Good for the last 2-3 weeks...so he's getting a modest tip for encouragement.

Next Dec, he'll get more if he keeps the good work up.

I don't tip my paper carrier (a guy in a station wagon who delivers my paper before 5 am) during the year, but I do send him a card with $20 folded inside at Christmas. I figure it's a couple bucks a month for good service. He hasn't missed a paper in years, even in snow, and he delivers with plastic bags in inclement weather.

Our paper deliverer delivers two different papers to us. I do tip, usually $25. One year, December was really tight, & I sent $20 in January with a note of thanks.

These people work hard, in cold, dark weather, & have to meet a deadline (paper delivered by such a time). I think they are conscientious & feel for them.

"our trashmen . . . have a stinky yucky job"

Our trashman (it only takes one), drives up beside the can, then pushes a button/lever which lowers an arm which grabs the can and pulls it up and tips it so that the trash falls into the part of the truck where the trash is supposed to go. Then the arm is lowered to put the can back down. Sometimes the can is standing upright, sometimes it's on its side on the ground. Sometimes it's within 10 feet of where it was before the arm lifted it off the ground, sometimes it's blocking ingress/egress of the driveway, sometimes it's in the middle of the street. But the trashman is cozy and comfy in the heated/air conditioned cab of the truck. And he makes something like $60,000 per year.

As far as the trash folks are concerned, I tend to agree with lindsey_ca. Granted, the job used to be very smelly and physical, however, talking to several people who know the pay, they are very well paid for the job. Some do an outstanding job and of course some should be fired. I recall the days of 3-4 men manning a a truck. Today, with automation, it's often just one. But some on the older trucks really have to hustle while the new ones drive, push a button, watch the monitor and move on. Not far from a postal carrier IMO.

Paper carriers are close to my heart. I carried papers about 20-25 years ago. It was for the big "business" paper which shall remain unnamed. I will say I enjoyed the job. I did it for probably a year and a half and it was a nice second income. Especially on the nice summer days it was very pleasant to be out at 4 or 5am cruising around when it's quiet, peaceful and refreshing. Turn up the radio a bit and off you go. Now of course, rain, snow and the like are the problem days. And in fairness to the carriers, it's not always the carriers' fault when the papers are late. I remember more than once when the plane was late arriving so we didn't have the papers to deliver. So we had to sit and wait for sometimes 3 hours or more and occasionally the paper would be canceled for that day. Many times the carriers lost on that. But the good part was I had the "bad" route. Nobody wanted it because it was so much driving. IIRC it was somewhere around 150-200 papers over 50-55 miles. Nobody wanted to drive that much with their new cars. Well I had a beater and I did all maintenance myself so I made out well on the mileage allowance.

Things have changed though. I talked to a carrier for one of the big papers in town and the pay hasn't increased much from when I carried! AND to top it off, they make the carriers pay for the rubber bands and the plastic bags! (For this paper anyway) That really irritated me when I heard that. This explains the higher turnover rate.

FWIW I got a couple tips as a carrier and I was the only one I knew of who did. I think it was $5 each. I was a bit surprised but then when I considered the snobs that got this paper wouldn't tip like the ones who got the daily local paper. The ones who tipped me sent it to the company specifying it was for me. That was very flattering.

Carriers also put up with one other problem. The ones who keep calling and complaining for the purpose of getting their subscription extended. I had one person who kept saying they had a wet paper and when I delivered in wet weather I would double bag the papers. Paper in the bag, fold the bag over and the open end went in first into the second bag. No way could it get wet, but the complainers kept trying. The boss finally went out and followed me one day and checked the paper. They canceled the customer! :D

When I got the paper and got good service I'd tip the carrier $5-$10 about every three months. Percentage-wise, that's pretty good. I was paying 75 per week for the Sunday only paper. But I did the several-times-a-year tip because of turnover. I didn't think it was fair to essentially penalize a new carrier doing a good job because the prior carrier got tipped at the holidays. And I would try to catch them in the morning. I'm usually up early on Sundays so it wasn't a problem. I would prefer to see people tip more frequently rather than at the holidays. A lot of people get jobs for the holiday season and could benefit from the generosity at the time and others are essentially doing the hard work all year long.

I tip my paper carrier $20. He's a great kid and one of the few remaining 'paper boys'. He delivers our local paper and brings it right to my front door. And if the Phila Inquirer and WSJ are at the bottom of the driveway when he comes he brings them too.

I've never tipped our trash collectors- not when I lived in Philly and not now that I'm in a suburb. They make good wages, have a wonderful health plan and pension benefits. Same goes for the postal carrier. If I tipped them then I should also be tipping the members of our police department, the librarian etc.

I reserve my tips for individuals who deserve it- either by the superior service they provide for because they work in a field where tips are considered part of their regular pay - like a waitress.