Am I cheap for not tipping on takeout orders?
You grabbed the bag, paid, and left the tip line blank — and now someone's calling you cheap. Here's who's actually right about tipping on takeout.
The non-tipper
Tipping is meant to reward table service — refills, checking in, cleaning up — none of which happens when you just walk in, grab a sealed bag, and leave. Nobody is obligated to tip 20% on an order they carried, drove home, and plated themselves.
The tipper
Someone still packed the order, bagged it, and handled it, and many of those workers earn tipped-minimum wages that assume something extra. Leaving a flat zero on every takeout order reads as stingy when a dollar or two barely dents the total.
The verdict
Who's at fault
The tipper is more in the wrong here. You're not cheap for skipping a full sit-down tip on takeout — that expectation is a checkout-screen guilt trip, not an ironclad rule, and no one's owed 20% for handing you a bag. That said, zero every single time is a little tight when there was real prep involved; rounding up or dropping a couple of bucks on a big or complicated order is the decent move. Basically: you don't have to tip, but "a dollar or two sometimes" is the sweet spot, and the person policing you to 20% is overreaching.
“You don't owe 20% for carrying your own bag — but zero every time is its own kind of statement.”
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