For those who reside in high cost areas such as the Bay Area. As we are aware, there are many in non tech sectors who barely survive with their income/salary. This include teachers, daycare/preschool teachers, cleaning service etc. I am just curious on how much do you give to others who help your day to day life (outside charities)? Although money sounds tacky as a gift, I know many appreciated this when I did it in the past. This is what I used to do: My son’s day care teachers: $100 gift card + a box of chocolates for Christmas and $100 + cakes for Lunar New Year for those who celebrate. Cleaning service: extra payment (says, if we pay $120 per service, in December, I double it up). I used to have mommy’s helper when my son was young and usually did gifts for her kids +$100. I personally feel like I should give my son’s daycare teachers more. I know it’s so hard to survive on their salary here and most do it because they love kids. My son loves his teacher and without them, I wouldn’t be able to go back to work peacefully. Thoughts? What is the norm for the Bay Area standard?
Hot damn...I feel like you are either super generous (and well off) or I’m super cheap. Can I ask what your TC is? My families TC is around 250k....1 kid...cleaning service every 3 weeks...and I wasn’t planning on doing any of this. At all. I was thinking of giving my daycare teachers a Christmas card...but nothing else. I have done 25 amazon cards on teacher appreciation day though.
TC is around $350k a year. Cleaning service every 2 weeks and they have been with me for the past 10 years. Even when they don’t have much, they bought me presents for my son’s bday etc. I think daycare teachers make $13 an hour, I think they deserve to get more but I know that many can’t afford daycare either. Maybe I’m on the more generous side but many give at least $15-$20 or parents pool the money for teachers. I have very low expenses other than my son, hardly buy anything and drive a 12 year old car. I am surprised that this is not a norm for the high earners in this area. Interestingly enough, 4 years ago when I was pregnant with my son, a homeless man bought me $2 ice cream because I didn’t have a small change at the moment. I tried to give him money and he refused to take it back. He said it’s a gift for my baby. I feel like $2 for him is a lot and very generous. I feel bad for taking the money but it seems to make him happy to be able to buy me and my unborn son an ice cream. Just very eye opening how generous people are even when they don’t have a lot.
Don't forget to tip your shuttle drivers and cook as well.
Good point. Many of them work 2-3 jobs and live in subpar condition. I am sure a small token in a season of giving is much appreciated. I don’t have a cook or shuttle driver but I do tip more generously in December.
I usually gift $40 and chocolates to my regular manicurist. Aside from her, we don't have much help at home yet as it's just the 2 of us in our fam right now but your post is encouraging on being generous esp when we have kids!
It's important for us to give people a chance who would otherwise have a hard time finding a job - e.g. due to language barriers. So we pay the Hispanic lady who cleans our apartment $25 per hour, and our daycare also much more than she asked for. For Xmas we just give them small ToysRUs gift cards for their children.
I don’t earn anywhere near what you guys earn but I also live in the Midwest so it may even out. We do $50 for our kids daycare teacher. She’s also our date night baby sitter so we have a close relationship with her. Don’t think to tip anyone else. Our cleaners get a tip every time they come (2x a month) so I feel like there’s no need to do anything extra.
Yes what you're describing is norm. For people you personally pay (nanny, housecleaner, gardener, etc) double pay for December is common. If you have met their kids, then gifts for their kids too. Daycare teachers are tricky. If you normally pay them directly then yes, double up. If you normally pay the school, then do gift cards. $100 in that situation is normal, but often helpful to pool money with the other parents, which is more common in the US.
I donate to MSF (doctors without borders). There are people in the world who have it way worse than anyone living in the Bay Area. There are people living through wars you never heard of and they're there delivering basic family medical care.
We donate to charity, and we go a lot of what OP listed. Housekeeper gets a week's worth of pay as a gift, we give my partner's assistant (who struggles to get by) $500, donate to our company toy drives, etc. We're fortunate enough to pull in a lot of money and have no kids, so we try to give back. Our motto is that no one deserves more than their share of the world's resources. We have more, but we don't believe we are entitled to it, if that makes sense
How much are you making?!! With housing prices in bay, I can barely save for myself...
Understood. Maybe the question is for the lucky ones, the high earners who post a lot here. I am thinking it makes sense to pay it forward, starting with people who really help our day to day lives such as teachers. I am amazed on how they survive on their salary and the sacrifice/long commute they have to do to do their job. I think maybe $15-$20 gift cards will be proper in most cases.