Holiday tipping

Well! It looks like it's Holiday Week around here, so, um, even though it was unintentional, let's just go with it, OK? Because yesterday our newspaper came with a little envelope in it, containing a holiday card from our newspaper carrier, but clearly the holiday card is out of pure politeness because the envelope containing the card was addressed to the paper carrier.

I mean, it's my understanding that this is pretty standard practice, and I had actually been thinking about it and sort of expecting it, so I wasn't surprised or anything.

And, you know, our paper carrier gets up at the crack of dawn every day to deliver our paper, even when there's over a foot of snow outside and most of the roads aren't plowed, and I assume that he isn't paid very much to do it. So, I want to give him a good tip. But I have no idea what that would be.

I like to tip and I prefer to tip well, while simultaneously not breaking the bank. I did some Googling and found answers ranging from $10 to $50 for people who receive papers 7 days a week (as we do). So, I was thinking $25? Is that reasonable? I want to be generous and I really have no idea what generous is, and also we are trying really hard to save money so while I want to be generous, I also don't want to kill the semblance of a budget that we have going on.

And, also, can I assume that this is just the first of many people to tip this holiday season? I am trying to think of who else we might tip. The mail carrier? I read that they are prohibited from accepting more than $20 in cash... but does that mean that we can leave them a tip of $20 or less? Is that standard and/or expected? And doesn't the post office do some kind of canned food drive at the holidays?

In past years when we lived in an apartment, there was always a collection by the tenants' association to tip the front desk staff, but now we're in a house so I guess that's out. But there must be other people, right? People I'm not thinking of?

Basically, this whole homeowner/grown-up thing is, you know, new and I have no idea how to handle it. But that's why I have a blog, right? Help me here, please. Who do you tip at the holidays, and how much?