Skip the Tips: A game to select "No Tip" but dark patterns try to stop you
skipthe.tips
skipthe.tips
To give a concrete example, if you're an American traveling in Brazil withdrawing cash from an ATM or buying something for BRL 500, you'll be presented with an option to pay BRL 500 or pay just US$110.58 in your own currency (with text saying conversion includes 15%).
But the typical American (and Canadian) credit card adds at most 2.5% to the Visa or Mastercard exchange rate, which is at most 0.5% higher than the interbank rate. So basically by clicking the wrong button, you're paying an extra 12% to the payment processor. In the example above, your credit card would have charged you about US$99.04 had you declined the conversion, and saved you $10.
I can't imagine a situation where it's to your benefit to accept the "conversion service" they're offering. I wonder if the payment processor is kicking back some of the profit back to the merchant because this swindle is spreading everywhere.
The worst part is that a couple of people that I've tried to warn don't get it. They still think that they should pick US$ (or whatever their own currency is) because that's what their credit card uses.
On the positive side, it seems that Wise must block it because I never see the DCC "choice" when using a Wise card.
As a negative point, I've noticed that AirBnB, which used to use reasonable conversion rates, has just recently started to use exorbitant currency conversion and not allow you to pay in the local currency of the country you're traveling to (so you can let your own credit card do the conversion at a lower rate). I.e., if you try to book a property in Brazil in BRL (literally clicking on the price to pay in BRL), the charge will nevertheless go through in USD (or whatever currency is your own) with AirBnb doing the conversion at the rate they choose.
Gemini confirms it's not a thing, and not really possible (the terminals just detect the country from the card number)
Edit: Perplexity says this:
> cards cannot block DCC offers because the merchant terminal identifies your card’s country of origin from the card number and offers DCC accordingly. Always manually decline at payment to let the card handle conversion at better rates
Some places they're insistent that you must do currency conversion or the payment won't work. Makes me think the merchant must be getting a chunk of that profit and telling their staff to accept the conversion...
For example, I can choose my bank to do the conversion at the time of purchase, or pay with that currency when the invoice comes.
Plus, the point is that you're asked whether you'd like to pay more for something, where there is no benefit in it for you nor a public benefit etc.
Payment terminals used to have good UX, they all clearly showed you the price when paying. Tills had displays with the price facing the customer which were clearly visible.
Now traditional POS terminals have been replaced with tap and go devices by the latest fintech, non of them show the price to the customer by design. Instead you tap a small puck and you hope the price charged is the one asked only to find a transaction fee on top when later check your balance.
It's a deliberate design choice to withhold showing the price on these devices. It's cheap to add a small LCD panel to them, the technology previously existed and still exists however the choice have been made not to.
I'm sorry, but it's a mandatory knee-jerk response here: "Is this something I'm too European to undestand?"
Even the the smallest, crappiest devices are required to have a line LCD to show the final price. Goes to show that consumer protection minimums do really set the bar for eventual exploitation.
In Australia, a lot of places only have a "Square Reader" on the counter where you pay. i.e. cafes, coffee shops, convenience stores, market stalls.
Terminals do exist with full displays but they are less common, mainly if you go to a restaurant as they have options for tipping on the display.
Just looking at the Square website the "Square Reader" is $69 vs $329 for the "Square Terminal". This may be part of the reason cafes etc prefer them given tight overheads.
Square reader: https://squareup.com/au/en/hardware/reader
Yes, I'm referring to European directive mandating final price displays on terminals.
I think this would be the simplest reader one can legally use in Europe https://www.sumup.com/en-au/air-nfc-card-reader (although European market sites do not even list this model anymore)
I genuinely don't know if this is good or not, but the UIs insistence on reverting back to another currency after my initial selection leads me to believe that my initial selection hits them the hardest the most
It's a complete con...
I see this feature in Poland. The choice is clear. Or there is no choice and it is paid in local currency.
It was really scammy and I almost fell for it.
We have the same thing in Euroland
I inserted my card, and then was reading the text and choice that popped up on the screen, and while I was reading it trying to decide which I should click, the merchant grabbed the scanner and clicked the accept...
Of course I got a charge notification on my mobile app immediately and noticed that it was way higher than it should have been, so then I had to go back to them and get them to refund the transaction so we could do it again which took forever and a manager etc etc.
They punch numbers into one of those wireless hand terminals. I tap my card, enter the pin and then before I can react to what the screen is now saying they've punched the 'Accept Conversion' button and submit it. By the time I realise what has happened, it's too late and has started printing the reciept.
I insisted they reverse it and redo the transaction without that - the staff didn't understand and didn't care they'd cost me another 10-15%. It really adds up for a week long stay.
That’s a 20+ minute decision they just made to try to save a few seconds.
Normally in Germany, you've got those distinct card terminals with a display where you see your total before paying. Some of those have started nagging you for tips which you need to explicitely accept or decline first before tapping your card. Not in this case though: after you've ordered your food, they point you to the combined order/pay display and while you awe at the technology marvel of combining both, you tap your card on that and then you notice that 15% tip has been automatically included and charged. You needed to notice some small text and small buttons in the corner of that display beforehand and actively tap on "0%" or something before tapping your card. I'm already furious they've let this tip begging to be added to the card terminals, but charging tips without explicit consent should be completely illegal.
Charging a tip for to-go items is preposterous. When dining in, I will indeed tip, usually by rounding up to the next 5 or 10 euro increment for a group meal, or to the next 1 or 2 euro increment for single meals (e.g. during lunch hours near the office). But this is only if the service is actually good. If a restaurant makes me wait more than 30 minutes for a quick lunch, they will be paid exactly the amount posted on the menu.
Lawsuits and chargebacks are about the only pressure businesses have not to scam you.
You must have been in Berlin, Wisconsin because we've been assured repeatedly on HN that the tipping plague thing is exclusively an American problem, and never ever happens in Eurosparkleponyland.
Ditto for spam calls and texts.
Then when you spend down the credit to $2 any attempt to buy something that costs more refills the credit.
Starbucks app btw. You have to specifically pay with card on the payment screen to avoid buying credit and paying as above.
Expecting people to read those for most simple sign ups is already a high baseline, and Starbucks is not technically a banks and offers no consumer protections (FSCS or other), so that feels knowingly misleading, even if the total balances held are small per customer.
IANAL, of course.
The numbers given have to be incorrect.
probably doesn't come up to 20% (unless Starbucks is in junk bond territory) but it's higher than the investment rate of 4% that you're quoting.
Most of the time they have a buried clause that says that you forfeit all of your credit or get charged an inactivity fee if there have been no account transactions or no credit added for 12 or 18 months. Same reason why you should never buy gift cards.
So they can keep collecting interest on it forever, but they have to keep the balance for you indefinitely.
By law, gift cards never expire.
Unfortunately, I have several gift cards I didn't use before the store expired.
I mean, once Starbucks have it, then the customers get it back via product (that has a margin included), or just leave it forever (free money!)
I have a firm "No vouchers" rule because of this, the vouchers in my part of the world inexplicably "expire" if not used within a certain amount of time, cannot be redeemed for cash, and will not be honoured if the business goes belly up
(¹I think this is too high; BLS thinks inflation over 2016 was 2.5%. But their core point still stands: interest earned was below inflation.)
I think that's the only place i've seen it refundable.
I don't know a single resident who uses oyster (maybe kids? Dunno, I don't have kids in my social circle), infrequent visitors are actually the only ones I've seen using oyster and that's because they thought that was the only way to use transport
I'm from EU, so ymmw. I simply don't tip. Why? Because I don't have to. And if I don't have to, then I don't. It is that simple.
Now we know they mean Germany.
Don't fall for it though! Just select "no tip" or "0" like in this game and you're good.
I saw this in two restaurants already and I am pissed
... consulting companies developing the terminal entered the chat ...
(just kidding, I agree with you)
But in the end you'll only annoy the waiter and not the owner of the restaurant who is actually running the tipping scam.
Or maybe you can be like our former Ministry of Culture, Jack Lang, who just resigned from a prestigious, if useless, post in the wake of the Epstein scandal. It was revealed that he never paid for anything in his 60+ years of public "service", always leaving restaurants, hotels, etc. without footing the bill.
For you and me, this would be called stealing and would eventually land us in jail. But if you're a minister in France it's called "living like a prince" and being "a little stingy".
You make it sound like a general rule, but I don’t see how it is that “simple”. There are few things if any that you have to do in life. It’s all a decision and a tradeoff. Nobody forces you to breathe. Or to be friendly with your neighbors. Or a stranger.
The friends of mine who worked in bars were paid living wage without tips. So no, no need.
Now that they have started abusing it, it's even less defensible.
Hell, I know some people who have been working at restaurants as waiters for a long time now, and they live perfectly comfortably with 0 expectations around tips.
I still don't tip, basically ever, my only exception is the rare time I get food delivered, because unlike a regular service job the apps don't pay a livable wage and the cut they take is gargantuan compared to what the drivers get.
Tips weren't a part of my friends income. The restaurant/bar paid them a salary.
In the EU people are paid fair salaries for their work, they don't have to beg for money from clients
Personally I pretty much stopped going to restaurants completely during COVID when I was treated worse than dog - dogs allowed (to some places), unvaxxed not allowed to enter.
This is the correct approach. If you are an asdhole for not caring about others but using the herd immunity znyway, this is the latest that can be done to show contempt.
My wife is immunodepressed and cannot be vaccinated. She avoids plenty of places because shit people like this do not care.
I once physically threw away someone sick and unvaccinated from a place for babies only that are not protected by the mother and too young to protect themselves. It was violent, I called the police afterwards myself.
People don't be dicks with other people life.
Look at the numbers and you will see the drop in BOTH the number of infections, AND the transmissions (because of a reduced viral payload).
These are sensibly larger than would be expected from natural herd immunity due to infections.
Vaccines also greatly reduced the severity of the disease, when caught anyway.
If you do not believe in science, treat this as a religion and do it anyway without thinking.
Granted, I also don't go to the EU if I can avoid it, and most places I make so much more money than the locals I don't mind a bit extra for the worker.
What I liked much less is smoking in the restaurants which happens in Beijing even in 2026 despite posters on the wall saying No smoking in Chinese and English and everyone is affraid to tell something to smoker. You would think after years of campaigning it will improve, but I don't see much improvement after visiting after many years.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
And as other commenter correctly pointed out, by the federal law of hour wage plus tips is below federal minimum wage, the restaurant must pay extra to reach the minimum wage. So if we assume that restaurants actually follow this law, wait staff will be kept at poverty wage 7.25/hr.
As someone who has previously worked for that wage and finally did "get a different job," there was no "just" about it. I had the support of well-off family who were willing to significantly contribute to my education and living situation, and it still took years of hard toil (all while being nearly destitute) before ever achieving anything resembling financial stability. That was not (and likely never will be) an option for 90-95% of the people I worked with in the food-service industry. There is absolutely no justification (beyond abject greed) for that type of poverty wage, and it's the responsibility of everyone in our society to prevent that type of exploitation of the vulnerable, precisely because they cannot afford to "lobby to change that" and often can't "get a different job" outside of the same industry.
I don't know what proportion of waiters are members, but the union for hospitality workers is one of the largest (possibly the largest) in Denmark: https://cf.3f.dk/english/wages-and-sectors/working-in-the-ho...
In Danish, the collective agreement they negotiated with McDonald's: https://www.3f.dk/-/media/files/artikler/overenskomst/privat...
Anyways I remember the hamburger place because they didn’t ask for, or even allowed us, to tip. The price was all-in.
It’s a breath of fresh air! More restaurants should advertise with this feature.
Not in all U.S. states, for example California.
But also actually demanding those wages if you dont get enough tip money is a great way for them to get fired. And if they are that poor to work in those conditions they will have a hard time scraping the money to go to court to get an unlawful dismissal case.
But servers are the only industry where they demand we the consumer take care of the problem because they're unwilling to do so themselves:
"Hard time scraping the money to go to court"? You don't go to court, you go to the DOL with your documentation.
"If you don't tip I have to pay/pay taxes to serve you" - no, you don't. The IRS assumes that you get a certain amount of tips. If you document that you got less, then guess what, they tax you on that.
Know why servers don't like to do that? Because the IRS assumption is that the average tip is 8%. What proportion of a server's customers do we think don't tip versus those who tip more than 8%?
"That's a lot of work" No. IRS Form 4070 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/f4070--2005.pdf) charitably takes less than five minutes a month to fill out.
"I'll get fired". Sure. That's a risk, I admit, and easy for me to say "You need to risk something". Inertia is a powerful thing. How many servers getting fired for fighting wage theft is enough to make a restaurant start to have problems?
I do agree though that the whole culture was broken before and now with payment kiosks asking for tips everywhere it's absurd.
FWIW, this sounds like a deeply unpleasant experience to me
I hate that. My old boss would book us into 5* places when we travelled for work and his wife was also there. People standing over me just felt “ick”. Like when the security guard decides to fallow you around the supermarket! (the latter has only happened a couple of times that I've noticed, when it did I made a point of spending much longer than I otherwise would meandering back & forth, and gave them a grin on my way out after paying…)
Not sure what star rating system you're going by (Michelin only goes up to 3), but I'd expect that level of service even at 1* restaurants.
Maybe years living in a somewhat ropey town and having to be careful in alley-ways and tree covered areas has tuned me to be extra sensitive to people trying to stay out of line of sight…
The problem with tipping is tipping in places which aren't restaurants and bars.
Eh. Having eaten at plenty of restaurants all over the USA and Europe, they seem equally littered with both good and bad service. Understanding and adjusting to the culture of individual countries helps make your experiences better.
Some of the absolute worst service I've received have been in the US, yet they ask for tips. I've also received some of the best service at a US restaurant, where the suggested tip was 10% and the prices where pretty low.
The weirdest thing I've experience is the large number of staff in US coffee shops, compared to locally, yet basically not being able to order, and then having a suggested tip at 20%. I've encountered this a multiple locations, and different chains. Four people, one person takes the order, one makes the drink, one continuously mop the floor and the last person just stands around (manager?) You could significantly increase the base pay by getting rid of two of these people.
The poor area? Bad tipping.
Middle class? Depends on the person
Upper middle class? Big bucks.
I agree with the tiered pricing argument, but ehm, you know you are allowed to tip in Europe also right? If you are rich and feel benevolent, feel free to leave cash on the table. You don't need others to be forced into dark-pattern PIN machines or feel guilty for not paying more than the bill for that reason.
I'm literally 0 for 3 on those claims. Not sure how you have such experiences. Maybe its a choice of words 'Many many' could be like 20 places out of 10,000. Maybe 'feels very fake' is something that isn't actually a problem, and might be a benefit, so I didn't notice it. And that last line about 'not their table'... I can't say I've ever experienced it.
If I ever find the system too unfair for the workers, then I won’t go to those restaurants anymore.
> If I ever find the system too unfair for the workers, then I won’t go to those restaurants anymore.
Sounds like you only tip once at each restaurant then? Not paying a reasonable salary to employees and assuming they'll beg customers for extra money to make up the difference seems unfair to me.
If you don't tip, the worker does not magically get a salary. How would they? No, they actually make less money.
This whole "well if you think about not tipping is actually giving them more money" thing is the purest and most refined form of cope I've ever seen. It obviously doesn't work like that. Maybe if everyone did it. But you just doing it does nothing.
You're 100% allowed to not tip. What you're NOT allowed to do is not tip and then somehow try to claim you're helping the worker. You're not. Like, objectively, you're not. That's just literally not true.
You want to feel like a burden when you go out to eat, eat in Italy.
In the US, the servers are dancing excited for you to be there.
I've always had good experiences in Italy even though I was a stupid tourist during peak season.
I, for one, can't stand this fake chumminess you often experience in American restaurants.
I've never seen a tip reaching 10€ in a restaurant, even in tables of 5+ people.
I guess you've never been to Germany.
Last time I was there (last year), I tried just giving small "trinkgeld" tips (round up to nearest Euro) and the servers were PISSED. I've never seen such rude service.
So why do EU people always say there's no tipping in the EU? This clearly isn't true, at least not any more.
When I traveled in the EU in the 2010s, it wasn't like this at all. WTF is going on over there?
Having the knowledge which dark patterns even work well for technically affine users while still being "socially acceptable" can be worth a lot of money to specific companies.
If the former, stop doing it right now and atone.
If the latter, I don't think that's healthy, you have nothing to do with it unless you're at a FAANG or something.
However, OP’s usage seems logical, so I wouldn’t be upset if it became popular!
As a native German speaker, I indeed fell for this false friend. :-(
More recently though, I must say, YouTube has really jumped the shark in terms of perfecting their dark patterns/algo stickiness. I can’t even go to the site without immediately forgetting my original intent.
I did something else for a few minutes, then I scrolled down another page or so.
The shorts were right there again.
Google is evil. Anyone still working for them is enabling this.
I drop it down a bit and pay it on my credit card for him, but what's the right way to deal with this situation?
"Walmart InHome is a premium service that delivers groceries and essentials directly into a customer's home (fridge/kitchen) or garage, using trained, vetted Walmart associates. As an add-on to Walmart+, it costs an additional $40/year (or $7/month) to provide unlimited, tip-free, and free-delivery-fee service."
Can even do it when you aren't home.
(BYW that’s my proposed solution for the tipping problem, too, to stick to the topic.)
Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
[Matthew 7:13-14](I was definitely expecting a level to swap the contrast eventually as a trick.)
Summary: if I didn't tip in a situation 10 years ago, I'm not going to start now.
That's it. I cut my own hair.
She charges me $15! I tip +$25 and it’s still a cheap haircut.
My haircut has to be one of the simplest around, but 9 out of 10 stylists will leave me fixing it myself later. Once I paid $50+tip for the same cut at a swanky joint and STILL went home and fixed it. She doesn’t know what she’s worth.
People should be paid a living wage by default.
Also not having "tips" prevents freeloaders from not paying taxes, which every other worker in the country pays fairly.
Tips (if reported) are always subject to 7.65% FICA tax. And there are several conditions that must be met before tips are excluded from federal (not necessarily state) income tax. (U.S. tax law). In short, many tips are still fully taxed despite false promises to the contrary.
That means they are allowed to be paid less than minimum wage. Wage is paid by the employer, not the employer's customer. If the employer can deduct the tips from the minimum wage, that explicitly means that they are allowed to pay tipped workers less and that tipping does not provide any additional income but instead only shifts the responsibility of paying people for their work to the customer. Tips are are nothing but gifts to the employer.
> and it's an easy way to show appreciation.
If something is socially expected simply as part of protocol and people only do it out of the social pressure not to deviate from the norm and be seen as assholes, then that is not appreciation.
And yes, I'm American. Of course it's culture, but more than that we want waiters to not starve to death so we tip. You can, of course, choose not to but I consider it an asshole move knowing what they're making.
It seems like since the pandemic even that is less expected though, which is nice.
People used to play this whole unpleasant game of saying "round it up to £30 if you do me a receipt", and the driver providing a fistful of blank receipts in return - almost as if expenses fiddling was less shameful than tipping.
Thankfully, the likes of Uber and mandatory card payment terminals in cabs have ended all that.
The coffee shop owners? They're probably making a decent amount of money no?
I’d much rather the game progressed in a fixed logical order and the choices became less obvious without a timer. In other words, I think this makes more sense as a puzzle game, not a reflexes game.
Unless we start arguing that gratitude is a dark pattern.
But until that I do tip for dine-in service. But I found the "buy me a coffee" link on the button of this to be much funnier / ironic than it probably should have been.
It's also missing what I think is the worst dark pattern:
Having no option not to tip at all. Instead requiring that the customer press "Custom" and manually entering "0.00"
These days it pays to aggressively demonstrate that you are price sensitive and will delay or cancel transactions at the slightest whiff of additional expense.
I only ever tip off-platform or cash even if I pay with card. Also that helps to enable my gift to go only to the service provider. It fucks me on some platforms but I find that an acceptable cost to not get algorithmically spitroasted. Besides, it also helps to eliminate predatory platforms from my ecosystem.
Mobile offers a speed boost for taps but heavy nerf to text entry tasks.
Available to watch here: https://www.tvseries.video/series/the-x-files/season-11-epis...
I was thinking in sending this link to my family but probably the timer is really fast for them but I think they could used your app as "training" so they know how to spot a dark pattern in the future
"Just the tip"
Wild how we're back in popup hell now just like we were back then, even though the method for web popups is different now.
How many of these are real dark patterns? The "new entry suddenly prepended to the list" one I have seen before.
and are these California prices? It's totally bonkers.
(My draft specification of Computer Payment File is intended to avoid many kind of dishonesty when paying by computer (it is not needed or useful when paying in cash), including this kind; one of the things it requires is that the buyer calculates the payment amount from the information (such as the catalog) that the seller provides; they cannot charge you any other amount of money.)
Somehow, employers of these establishments convinced the staff that it's the customer’s fault that their wages are inadequate and that they should go after the customers to get the difference. I would much rather pay a higher price and not hear anything about the tips.
But these UI's are occasionally slipping into a countries where tipping is not expected.
This leads to a strange situations like "transaction isn't approved by me because instead of ApplePay and walk away, I need to solve some quiz on a payment terminal or payment will not pass".
Every time this happens, it annoys me a lot which affects my wish to visit this place again.
Even if a law was passed in the US to correct the minimum wage at restaurants etc. nothing will be resolved.
Restaurants managed to outsource their wage problems to customers without raising their prices. Even with an adjusted minimum wage, people will say that it’s not enough.
souls-like
Is bill-paying UI also a guilt machine? If you don't pay, you feel guilty! How about holding the door for elderly people? Going to your kid's event? Not running people over in the crosswalk? Saying please and thank you? Buying birthday presents? It's all so unfair - to me!
or buy their merch to support that worthy struggle.
> I also assume that the employees' salaries are not “great.”
The employees' salaries not being “great” benefits the shareholders. How the shareholders get away with paying such low salaries is left as an exercise to the reader.
As a practical example let's say you take a date to your local trendy sushi place. You both get gold-leafed deep fried Wagyu fatback tuna rolls and some Yuzu duck fat-washed 50-year-old whiskey highballs. The final bill is $100 (I'll use round-ish numbers for this example). The bartender comps you 30% because you all are cool and discuss your shared experience bartending or jetskiing or whatever. Ordinarily your tip would have been 20% for a total of $120. In this case your bill is now $70 plus your newly selected gratuity. Take the difference between the original bill with tip and your current bill without tip and divide it in two. This is the floor for your new tip, in this case (120-70)/2 = $25. This is indeed something like a 35% gratuity but they hooked you up and made that custom drink for your charming new beau. As a matter of fact you should round up from this number because they have side work to do and you make pretty decent money as a software engineer/LLM tickler/product sorcerer. Just make it $30 for a nice round hundo.
If you're friends with the manager and they comp your dinner to do you a solid and impress your date then you should tip 50% of what the bill would have been minimum. This is why you should keep cash in your pocket - shake the waiter's hand on your way out and palm it to them. If that's not possible then go to use the restroom and talk to them on your way back so they can run your card through the POS on a blank check to give them said tip.
This is how you do things with class. This is what I wish somebody had explained to me when I was 20 and kinda broke (i.e. eager to save money that I would have spent anyway) before I embarrassed myself by failing to do such. If you are similarly unaware then now you know too :-)
As an addendum this also applies to coffee and pizza places but the numbers become coarser. Buying them the equivalent of a beer at your local dive ($3ish) is customary.
Creating a good guest experience is how you get repeat business. Comps are part of that. You are talking about theft and I mentioned nothing of the sort. If you choose to engage in such behavior then that's your business - don't accuse me of it.
Tipping is a scam in the age of wages and pensions
Cooking was way easier.
I agree the whole tipping system in the US is a mess, though.
If a waiter is comping something in exchange for a higher tip, that's not generosity or goodwill at all, it's a dishonest scam.
I will tip what I want to tip (often 0) without remorse and move on with my life.
Unfortunately this cancerous American system leeched into Canada, but we can still stop it, one $0 tip at a time.
I tipped on the full amount but we had to get the manager again to figure out how. I was going to Venmo her but the manager just sent the $0.00 bill to the table.
I always thought that was a casino thing (to keep you drinking so that you gamble more) but I've never been to a casino. I live in Canada though, so we might have laws against that sort of thing.
like, a good looking person will get the occasional comp on the basis of that, but you'll never be friends with the staff on the basis of that. whereas anyone can be friends with the staff, if they are friendly and earnest about it.
Are you a time traveler from like 1980?
"Practical example"
Learn to make your own coffee. You shouldn't have to pay more than a couple of bucks for coffee with perhaps some milk in it. An espresso machine and a grinder will quickly pay for themselves.
While you are at it, cancel all those streaming subscriptions, and stream for free in the high seas or YT ad-free with uBlock.
The above "tips" will save your thousands of dollars each year, and most likely also save you time. There are also things like DIY car maintenance that can be fun to learn and save you a lot of money, but you need space (a house) and some tools to get started.
Setting up jellyfin+plex (some devices support one but not the other) and most of the arr suite (radarr, sonarr, prowlarr, tunarr) has really been the best choice I've made this year. I have every TV show or movie I ever want to watch, all my favorites, all the classics. And all in one place. And I made sure to keep it local-first so I still have access at home if we lose internet. Started sharing with family and friends and I get a few requests a week to add content, so its being used.
Just removing the "what streaming service is this show on that im watching?" has been a nice improvement.
Or a pour over filter (like Kalita Wave or Hario V60) plus a grinder. That's a cheaper setup to start, and an easy way to get a big mug of great coffee.
I recently bought my mom flowers for her birthday. Despite the price showing no delivery fee, the final price included $15 delivery charge, $8 service charge, taxes, and then asked me for a tip.
I chose no tip, expecting the delivery and service charge should cover everything.
The flowers were left on her front porch in below-freezing weather, they didn’t even knock or ring the doorbell. Luckily my mom happened to open the door and saw them before they completely froze.
So was the delivery person incompetent, or acting out because I didn’t add additional tip?