Tipping Movers?

[Ema]

We have never used professional movers before. Is it customary to tip the movers? If so, how much? 

[bibiche]

Yes, it’s customary. How much depends on how happy you are with them. Generally we tip between $20 and $40 per person, more if the service is stellar or if there are lots of stairs or other difficulties. We also buy them food and beverages. If it isn’t the same people on both ends (and it never has been for us), you tip at both ends. 

Edited June 21, 2021 by bibiche

[Harriet Vane]

It's almost ten years ago now since we moved last. I tipped each guy on the crew $20 and gave an extra twenty to the crew manager, who was amazing and deserved every cent. I also paid for lunch for the crew. My reasoning is simple: They are not paid well. They work very, very hard. And they are handling my stuff so I want them to feel some friendly incentive to take good care.

We have moved quite a few times. I've never regretted tipping them, though I will be totally honest--there was one crew in particular who were waaaaaaaaay better than the others we worked with over the years. It didn't feel nearly as good to pay those tips to the two crews that were more lackluster in their efforts.

[Katy]

We do $50 per guy, plus the total for all of them again for the driver if you’re going out of the area & have different loaders/unloaders at each location. So if there’s 5 guys unloading give the driver $250 and make it clear it’s for him, and not to distribute to the guys.  Usually the driver is sprinting for hours. So last time it was $1000 total for each end.  On a $12,500 move. 

DH’s company suggests $20 minimum per person and $100 minimum for the driver. We always try to overtip. We only had issues with our last move, when several large items got broken and half a dozen small things went missing.  I suspect the issue in the last move was trouble finding good help.

That said we have a large house snd we aren’t minimalists.  We have a lot of heavy stuff, and they usually underestimate what we have when they do the contract. When my mom moved her minimalist 2 bedroom house I think she tipped half that. She doesn’t have shelves full of books in every room and bunk beds the way we do.  I think her whole move was less than $600.

[Ethel Mertz]

I tipped each mover $50 in cash at the end of the move.

[Tap]

I don't know the answer to the question......but have to say....I hate the tipping expectation/culture. It never would have occurred to me to tip the amount that is being mentioned in this thread. $50-100-250 for a tip? For someone to drive a moving truck and monitor staff? I only bring home $150 from my job in a day. 😵 It wouldn't be that I appreciate the work more or less than others do, but I just couldn't afford that on top of paying for a move, and thus may innocently offend someone.

Edited June 21, 2021 by Tap

[HeartString]

9 minutes ago, Tap said:

I don't know the answer to the question......but have to say....I hate the tipping expectation/culture. It never would have occurred to me to tip the amount that is being mentioned in this thread. $50-100-250 for a tip? For someone to drive a moving truck and monitor staff? I only bring home $150 from my job in a day. 😵 It wouldn't be that I appreciate the work more or less than others do, but I just couldn't afford that on top of paying for a move, and thus may innocently offend someone.

Second this.   I hate tipping.  It’s not the money, it’s the weird expectations around it.  I can’t take the pressure!

[teachermom2834]

I honestly can’t remember the details but when we moved six years ago we had movers paid for as part of dh’s relocation package. They came and packed everything too. So we had this crew of guys in our house with us for days packing and then they loaded the truck and met us on the other end and unloaded. It really was a lot of time to spend with the guys. Much of it was in our home packing while we were there. 
 

The nature of spending so much time with these guys and them being in all our personal stuff and loading and unloading everything really made me want to have a good relationship with them. I also wanted them to keep working and get done ASAP. So I provided a cooler stocked with drinks and some random prepackaged snacks and mentioned them everyday. The guys took advantage of that and seemed to work through lunch. I don’t know if the snacks had anything to do with it but it was nice that they didn’t leave for an hour every day and just got the work done.

We did tip them at the end. I can’t remember how much and I feel like we asked if they would be the same crew on the other end so we could just tip them at the end of the whole thing. I feel like it might have been five guys and we have them each $40. Maybe $50. It was a big job lasting several days. It kind of felt like not enough for how much work they did but it was our max.

I have tipped guys that delivered a bed and put it together for us. I think I have them $10 each. They were sweet and took their time getting a bunk bed put together. 
 

I also have not tipped some furniture delivery people. If they just bring something in the house and it is easy and they are only here ten minutes I don’t feel so led. I go either way with delivery people. It probably has a lot to do with how comfortable I feel with them in my house.

 

[Ema]

Interesting. Thanks for the info. I also do not like the tipping culture, though I unfortunately understand why it has come about. I wish businesses would just pay their workers a good wage. It is shameful. We will have the same movers on both ends, and I think one of the moving guys drives the truck, so that is nice. I know I will also totally appreciate them moving our oodles of boxes of books, so that in itself deserves a little something extra. 

Also, with everything going on with regards to this move, I totally would never have thought of food. I’ll have to figure something out, so thanks for mentioning that! 

[Spryte]

If they are just moving the stuff, not packing it, we’ve tipped around $40 per person, more for the lead guy.  I think?  It’s been a while.

We always feed them lunch, snacks, keep cold drinks available.  We do that for all contractors doing work for us.  

[Ema]

I am doing all the packing, LOL. When we moved down here I bought huge, amazing Carmel rolls for everyone who helped. Any other tips for working with movers? I did a good job labeling boxes when I first started packing, but as most of our boxes are books, I kinda stopped labeling the books boxes. Would you label the boxes them by room number or name? Any other things you didn’t think of before the move and learned in the midst of it?

[Spryte]

1 hour ago, Ema said:

I am doing all the packing, LOL. When we moved down here I bought huge, amazing Carmel rolls for everyone who helped. Any other tips for working with movers? I did a good job labeling boxes when I first started packing, but as most of our boxes are books, I kinda stopped labeling the books boxes. Would you label the boxes them by room number or name? Any other things you didn’t think of before the move and learned in the midst of it?

We label by room name.  Kitchen.  Living room, etc.  Our last move, we also assigned each room a color and put a strip of colored duct tape on each box to make it very quick.

Have everything packed and ready to go, keep one designated area for items you want to take in the car.  

Keep a box of items you’ll need the first night.  There are tons of lists for that, but my priority is a way to make coffee the first morning. Bedding, TP, cleaning items, personal needs for everyone.

I already posted that we feed our movers.  We just order delivery, and keep a selection of accessible cold drinks and  various snacks available.

[mlktwins]

I have only used a moving company for my dad's local move.  We packed all the boxes, had the beds broken down, and mattresses in plastic before they came.

They did a fabulous job.  Not one thing lost, broken, or damaged.  We tipped $50 each to 3 workers that included the driver.

P.S.  I used different bright colors (think neon) of duck tape on the boxes by room.  I had a poster of which color went in which room posted right when they walked in dad's new place.  Easy peasy.

[bibiche]

I color code boxes according to where they’re going, but also number them. I have a master list with the numbers and their contents (an exhaustive list, because even when I think I will remember exactly where I packed something, I don’t always), so when someone absolutely, immediately needs one very specific item before all the boxes have been unpacked, I can look at the list and locate it immediately. 

[Ema]

14 minutes ago, bibiche said:

I color code boxes according to where they’re going, but also number them. I have a master list with the numbers and their contents (an exhaustive list, because even when I think I will remember exactly where I packed something, I don’t always), so when someone absolutely, immediately needs one very specific item before all the boxes have been unpacked, I can look at the list and locate it immediately. 

Wow, you are making me feel like such an amateur! As mom and I pack my waffle maker with my kids’ Calico Critters house!😂

[bibiche]

1 hour ago, Ema said:

Wow, you are making me feel like such an amateur! As mom and I pack my waffle maker with my kids’ Calico Critters house!😂

😂 You could also just snap a picture of each box before closing it. That’d make things easy. So when the kids are looking for the Calico Critters before you’ve had a chance to make that waffle breakfast…

[Bambam]

We've always had company paid movers (same at both ends for the last several moves) except for one move. It never occurred to me to tip them. We did buy them meals and provided cold drinks. They spent several days in our house last time packing and only one day unloading.  

[Ema]

4 hours ago, Bambam said:

We've always had company paid movers (same at both ends for the last several moves) except for one move. It never occurred to me to tip them. We did buy them meals and provided cold drinks. They spent several days in our house last time packing and only one day unloading.  

See, it would never have occurred to me either, expect that I was in a move-induced insomnia and my brain was in overtime. I think a tip is for when someone has done an exceptional job and you want to give them more than they expected since you got more than you expected. It seems a rather new thing that we are now expected to tip for almost every service. Of course, it could just be that my parents were kinda clueless about it. DH looked it up on the Emily Post website (nerd alert!😁) and it said more or less that you don’t have to but should if you think they earned it. So….I think we will do give them a little something extra, and I am going to order some pastries from a wonderful local small batch bakery. 

 

10 hours ago, bibiche said:

😂 You could also just snap a picture of each box before closing it. That’d make things easy. So when the kids are looking for the Calico Critters before you’ve had a chance to make that waffle breakfast…

Your voice was in my head and I took the Calico Critters house out! A picture is a great idea. Lazy woman’s inventory!

[Sneezyone]

12 hours ago, bibiche said:

I color code boxes according to where they’re going, but also number them. I have a master list with the numbers and their contents (an exhaustive list, because even when I think I will remember exactly where I packed something, I don’t always), so when someone absolutely, immediately needs one very specific item before all the boxes have been unpacked, I can look at the list and locate it immediately. 

I do the same thing with color codes but the movers number them for us. I also watch them like a hawk (I now have pint-size emissaries) to ensure they don’t have more than one box per room with random stuff snatched from elsewhere. I spend several weeks, pre-move, purging and organizing.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

4 hours ago, Bambam said:

We've always had company paid movers (same at both ends for the last several moves) except for one move. It never occurred to me to tip them. We did buy them meals and provided cold drinks. They spent several days in our house last time packing and only one day unloading.  

Same. Government movers are paid prevailing wages and all of ours have been government-paid moves.  When DH first enlisted, 20 years ago, the moving workshops advised us not to tip b/c lower paid personnel a) couldn’t afford expensive tips and b) shouldn't be made to feel like they had to pay for quality service. I’m told they no longer advise families of this, which is a shame IMO. I’ve never done anything more than lunches (homemade too, you’d be surprise how tiresome pizza and subs get) and drinks. Pulled pork/chicken and sides is my go-to. I’ve never tipped in 10+ moves and it’s never affected the quality of the packing. To be honest, they’re usually so grateful to enter a clean and organized house. I’ve heard so many horror stories. Being prepped and ready is plenty good thanks.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Sneezyone