Mailman/garbage man gifts?

ambmama

Just curious if any of you do this? H and I are both from smaller towns and it was definitely a tradition to at least get something for your mailman and garbage man. We decided to do it this year since it's our first year in our home, but curious if others do? I got them each a $15 gift certificate to Wawa (local gas station/convenience store/take out food). Also, if you do this, do you include the UPS/fedex people? I shop online primarily so we get a lot of packages... Lol.

ConstanceGoodspeed

Hell no, but we live in the city. Just curious why did you pick the garbage people and mail carrier? We have like four people on the garbage truck and four on the recycling truck, and they come between 4-7am. I don't even know how I would give them a gift. And our mail woman doesn't take outgoing mail, only delivers, so I guess we'd have to somehow wait at the door for her.

When we lived in an apartment we never even thought about them, the building handled trash and mail.

ETA: This is sweet and thoughtful of you, just seems so foreign and random to me!

ReeceFamily

We gift people that we have personally hired (house cleaners and yard people) but not people who are hired by the city, etc.  It's just too much, I'm broke from Christmas as it is.  And like PP said, I wouldn't know who to give it to!

Mom2anAngel2

We are doing the same for the mailman and garbage man. We got them Dunkin Donuts gift card. Our mail man is super nice and will actually get out of his truck and give DS the mail when we are outside Playing (he has 3 older boys and misses them being little). As for the garbage man, there is only 1 man in our truck and we actually hire him (we don't have town pick up).

When it comes to hair stylists and others, we usually just increase our tip this time of year.

loreeann86

We were thinking about doing this for our UPS guy and mailman. We live kind of in the country and have a long steep Driveway. They have to park away from our house and carry our stuff all the way up to doorstep. I feel bad ...we do a lot of online shopping. We always talk to them and try to meet them at the bottom if we are home and know they are there. We just weren't sure how to go about it

court115

Our town is so small that we don't get our mail delivered to our house. We have to go down to the post office everyday. It's a super small office with one lady behind the counter. I got her a $15 Wawa gift card. All packages we get go through her so I figured she deserved a little something for dealing with my online shopping addiction! I didn't get our garbage men anything because we're never home when they come so I've never even seen them.

ambmama

@ConstanceGoodspeed‌ I picked those two because like a pp, we only have one garbage man and our mailman is super sweet. We actually live in a larger suburb but I hire a private garbage service and we've had the same mailman. I figured it might be foreign in cities - but H grew up in a small town and he said you'd drive by the trash day before Christmas and there were gift baskets on all of the garbage cans! We also got a Christmas card from both.

Thanks for the input - I don't know if I'll do it every year but will this year since we are able.

DCKate

We also rent, so we don't have a garbage guy that we know. Instead, I made cookies for the guy who runs our front desk and handles packages. He is super sweet and patient with DD and lets her sit at his desk.

I also got a gift card for the guy who delivers our Sunday paper.

I don't think it has to be a lot, but I am sure people appreciate the recognition!

spainy17

I forgot to do this, thanks for reminding me!  I won't do our garbage people but we have the same mail lady all the time and she was even careful when I worked nights never to ring the doorbell, so sweet! 

We live in a relatively small town too (<20,000 people) so we get to know the same folks that are always there.

Brummy14

We definitely gave our mailman a gift. He deals with our absolutely ridiculous amount of packages - and almost always brings our mail just directly to our door. If I could give him more than the legally-capped $20, I would! It was easy to just hand the gift to him when he brought everything up to the door, as usual!

As for the garbage - we're never here when they pick up, so it would be virtually impossible unless we taped it to the can itself, which I'm not exactly comfortable with...

ambmama

@Brummy14 I never knew there was a legal cap to gifts for mailmen!