Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions.
Key Principles
We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.
Editorial Independence
Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information.
You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey.
Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy, so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money.
Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service.
Singer Paul Simon includes something similar to a Christmas song on his album “So Beautiful or So What.” In it, the narrator is working two low-paying jobs and worrying about the expenses of the upcoming holiday. “Oh, the music may be merry, but it’s only temporary. I know Santa Claus is coming to town,” Simon says.
No doubt many in this still-recovering economy can relate this holiday season. Besides buying gifts for loved ones, there are always lingering questions about what to do for the numerous people who intersect our lives every day: co-workers, bosses, our personal mail carrier, baby sitters and other numerous service providers. Holiday gift-giving etiquette can be tricky, especially when it comes to tipping. It can also vary regionally. While residents of Sun Belt states might want to give something extra to the person who cleans the pool every week, those in New York City high-rises may think of building superintendents and doormen.
“I don’t think there are any general rules, and that is why it is so challenging for people,” says Nancy Mitchell, who runs The Etiquette Advocate in Washington, D.C. For those who are light on discretionary funds, there are plenty of homemade options, she says. They also say environmentally friendly gifts are all the rage, and donations made in the name of the receiver are popular, too.
Share