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I recently started a job at a coffee shop where the tips are divided weekly between the employees. My husband and I want to collect all my tips in a jar to be used for going out to eat, ordering pizza when we are feeling lazy, or anything else that might not quite fit into our budgeting.I want to have a tip jar on the main floor of our home, so it is easy to both drop my tips in right when I walk in the door, and get cash out when we are being spontaneous. I want something decorative, but not see-through since our main floor is all windows (showing a giant jar of cash to the neighborhood just doesn’t seem like a good idea). I know my Offbeat Homies will have great ideas!
Absolutely we do! Besides going literal and using an opaque tip jar, like the one pictured above — I’m thinking of using things like vases, cookie jars, various kitchen containers. I even threw in a treasure chest, because… how could I not!?
Check these out…
Kitchen canisters
I have this canister in the smaller version and I love it. Hopefully you get enough tips to fill up the tall version of The Kind Kitchen Canister.
Here are awesome rustic three-piece canisters.
Keep your spare change in a pirate-y treasure chest
As someone who is always making that mad dash to the door, most days the whole lot of it was dumped unceremoniously on the floor... Read more
You just had to know that we were going to suggest one of these vice canisters, right?
Coffee cans
Of course it doesn’t hurt to get a pretty, kitschy coffee canister like this one.
Or use these vintage-style sugar, flour, coffee, and tea canisters.
Vases
Use a funky vase like the Crushing on Your Style vase in blue.
The sweater vase is all kinds of awesome! I think this looks more like a container than a vase anyway.
Decorative boxes
I heart this tree trunk container so hard.
Cookie jars
Cookie jars don’t have to look like cookie jars, like this one that looks more like a decorative element.
Or you can get stilly and dorky with it, like with the Offbeat Empire’s favorite Tardis cookie jar.
Treasure chests, of course
Can you really pass up an opportunity to store you cash in a treasure chest?
What other suggestions do YOU guys have for opaque and alternative tip jars?
My partner and I don’t work in tip jobs but we operate a fines system for cleaning up (based upon an Offbeat Home post if I remember rightly!). There are five fine crimes including not leaving dirty dishes out overnight. Anyone who does, it’s a £1 in the fin tin! The fine tin is from the local pound shop and you need to use a tin opener to get into it. It’s a great deterrent especially as we have a bad habit of splurging cash on takeaways when we have a cupboard full of food.
That’s brilliant. I need to find a tin like that. Or a piggybank that doesn’t have a plug in the bottom.
It’s not a jar, but we use something we call “The Good Book”. It was originally a handmade wedding gift – a friend took a pretty, 1920s hardcover book from a used bookshop and pasted scrap paper on the pages to make pockets, then stuck a dollar bill in each pocket (52 total for the first year of our married life) and tied it shut with a pretty ribbon. We decided we’d use it for “mad money” and that we would put our stray dollar bills in there to re-up on occasion and try to make it through the whole first year of married life without completely emptying the book. One and a half years later, the Good Book has $46 dollars in it, and I’m going to use some of it to order pizza tonight!
It’s seriously the best, most-used wedding gift we received! It would be really easy to make one for yourself. We’ve managed to dine out on the Good Book several times, and we always have cash for tipping delivery people etc. Plus, it looks nice and fits with our bookish/colorfully nerdy decor.
This sounds awesome! Do you mind posting a picture? please :). I would love to see what the book looks like.
Oh my god, I want a ENTIRE POST of treasure chests, Megan.
Oh really!? That’s an idea!…
If you’re crafty (or even not very, they’re super easy), you could try a diy on a cheapo vase. I haven’t done a glitter vase, but it’s a pretty simple looking tutorial (http://www.thesweetestoccasion.com/2012/07/diy-glitter-vases/). I think I’m going to try my hand at that one next month. I have made an enamel look vase using this tutorial (http://www.sugarandcharmblog.com/2011/01/easy-and-beautiful-enamel-painted-vases.html) as a gift. It was really easy, and looked awesome. I almost didn’t give it away. :/
We put our spare cash in a teapot. I have a few in a display case that a i use and one just for cash. our teapot money is awesome for pizza night!