Christy Mara works on a pedicure for Lawrence resident Gunda Hiebert on Thursday at Joda & Friends Hair Salon, 3009 W. Sixth St. Mara explained that she hasn't noticed a decline in tips but rather in the amount of business coming in the door.

Amber Smith, stylist at Salon Di Marco and Day Spa, blow dries the hair of Kansas University senior Kelly Dunville, South Bend, Ind., May 8. Smith believes that evidence of an economic slowdown won't fully be realized in Lawrence until KU students leave for the summer.

Val Sheldon’s made a career of getting tips. For 30 years she’s been waiting tables in Lawrence, starting with eight years at Cornucopia, then 12 years at Paradise Cafe and shorter stints at Milton’s, Pizzeria Uno, Perkins, Longhorn Steakhouse and Montana Mike’s.

Now two years into her latest gig – at cozy La Familia Cafe in downtown Lawrence – Sheldon reports doing just fine in the tips department, thank you.

But with her formal take-home wage stuck since 1998 at $2.13 an hour, she’s counting more than ever on her customers continuing to leave 15 to 20 percent extra on their bills for tamales, pork burritos and other fresh Mexican fare.

“It’s pretty scary right now,” the 57-year-old said, after earning a solid $91 in tips for a short day and $102 during a longer shift last week. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to retire, but I’m still walking.”

Driving such fears among servers, baristas, stylists and others who count on customer generosity for relatively large portions of their livelihoods are the same sobering economic indicators frustrating everyone else: rising fuel prices, growing food costs, added business expenses and other complications that get into the minds of consumers.

And when people have less money to spend, it stands to reason that tips – that final, optional financial choice in a typical service transaction – might be shrinking.

“People will spend less,” said Mike Lynn, a professor in the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, who studies consumer behavior and has conducted studies on tipping. “One way to tighten the belt is to tip less.”

$30 billion in gratuities

Lynn estimates that tipping amounts to $30 billion a year in the United States alone, and that money oftentimes accounts for all the money a server ends up taking home, after taxes.

Such thoughts weigh on the minds of consumers, Lynn said, but that doesn’t always mean they will sacrifice their own well-being to ease financial pain for someone else by tipping well.

“People do think about servers,” he said. “Are they also thinking about themselves? Yeah. They have to weigh those things.”

Aley Schoffner, a barista at Aimee’s Cafe and Coffeehouse downtown, said that her tips had dipped somewhat in recent months – to $30 or $35 for a typical Thursday now, compared with $40 or $45 during the fall.

But the downward percolation isn’t coming from everybody.

“The regulars always tip the same,” she said. “It’s the people who don’t come in as often that don’t tip as much.”

At Joda & Friends Hair Salon, 3009 W. Sixth St., Christy Mara continues to provide facials, manicures, pedicures, waxing, lash extensions and other beauty services, just as she has for the past 25 years.

She just isn’t doing as many – she figures her own workload is off 15 to 20 percent during the past two or three years – and that means fewer tips.

But her business is starting to pick back up again, a welcome shift she attributes to the same economic woes that started the slowdown in the first place.

“I’m the big treat,” she said. “People are feeling sorry for themselves: ‘I’m tired of this. I need this. I deserve this.’ I think they feel bad for themselves, so they come in.”

Don’t need a car

At Yello Sub, 1814 W. 23rd St., Brad Pfromm is happy to be out of the tipping game. He started working there a few weeks ago after coming back from the Kansas City area where he’d worked two years for Planet Sub delivering sandwiches.

Tips generally were good, and customers were nice, but rising fuel prices simply were getting out of hand. So he sold his car, came back to Lawrence and now takes the bus or walks to get around.

He doesn’t envy the drivers, relying on tips to make ends meet.

“It’s not a bonus,” he said about the gratuities. “It’s part of the main income.”

‘This is what I do’

At La Familia, Sheldon isn’t complaining. Not at all.

Her regulars know her by name, just as she knows their favorite meals, drinks and salsas. And tips have been coming in just as they usually do, anywhere from 15 percent to 20 percent of a ticket.

“We have a great clientele,” she said, “but I’m a little bit surprised that it hasn’t dropped off a bit.”

But ask her about the days of old, when Paradise Cafe was packed for breakfast and moving plenty of Douglas County Pie, and she remembers the especially good times: paying off her house, and enjoying the benefits of health insurance, paid vacation and other benefits of a strong economy.

Now – as fuel prices cut deeper into disposable income, and consumers wonder where the next financial challenge will come from – Sheldon continues to work hard, smile often and hope that customers will continue to be generous with their money.

She’s not going anywhere.

“This is what I do,” she said.