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A Farewell to AARP’s Financial Etiquette Column
From tipping and inheritances to generational divides, here’s a look back at Money Manners’ greatest hits
Jon Krause
As we close out 2025, a reflection on the Money Manners column feels appropriate — especially as we retire it. (More on that below.)
It has been a pleasure — and, I’ll admit, sometimes a challenge — to write this column every two weeks for the past 14 months. For many people, financial etiquette is a difficult subject to discuss. How we handle delicate conversations around inheritances, prenups and other sensitive financial matters is not an easy thing to balance. And all of it must be done while respecting the different perspectives and experiences people bring toward money.
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I am so grateful for your participation over this last year. Your emails provided me with unique insights into the financial etiquette issues that matter most to people 50-plus.
The most-read Money Manners columns covered tipping, conflicts that can arise when parents pay for their child’s wedding, appreciation (or lack thereof) from grandchildren for birthday presents from their grandparents, selling something you’ve been gifted by a loved one and helping adult children establish their financial independence.
That doesn’t surprise me. At the Emily Post Institute, where my fifth-generation family business offers professional etiquette advice and training, articles about tipping, wedding finances and expressions of gratitude have figured heavily into our website’s search results and the questions we receive from listeners of the Awesome Etiquette podcast.
When we feel pressured to leave a tip that’s more than we feel comfortable leaving, it can make us question whether we’re being reasonable or a total cheapskate.
When we feel like our financial contributions are not appreciated, we often dwell on the recipient’s lack of gratitude, whether it’s for something fun, like a wedding present or a gift to a grandchild, or something more serious, like the professional care of a loved one.
Bottom line: Are we in the right or in the wrong for feeling the way we do? That predicament is never a fun place to be, but I hope the Money Manners column has made it a little easier for you to navigate the complex world of financial etiquette.
Although Money Manners didn’t produce any big surprises for me over the last year, it did confirm that money is a topic to continue to treat with kid gloves — not to fear it or hide it behind closed doors, but to approach it with delicacy and an open mind to foster productive and meaningful conversations.
It is with a heavy but excited heart that this will be my final Money Manners column for AARP. My sadness stems from the fact that I will no longer be working with my wonderful editor, Daniel Bortz, who has been a treasure in my life over the last 14 months. My joy comes from the exciting news that I will be launching a new column in January 2026 for AARP called Modern Manners, where I’ll be answering all of your etiquette questions (including your financial conundrums!).
I hope you will join me by emailing your burning questions about manners and civility to modernmanners@aarp.org. Some etiquette advice is timeless, but changes in our culture, technology, parenting and grandparenting styles, the ways we approach caregiving and how we communicate with each other have rewritten some of the etiquette rules that I’ll be exploring in Modern Manners.
I wish you the happiest of holidays. See you in the new year!
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