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Why I’m a Good Candidate for the ‘Forever’ Stamp
By JLP | April 23, 2007
It’s time for me to renew our vehicle registrations for the year. I was going to do it online but I got ticked off when I found out that they were going to charge me an extra $2.00 “processing fee.” So, I decided to mail it in. I filled out the paper work, made a copy of my insurance card, stuck in an envelope, and started looking for stamps. I found my stash of stamps and noticed that I still had $.37 stamps left over from before the last price increase!
On May 14th, the price of a stamp will increase to $.41 and I’ll still be using $.37 stamps! If I had been able to purchase $.37 “Forever” stamps (had they existed back then), I wouldn’t have to worry about buying extra stamps to put on my letters.
Oh, and don’t expect the price of a stamp to stay at $.41 very long. I have a hunch that I’m not the only one who isn’t mailing letters any more. I pay nearly EVERYTHING online or I use email. I simply don’t use that many stamps.
Topics: Miscellaneous | 3 Comments »
April 24th, 2007 at 1:17 am
Our water/sewer/trash bill charges a “convenience” fee to pay online. It really pisses me off writing that check every month.
April 24th, 2007 at 11:31 am
The historical 1st class postage rates are listed here (http://www.usps.com/history/rates/ratehis.htm). The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides month by month CPI numbers here (http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet). A quick comparison shows that the cost of 1st class postage has increased at less than the inflation rate. To put that another way, treat the forever stamp you purchase as an investment. Its market value at any point in time is the current price of a 1st class stamp. The return on your investment in that forever stamp is losing ground to inflation.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
I would think buying a bunch of forever stamps and holding onto them would result in me losing them and thus getting no value out of them. But that’s just me!