Today I finished writing a letter to my friend. I put a lot of effort into sculpting this fine literary piece of art. Included is not only the content, but the penmanship that was used to forge such a letter. Something I haven’t done in a long time. As old-fashioned as it may seem, everyone LOVES getting snail mail if it’s not a bill, rejection letter, spam, eviction notice, or a package bomb. I had some older leftover stamps that I was planning to use for mailing. But even after reaching $0.35 I was still $0.06 short. This meant a trip to the post office to cover the remaining difference. Sadly even though the postage cost is still relatively “low” (putting the cost to mail a letter in a few days for under $0.50 into perspective), even $0.35 seems to be enough for me. But then again, maybe I was just feeling a little lazy at the time.

At the post office, I noticed forever stamps were also available for $0.42; stamps that will never change in value at the time of purchase. Seeing this, I realized that postage had gone up another $0.01! I was surprised because I remembered buying a stamp for my friend’s taxes at the APC (Automated Postal Center) back in April for $0.41. I asked a postal worker when the price increase happened, and was told it had actually happened about two weeks ago! Argh I should’ve stocked up on forever stamps when I heard about them, I would’ve saved some money! I decided I would purchase a couple of these forever stamps to save me a trip and possibly more future grief when I’m feeling too lazy to walk to the post office. Okay, at a glance you may be reducing your annual return because the value of the stamp is the same as the forever ones. However, purchasing them very close to when the next rate increase will definitely increase your annual return because you have just purchase [still] useable stamps at a lower rate and don’t need additional postage. In the long run though, I believe that even forever stamps will lose their value and meaning as seeing that paper mail is becoming less popular (except tax filing deadlines in April).

So… if I’m calculating this correctly. The first stamp released in 1945 was only $0.03, in 2008 the stamp is currently rated at $0.42. So it increased about +$0.39 in 43 years. That’s an average of about +$0.01 (or $0.009) per year. That’s still a VERY low return rate… but yeah it’s okay.

Anyways! Taking the letter with me (as I don’t like metering my mail), I dropped the letter into the mailbox, cautiously peering into the hatch to ensure that it had not gotten stuck for another person to steal. I wonder when the next postage increase will be? Nonetheless I will be prepared with my forever stamps to save me another trip to the post office!