My Debt Blog

I can remember all the way back when the postal stamp was only 22 cents. Then it jumped to a quarter, then 29 cents in the early 90s. By the later 90s and early 01 it got to 34 cents, then seemed to rapidly go up to the former 39 cent rate. Now we hit 41 cents for a stamp, but not just any stamp, a forever rate stamp.

Now think about what the bulk of the mail you get daily that keeps the postal service working the way it does. Most of it is junk mail! I may filter through a bunch of credit card offers, student loan refinance offers, insurance, etc just to find my billing statements. Then if I pay a bill the old fashioned way, writing a check and mailing it, I must throw a stamp on it just to get my payment back to them. They waste money to advertise to me yet it cost me money to pay them.

Now we have come to the great new era of online banking and electronic payment. Why get your statement in the mail and pay by check when you can view the account online, schedule a payment to be made directly at the time you do it, no waiting, no worries, no additional cost. I think it is because of how many use the Internet to pay bills is causing the decline of having to mail letters with stamps. We still need them to ship larger letters or packages though, unless someone figures out a way to do that over the Internet I would suggest getting a patent on that process.

Back to the new concept of the forever stamp, how good of a deal is it? Sure you could invest in a ton of these things at the current rate, but what if we get to a point where there is no longer a need to use them? Give them a few years to see if they pan out, but I am skeptical about this idea of a stamp being good forever at the rate you paid for it. There are better things to invest your money in, stamps are not it.

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