UPDATE: A 2 cent increase on a 42 cent stamp is an increase of almost 5 percent, not a half a percent. I apologize for the error. Thanks to reader Luke who gently pointed out my fuzzy math. This means investing in sheets of Forever stamps IS a good idea unless your money is going to earn more than 4.5 percent elsewhere. Even so, it’s a decent return on something as valuable as stamps, assuming you don’t lose them.
PREVIOUSLY: The United States Post Office is raising their rates May 11, 2009, from 42 to 44 cents for a first class letter. You can buy Forever stamps now and use them after the rate hike, however. This saves you two cents per letter, or about a half of a percent.
So is it worth it to hoard Forever stamps?
“Hoarding Forever Stamps makes financial sense if you think postal costs will rise at a higher rate than your after-tax earnings on a money-market mutual fund — currently about 3.5 percent a year for someone in the 30 percent tax bracket,” writes Allan Sloan, a reporter at the Washington Post who looked into this question when USPS introduced the Forever Stamp two years ago.
In the end, hoarding Forever stamps is not a wise investment, except for the pleasure you get from paying a little less at the post office, Sloan says. Hmmm…I think that brief joy is just enough to convince me to buy a few sheets.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I’m a small business owner and just got info on “Stamps.com.” Printing postage from home for individuals as well. Your thoughts?
April 14th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Stamps.com costs $20 per month to use, and that’s for a 5-lb scale. Their FAQs page has a lot of good info about the service: http://www.stamps.com/postage-online/faqs/
You can also buy postage online through USPS through their Click-N-Ship program, which admittedly, does have some limitations: http://www.usps.com/business/postagepayoptions/welcome.htm?from=business&page=payoptions
What is best for you depends on how you use the mail. High-volume customers will want to one of USPS’s approved vendors, including eBay, Stamps.com, Endicia, or Pitney Bowes Inc.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
We just switched from Pitney Bowes to Endicia. We still pay a small monthly fee (about the same as Pitney Bowes) but don’t have to buy expensive supplies for the meter machine. PB really sock it to you on supplies-tape sheets,ribbons etc. Plus we get a nice postage discount and the insurance is easier to deal with than using click-n-ship.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Thanks for this great info, Karolyn!
April 16th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I bought Forever Stamps the first go-round, and am still using some of them. Since I will not pay bills on-line (and rarely shop on-line), it’s worth it to me to buy the long- term stamps. Although I do use my computer for various things, I’m still a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to trusting the internet with my financial info. Also, I still like to have a newspaper in hand when reading the news, as well as for doing crossword puzzles, and dislike spending hours sitting in front of a computer while staring into the garishly lighted monitor.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:25 pm
We use stamps.com at work. I didn’t understand bargainbabe’s comment about the $20/mo. being for the 5# scale. They are separate items. We have the Power Plan for $15.99/mo. (no price increases in the 4 years we’ve used stamps.com–shhh); there is also the Premier Plan for $24.99. We left Pitney Bowes for the same reasons Karolyn mentioned. Also, with stamps.com, there is a discount for certain types of mailings, e.g., Priority flat-rate envelopes and boxes. My only criticism is that sometimes customer service is lacking. Fortunately, I don’t need c.s. too often. Overall, I am pleased with stamps.com.
May 5th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I can’t believe I just go into a huge fight with my wife about this and exclaimed that her purchase of the “forever” stamps was going to save us a “significant” amount of money and they were always going to be valid, no matter how long it was in the future they were used! Ithink the public needs to understand this a little better. This is nothing more than a marketing scam.
1. Do you save money? Well, if you buy the “forever” stamps just prior to a rate change and use them after the rate change, you save whatever the difference was times how many you used. But, how many will you actually use in that time frame? For argument’s sake, let’s say that every family mails one letter a day; given the newest rate increase ($.02,) that’s a savings of $.10 a week. Ten cents! To save $10 would take 100 weeks or almost two years. Hardly significant.
2. But here’s my bigger argument and why I call it a scam: The implication of value is in the name “forever,” but that value is almost completely vapor that gets you to buy into buying larger quantities at one time for what amounts to a miserly discount. This implication suggests that you will be, essentially, saving more money the longer you use those stamps into the future, but except for the very rare occasion, that’s not going to happen! Unless you use stamps at a massive rate (not anywhere close to true for the average person/family,) buying super-large quantities isn’t likely (because of the significant cash outlay,) and the stamps you do buy (my wife bought 60) will probably be used up well within the period before the next rate hike, leaving the savings at the original difference between when you bought them and the first rate hike after that. So, fundamentally, “forever” is a lie.
We saved $1.20. Hope we don’t lose any of those stamps in the year it will take to use them up!
May 5th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Sorry… Edited that wrong–The first sentence should have said “…after she came home and exclaimed…”
May 6th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
I write to the troops four days a week. I recently bought $50.00 worth of Forever stamps.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:32 am
[...] chose this comment, written by a reader called AB, because s/he explains why my urgent plea to buy Forever stamps is off base. I argued that the upcoming 5 percent rate hike meant hoarding stamps was savvy. I [...]
May 25th, 2009 at 9:26 am
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For those of you who want to buy stamps at a discounted price, I bought too many of the new 44 cent stamps ( in rolls of 100) and I would like to sell them asap to rid up some cash.
please contact me at jmroszhart@yahoo.com
I am a trusted eBay bronze powerseller with 100% positive feedback score of 342.
thanks for your interest.
JJ