It is going to cost you more to mail a 1st class mail in 2013, one cent more to be exact, even though you probably no longer use postal mail too much these days as before.
The US Postal Service announced a couple of days ago that starting January 27, 2013, the new price for the first-class letter stamp will increase by 1 cent to 46 cents from the current rate of 45 cents. The new rate applies to the standard letters of 1 oz or less. For letters that weigh more than 1 oz, there will be an additional charge of 20 cents per ounce. The good news is that extra weight won’t cost you more in 2013 as the 20 cents per ounce additional cost remains the same as this year.
In the past, there were quite some mail to be sent out every month from our household, mostly are bills, credit card bills and utility payments, etc. The only time we did mail letters was around Christmas when we sent out cards to friends and relatively. However, since now almost all our bills can be paid online, through ACH electronic fund transfers or credit cards, we have cut the use of standard mail service dramatically, averaging less than one letter per month currently. And since we also opted to receive our bills and statements electronically whenever possible, we cut the amount of mail that were sent our way as well. Actually, most of the time these days what I found in our mailbox are junk mails that are hard to eliminate completely (we would like to not receive any of them).
Of course, we are not the only one who use USPS less and less nowadays and when more and more people stop using postal mails, that spells trouble for the mail carrier. For years, we have heard a lot how the USPS is losing money since the mail volume has been steadily declining in recently years, especially with the proliferation of e-mails and smartphones. As an result, the struggling USPS has cut its work force and closed facilities, and is considering reducing delivery time and halting pension payment, in order to reduce operating costs. However, there’s one thing that they can’t do: Drastically increase postage rate on their own. In fact, according the law, the increase in stamp price can’t exceed the inflation. That’s the reason, despite all the financial trouble the postal service is in, it can only raise the stamp price by 1 cent based on the annual inflation.
We bought 200 forever stamps a couple of years ago and still have plenty left since the usage has been reduced to the minimum. That’s our hedge against further increase in post stamp prices 
Now since every stamp is forever stamp,
Go to USPS for more information about new rates in 2013 for letters and other shipping services.
Photo: Mandy_Jansen
