How dare they!?!?!?!?!?!?
Less than two weeks ago I strolled into a Post Office and purchased two rolls of 100 each FOREVER first class stamps. The clerk just smiled and sold them to me for $98. She didn't say that I might want to wait a few days for the price to go down.
That's right. The USPS is dropping the price of stamps to only 47 cents. On my purchase of 200 that is a whopping $4.00 that has been wasted. Now they would only cost $94.
I guess I should store the 196 I have left in a safe place until the price goes up again to 49 or more cents. Time to dig up $94 and head to the post office.
Years ago (1980s) I knew a gent that invested heavily in AT&T stock simply because the stock had never posted a loss. After several years of maneuvering the courts, ATT/Bell was broken up into several smaller companies they called "Baby Bells". The divestiture reduced the value of AT&T Stock by about 70%.
While he did not actually lose that much, the splits had left him with a fractured portfolio of several pieces of "Baby Bells". Being scared, he liquidated during a time that everybody else was dumping their pieces also. I think when the dust settled he had lost almost half of his money. Last time I talked with him (1990 or so) he was all crazy about the price of coffee...and was going to "make it big" in the coffee game....
A wise man once said, "The only thing you can count on is that you can't count on anything."
paden cash, post: 366420, member: 20 wrote: "The only thing you can count on is that you can't count on anything."
Well Unc, I'll probably be a statistic because I'm counting on SpaceX presenting an IPO hopefully in 2016.
Gonna dump big chunk of my tiny IRA account in it. Already have TLSA (Tesla) and am holding my breath on that one hoping the Model 3 is a hit.
I'm already preparing for the Poor House. 😉
I'm skeptical about the wisdom of the postage price drop. I understand the short-term pressure to compete with FedEx, UPS, DHL, et al, but in the longer term USPS costs are sure to rise, necessitating a price hike at some point. It seems to me they should have just held steady until costs caught up with rates.
I have 3+ rolls of Forever stamps in my drawer. The fact that they're worth 4% less today than they were a few days ago doesn't bother me much. What bothers me a lot is when the price of the second-ounce stamp (currently $0.21) increases, making it inconvenient to get the correct postage on large manila envelopes (which are what I mail the most).
I keep a cheat sheet pinned to the bulletin board above my desk:
When USPS raises the second-ounce rate, I have to choose between overpaying (either by adding an additional second-ounce stamp or calculating some complicated mix of Forever and second-ounce) and buying 1-cent stamps to make up the difference. I long ago decided the 1-cent stamp approach wasn't worth the hassle of keeping them around, so I end up overpaying.
If USPS would produce Forever second-ounce, I'd be much less grumpy about this.
FL/GA PLS., post: 366426, member: 379 wrote: Well Unc, I'll probably be a statistic because I'm counting on SpaceX presenting an IPO hopefully in 2016.
Gonna dump big chunk of my tiny IRA account in it. Already have TLSA (Tesla) and am holding my breath on that one hoping the Model 3 is a hit.I'm already preparing for the Poor House. 😉
I saw the other day SpaceX DID finally get one of their booster stage rockets to come home and land on the barge..things could be looking up!
Holy Cow, post: 366403, member: 50 wrote: Less than two weeks ago I strolled into a Post Office and purchased two rolls of 100 each FOREVER first class stamps.
Don't they have email in Kansas?
I can't remember the last time I bought stamps....
Like Jim Frame; I mainly mail large envelops. I have a post office 5 minutes away. I fill my envelop and put a sticky note with the address on the front. I go down to the post office; put it on the scale; punch in the info; the machine spits out a label; I stick it to the envelop and put it in the slot; easy peasy.
Dougie
Jim Frame, post: 366435, member: 10 wrote: I'm skeptical about the wisdom of the postage price drop.
They should be improving service, not dropping rates. FedEx, UPS, etc have shown that people are willing to pay if the service is there.
One thing they having been doing big time in recent years is to cut service to areas of lower population, using the claim that they can't charge enough to justify providing the standard level of service. My little hometown post office is now only open from 8:00 a.m. until 11:45 a.m. weekdays and only about an hour and a half on Saturdays. The prior service was 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and four hours on Saturday. My rural delivery occurs around 1:15 p.m. I could receive something in the mail and drive two and half miles to the post office to kick out a mailed response the same day. I could spend nearly all day feverishly attempting to kick out something that needed to be mailed. Now, I had better be ready to go by 11:30 if it requires special handling or won't fit in my mail box.
That two and half miles may seem like a long way for those of you in Urban USA but from the time I start the vehicle until I'm standing at the counter at the PO takes maybe a total of four minutes. It depends on whether or not I actually stop at the one stop sign along the way and if a train is temporarily blocking my path. Vehicle door to PO door rarely exceeds a 30-foot trip. One person ahead of me constitutes being in line, which would be fairly uncommon.
RADAR, post: 366453, member: 413 wrote: I have a post office 5 minutes away.
Mine is 10 minutes away on foot, but it's always crowded and I hate waiting in line. I put outgoing mail in my mailbox and let the carrier pick it up when she delivers the mail.
Nearly all standard stuff goes in my mailbox. But, my rural carrier is an @$$hole. He picks out my mail that has more than one stamp and weighs it when he gets back to the PO. I get an extortion note the next day in my mail saying he won't send it out without receiving so many additional cents of postage. So, progress is held up for two days. His dad must have been a butcher who enjoyed leaving his thumb on the scale. My mail is easy to do this to as I'm the third delivery from the end of his route. So, since I am very close to other post offices routinely, I simply stop, stroll in, have the clerk weigh it and put on the proper postage plus provide me with a receipt. There is a special hot spot in Hades for my rural carrier.
Brought back a memory. There is a town a few counties away named Leroy. One day, on a dare, I stopped at their PO. Walked in, looked around and confirmed that this was, in fact, Leroy's post office. Then I asked to speak to Leroy. If it's his PO, then he ought to be there running it.
Holy Cow, post: 366465, member: 50 wrote: There is a special hot spot in Hades for my rural carrier.
[MEDIA=youtube]6xP75qj3nTU[/MEDIA]
I thought that I read that the reason for this roll back is that one of the previous increases was for a specified amount of time, and thus it had to roll back now, unless another increase was passed to offset the rollback. I doubt the PO wants to decrease the rate, and a few cents isn't going to make a bit of difference to any of us using the service. I kinda wish they would bump it in $0.05 increments.
Jim Frame, post: 366435, member: 10 wrote: If USPS would produce Forever second-ounce, I'd be much less grumpy about this.
But they do! The penguin additional ounce forever stamp:
Holy Cow, post: 366465, member: 50 wrote: and weighs it when he gets back to the PO
I weigh mine *before* I put it out for the carrier, so there's never a dispute.
He supposedly outranks me on making that decision.
I have protested his behavior about three steps up the chain of command and nothing ever happens.
It's like a cop saying you were operating a vehicle in a careless manner and other non-provable things. The judge will rule in his favor every time without some sort of conclusive proof otherwise.
Holy Cow, post: 366510, member: 50 wrote: He supposedly outranks me on making that decision.
I have protested his behavior about three steps up the chain of command and nothing ever happens.
It's like a cop saying you were operating a vehicle in a careless manner and other non-provable things. The judge will rule in his favor every time without some sort of conclusive proof otherwise.
You probably had a Mailman like ours when you grew up. If we didn't have stamps we just put the change in the box with the mail. He always carried stamps and would put them on there for us. At least 3 or 4 times a year my grandmother would leave a jar of homemade jelly or a cake in the mailbox. Nowadays that's akin to bribery.
Andy
Starting in 2006, the USPS was required to prepay the retiree healthcare fund over a 10 year period. That's the reason for the massive losses that were reported over the last 10 years. The problem was, what you heard on the news did not explain why. Now that it is prefunded, the future is pay-as-you-go and will save the Post Office money in the long run. That's the reason for the price cut.
https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/fy2010/ar2010_4_002.htm
Add in the fact that UPS and Fedex are both dumping lots of packages on the Post Office in rural areas for final delivery and the future is looking good for the Post Office.
I much prefer them handing off the packages to the mail carrier. My dogs won't let UPS or fedex out of the truck. The mail carrier has no problem.
James
That's because he's got doggy bones. Well at least our mailman did. He used to leave treats for him all the time.
Beer Legs, post: 366535, member: 33 wrote: That's because he's got doggy bones.
Well, truth be told, He is a She and I have been sleeping with her for the last 30 years. She also feeds the dogs before she leaves for work every morning. But you are correct, she does carry doggy bones with her.
James
Holy Cow, post: 366403, member: 50 wrote: How dare they!?!?!?!?!?!?
Less than two weeks ago I strolled into a Post Office and purchased two rolls of 100 each FOREVER first class stamps. The clerk just smiled and sold them to me for $98. She didn't say that I might want to wait a few days for the price to go down.
That's right. The USPS is dropping the price of stamps to only 47 cents. On my purchase of 200 that is a whopping $4.00 that has been wasted. Now they would only cost $94.
I guess I should store the 196 I have left in a safe place until the price goes up again to 49 or more cents. Time to dig up $94 and head to the post office.
My favorite mail clerk here would have suggested that I buy the 4 I needed at the time, and to come back in x amount of days and buy the roll when the priced dropped.
