If you use snail mail, on occasions

[question everything]

be ready to add two cents, literally, to first class mail starting January 8 - for a total of 39 cents.

[GrumpyGreg]

1. God---I'm so old I remember when it cost 2 cents total.

Like most today,though,I rarely use snail mail except for a few greeting or condolence cards,which I find many people enjoy.

[MadisonProgressive]

2. I send maybe 1-2 letters a year

This year I'm going for zero.

[buff2]

3. I don't send xmas cards anymore

I pay some of my bills through snail mail and that's all. Every time they raise things we use,I cut back.I've gotten so tight you could squeeze the shee-ite out of the buffalo on a nickle. :evilgrin:

[amerikat]

4. 2 cent stamps are available

I like this one.

[senseandsensibility]

11. Ohhh,,, that's pretty

I'd buy that stamp just for the picture of the Navajo necklace. But thanks for the reminder that we can still use our old stamps if we buy the two cent additions. I just wish they'd make the regular stamps that beautiful.:)

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Still a bargain

If you don't believe me, go to another country and mail a letter.

[fishwax]

6. that's my thought too

i still think 39 cents is a pretty good deal for getting a letter across the country :)

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. It cost about that much in Canada to mail a postcard 15 yrs ago

[fishwax]

8. yeah, but those were canadian pennies ;)

but seriously, two things that are radically underpriced despite constant complaints about how expensive they are: mailing a letter across the country for 39 cents and buying a newspaper with news from all around the world for 25/50 cents.

I remember, as a kid, people complaining loudly at every single postal increase--even before the alternative provided by email. There's a knee-jerk animosity towards government programs, but the postal service is pretty dang grand, imo :)

[Hello_Kitty]

9. It's self supporting too. n/t

[question everything]

14. And buying a gasoline. Even at $2.50 a gallon, or so

is cheaper than in the rest of the industrialized world. Cheap than a can of soda, I think, too.

[Nicole]

10. Agreed n/t

[SheilaT]

12. I tell you what.

I've got this letter I wanted sent to Alaska. Here's 39 cents. Will you deliver it for me? Please?

[question everything]

13. Oh boy. Trying to provide a public service

and people with short trigger jumps all over..

Oh well. I am not a psychologist, or anything, but, hey, if this place helps vents whatever bugs people then this, too, justifies my contributions.
:evilgrin:

[SheilaT]

15. My point is simply that

first class mail is an absolute bargain. And I'm somewhat surprised to discover that whenever I suggest that it is, by asking someone else if they'd deliver a letter for whatever the current first-class stamp is, they think I'm being, I don't know, overreacting is probably the best word. But would you be willing to carry my letter to rural anywhere or into the depths of some large city or anywhere at all for that amount of money? I doubt it.

[question everything]

16. All I did was alerting people that postal rate is going up

I already have the beautiful 2 cents stamps as I do use it; I pay most of my bills by snail mail and I do send holiday cards by mail, too.

[Xenotime]

17. This is just *'s way of getting more $$$...

for his war.

[Dongfang Hong]

18. I'm sorry, that doesn't even make sense.

The Postal Service has its own operating budget. Stamps go directly into that fund, which is in no way related to war-related funding. It's not like what we're spending on the war is in any way related to what we're taking in; it's considered an emergency expenditure. The USPS could charge $5 a stamp and not one cent more would go to Iraq.

[Dongfang Hong]

19. Is that opposed to two figurative cents?