The cost of a first-class stamp goes up to 44 cents today, an increase of roughly 5%.
The rate for mailing postcards increases 4% to 28 cents.
Across the country tens of thousands of real estate agents are lamenting their increased costs of business as they ponder the impact of the price increases to mail out all those recipe cards, sports schedules and “I’m Your Neighborhood Expert!” postcards.
Of note, the cost of marketing and prospecting on the Internet remains unchanged.
For some reason, I find it funny that the first official stamps at the 44 cent rate feature cartoon characters – The Simpsons.
If you bought “Forever” stamps in the past at lower rates, they can still be used for mailing at the new rates. If you’ve only got “old” 42 cent stamps lying around, don’t be silly and stick two of those on one envelope. Instead get thee to a post office and buy some two-cent stamps.
You may be saying to yourself, “Why it seems like postage rates go up every year!”, and lately that has indeed been the case. Here is the postage rate increase history for the current millennium:
Postage cost on January 1, 2000 – 33 cents
Subsequent first-class postage increases:
July 1, 2001 – 34 cents
June 30, 2002 – 37 cents
January 8, 2006 – 39 cents
May 14, 2007 – 41 cents
May 12, 2008 – 42 cents
May 11, 2009 – 44 cents
I'm Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... Welcome to The Phoenix Real Estate Guy, or "TPREG" as I fondly refer to it.
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