Are US Postal Service Forever Stamps a Good "Investment"? | Hacker News Reader

Are US Postal Service Forever Stamps a Good "Investment"?

slate.com

17 pointsmhb9 comments

A story like this and its comments really show that people do not value their time very much. Never having to go out of your way to buy stamps again far, far, far outweighs the cost of buying tomorrow's stamps with today's money. For instance, if you value your time at $50/hour and you have to go 1/2 hour out of your way every time you buy stamps, is it really worth it to quibble about the fractions of a dollar you are going to lose in the long run if you buy a lot of stamps now?

I think the time I save not having to buy 2 cent stamps more than makes up for inflation, et al.

So whenever you need stamps, buy forever ones. But don't buy a lot of stamps and hold them for the future, 'cause you could have done better investing that money and buying stamps as you need them.

Good discussion of how the current inflation rate must be considered when determining the present value of investments.

Agreed. Inflation and opportunity cost are almost never mentioned in casual conversations about investments.

Note also that the CPI grossly under reports the devaluation of currency, in that it doesn't take into account increases in production efficiency. Cars, for example, cost more today than they did in 1970, but are vastly cheaper (in terms of resources) to produce.

Article Summary:

Definitely not. Since 1971 the increase in postal rates has increased more slowly than inflation measured by the CPI. This means that despite the numerous rate increases over the years stamps have actually been getting cheaper relative to the purchase power of the dollar.

This is not going to change either. In December of 2006 George Bush signed a law requiring the increase in postal rates to always stay below an inflation based ceiling.

http://hnsummary.com/2010/04/02/should-i-invest-in-forever-s...

As much as I enjoy reading stuff like this, I have to admit that I've been buying a ton of these lately (>20K in March) and, as long as my cash flow permits, I'll continue to by just a little more than my monthly needs to help hedge against future increases.

I use them on the outbound mail for MailFinch (which, by default, uses Forever Stamps instead of a postage meter -- customers swear it increases the open rates but I don't have any data to back that up).

FYI, article's from 2007.

EDIT: Not that it's obsolete, though. I was just confused when it mentioned a "recent" postage hike I'd heard nothing about.

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