A Handful of Pennies for Your Thoughts and a Handful of Change to Send Them

Forever Stamp Date Stamp Price (cents) July 6, 1932 .03 January 1, 1952 .03 August 1, 1958 .04 January 7, 1963 .05 January 7, 1968 .06 May 16, 1971 .08 March 2, 1974 .10 September 14, 1975 .10 December 31, 1975 .13 May 29, 1978 .15 March 22, 1981 .18 November 1, 1981 .20 February 17, 1985 .22 April 3, 1988 .25 February 3, 1991 .29 January 1, 1995 .32 January 10, 1999 .33 January 7, 2001 .34 July 1, 2001 .34 June 30, 2002 .37 January 8, 2006 .39 May 14, 2007 .41 May 12, 2008 .42 May 11, 2009 .44

May 11, 2009

A penny for your thoughts, depending how you look at it can either be too expensive or too cheap. On one hand, maybe someone’s thoughts are not important enough for someone to spend one cent and one second of their money and time to be listening to. On the other hand, maybe someone’s thoughts are so profound, so inspiring and so amazing that putting a price of one cent on them is ridiculous because perhaps this person’s thoughts are “priceless.”

But for years before we were even thought of in this world, things continued to increase in price. Our thoughts have always come for a small price when we have wanted to send them through the United States Postal Service (USPS), and of course using some other carrier (i.e. FedEx or UPS) the price is most definitely a dollar amount. However, since 1932, the price has been raised from .03 cents to .44 cents- a .41 cents difference over the 77 years.

I suppose that the USPS might be trying to help us with saving some pocket change too. By introducing the Forever Stamp two years ago, the USPS has sold millions while people save a couple pennies here and there to send their mail. Forever Stamps are always sold at the same price as a regular First-Class Mail stamp. The post office says that the Forever Stamp was created to ease the transition of the price hikes.

Maybe as the price goes up, more people will call their family and friends rather than send them mail. Who knows, with texting on the rise, maybe something new will be invented that we will not have to worry about the price of stamp because it will not be needed as often. Then again, there already is e-mail.