Postage goes up on SUNDAY need help

SBmini · January 2014

I'm getting all my stuff together for my invitations, but unfortunately, I don't yet have everything in hand to walk to the post office to weigh it before pricing increases.

Here's the price increase info for everyone's info: http://weddingstamps.us/usps

I would like to buy my stamps before hand, but without everything in hand... it will be tough. For those who have sent out a similar packet, can you please let me know what the weight was? I'm fairly certain they will be .66 cents, but I'm just guessing based off of things I've mailed before.

A7.5 size

Outer envelope

Inner envelope

5x7 invitation on #110 cardstock

3.5X5 insert card on #110 cardstock

3.5x5 RSVP card on #110 cardstock

3 5/8x5 1/8 RSVP envelope

Thank you for your help!

princessleia22 · January 2014

The only way you could buy stamps now and avoid price increase is if you buy Forever stamps, which are only issued for 1 oz. first class mailing. They don't have a forever stamp for 2oz. (0.66 cent) mailing. So, even if you bought stamps now, unless you are under 1 oz, you will still have to pay for the new increased rate. The new rate for 2oz first class mailing will be 0.70 cents.

The only stamp you can probably buy in advance would be to get forever stamps for the RSVP envelope.

SBmini · January 2014

Ugh, you are right.

CaliMel11 · January 2014

Augh shoot. I just bought 66 stamps for the invitations.
Mine weighed .8 oz, so a 46 cent stamp does cover the weight of our invites with the RSVP card inside, and the insert. However, I'm not sure if after the increase it will still be 20 cents to hand process the envelopes?
I should have bought all forever stamps and then figured out how much extra it would cost, and got those stamps separately.

We got forever stamps for the RSVP's at least. But still. I was really hoping to have all the stamps I needed!

ETA: I looked it up and the hand processing fee will be 21 cents instead of 20 cents, and to mail an item that is 1oz or below is the 49 cents.
If your bundle weighs more than the 1 oz, then get the price from the chart and calculate it out to see what stamps would work for you.
Thankfully for us we can still use the 66 cent ones of course, but I just purchased 5 cent stamps to make up the difference.

Hopefully this helps someone else out if anyone was like me and bought the 66 cent stamps because you forgot that the price increase would make those not be enough postage. Somehow my brain saw that the cent amount matched the postage calculation and got excited about using one stamp.

SBmini · January 2014

Thanks for the info @calimel11 did you happen to use two envelopes, or just one? I think that the additional envelope may push it over. My parents have a scale at their office. I asked them to assemble something like an invitation to the best of their ability to gauge costs.

CaliMel11 · January 2014

SBmini said:

Thanks for the info @calimel11 did you happen to use two envelopes, or just one? I think that the additional envelope may push it over. My parents have a scale at their office. I asked them to assemble something like an invitation to the best of their ability to gauge costs.

We're using two envelopes, one for the RSVP and then one for the whole invitation/rsvp card + envelope/insert card set to fit into.
But if you mean another envelope to hold everything that is addressed to the people invited, that goes inside the outside one that is what everything gets mailed in, we don't have that.
Hopefully that answer makes sense!

lyndausvi · January 2014

I get the increase is annoying but in the grand scheme of things it will cost most people $4-$10 extra for 100 invites. That should not be a real budget buster or stressor. At least get the forever stamps for the RSVPs to help cut the costs.

CaliMel11 · January 2014

lyndausvi said:

I get the increase is annoying but in the grand scheme of things it will cost most people $4-$10 extra for 100 invites. That should not be a real budget buster or stressor. At least get the forever stamps for the RSVPs to help cut the costs.

Yup, this. It's really not a big increase at all. For me the real annoyance was realizing that I forgot to buy forever stamps for the outer envelopes that everything is mailed in, so I have to buy extra postage to go with the other stamps I bought. But it doesn't *really* matter anyways because even if I had gotten those stamps, I would need other ones to make up the price of the hand machining so it doesn't save me any time either.