The cost of posting a letter? Do you still subscribe to snail mail?
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I ask this question as I always used to buy my first class stamps in books of a hundred and the last time I did that it cost me £30 but admittedly they lasted a fair time. But I was always posting something here and soemthing there.
I have not bought a first class stamp for yonks because frankly the cost at 41p ( or 66p minimum for a large letter ) has become quite scarily uneconomic. And it has even put me off popping a cheque off to my favourite animal charity unless they provide a prepaid ( and then I feel bad because they are paying the postage! ).
Factor in the use of email and texting ( which I am using increasingly at work as well ) and you have a recipe for the demise of the posted letter. I think that's sad as there is nothing quite so nice and personal as a hand written and posted letter to receive ... it wasn't so long ago that people used to keep and cherish these.
Even birthday cards I give personally or send via Moonpig.com ( I love that site ) where you actually pay someone else to send it so the impact of the postage cost seems to pale!
What think you all?
Answers (4)
I love ye olde snail mail. I think there's something quite wonderful that I stick a stamp on an envelope, throw it in a red box and in a day or two it will pop through a letterbox far away. In the meantime it has been collected from the red box, taken to a sorting office, whizzed through various machines, perhaps been on a train journey or along a motorway in a truck, into another sorting office, into a sack and then to its intended letterbox. I couldn't do all that for 41p and I certainly couldn't take it myself for 41p. I'd love to get a talking letter that could tell me all about it's journey! It was my birthday not long ago and it was like being a kid again when lots of cards rattled through the letterbox that morning. I got a couple of ecards too and I do appreciate the thought but don't find them nearly as nice as the 'real thing'. I never send ecards for that reason. Long live the Post!!!!
I rarely post a letter these days, unless it's to a very elderly person or to a child. I buy two small books of stamps, one 1st class, one 2nd class, and I end up having them so long, that I put 2 stamps on instead of one, in case the postage rates have gone up since I bought the stamp books!
I like Moonpig too, Snoops, as their prices (including, as you say, the postage cost) aren't too bad compared to the likes of Clinton Cards etc.
Come on y'all. Letters take thought and the ability to string words together, which indicate you might care about the person you are writing to. Facebook and Moonpig are lazy, so that lose the ability to communicate directly.
I write long, very personal and truly heartfelt letters to the few special people in my life that I care deeply about, tiffin, which I deliver personally, but for everyday type communication, an email is just fine.
Moonpig is for birthday cards, that's all. I've never used Facebook in my life, nor would I ever use it or anything like it.
I don't consider myself lazy or inarticulate at all, what's lazy about choosing, personalizing and sending a birthday card?!
Bravo Fruitcake ... couldn't have said it better!
Facebook? What's Facebook?
Agree as usual, fruity.
I love to send and receive cards for birthday and Christmas and take the opportunity to include a letter to the person concerned (hand written of course). It's wonderful to receive a card and know that someone has taken the trouble to choose, write and post a message to you.
With other items that I used to post such as bill payments, well that has long gone over to direct debits. I use e-mail as much as possible for that sort of communication.
The Royal Mail is very expensive and the service is terrible - you have to allow days for first class post to arrive around here - but I will continue to use it albeit much less than previously.
Good points Sidesalad ... your term 'wonderful' does indeed bring back some thoughts of people being caring and even romantic and we see so little of that today.
Sad to say, I just have this vision of the future where employing a man to walk up to everyone's front door with a letter will be so expensive to fund that it may disappear altogether. I remember the days when we had three deliveries a day ... can you imagine that today?
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If only it always worked like that wendie! Our post is so unreliable that I always ask for a bank credit rather than a cheque these days. Don't have to use liquid gold (sorry, petrol) to go and pay it in either.
I too love to receive post and cards are far nicer to look at, and can be recycled afterwards.