Snail Mail

Oh No! Stamp Price Increase!

IdleEmma

     Bad news everyone!

     Well, it doesn’t actually impact my blog readers as I don’t think I have many Irish followers who are also snail mail enthusiasts (although if you are one, let me know!), but I am an Irish girl who loves sending mail so this impacts me – An Post have recently increased their stamp prices…drastically!

      So, when I first started sending out mail back in 2015, a national letter or postcard (under 100g) cost €0.68 and an international letter cost €1. Then, it increase to €0.70  and €1.05 in either June or July 2015. A year after that in 2016, the price went up again by another 2c for national letters and 5c for international letters. I was expecting the price to increase again this year over the summer by the same amount but that was not to be the case. They didn’t even wait a year this time and guess what…

     …this time, the price went up a hell of a lot more! Now, a national letter costs €1 and an international letter costs €1.35. So that’s a 28c increase for national and 25c increase for international. It’s crazy to think that what it cost me to send a letter outside of Ireland to say, New Zealand on the opposite side of the world, when I first started is now the price of sending a letter just an hours drive up the road to where one of my pen pals is.

     Supposedly the price increase is to bring postage in Ireland closer to the European average, although going off of the chart that An Post themselves have on their site, it’s an average really skewed by just three countries (Denmark, Italy and Finland) and most of the other countries actually have prices the same as or far lower than Ireland had before the price increase:

     Now that’s how you play with statistics to get your way!

     Obviously my little rant here isn’t going to do anything about the price increase but venting does help me feel a little better!

     The price increase does mean I’ll likely be cutting down on things I enjoy though, like sending postcards via Postcrossing and participating in Swap-bot swaps. I’ll try not it impact my responses to pen pals though (not that I have the speediest response time as it is!).

     Also, my pen pals and readers here know how much I love suiting the stamp to the envelope and design. It’s always a tricky thing to do given the odd pricing of Irish stamps but hopefully I’ll still be able to manage that…and still actually have space on the envelope to write an address!

     Well, that’s my little rant and warning over!

     To fellow snail mail enthusiast, what’s the price of sending letters where you live? If you don’t mind sharing, how much do you think you spend a month on sending mail? It varies a bit for me but if I don’t have any packages to send out and I’m not doing many swaps or postcrossing, I spend between €10 and €15. It was usually closer to €10 if I was just keeping up with pen pals but I imagine now it’ll stay closer to the €15 mark because of the price increase.

36 thoughts on “Oh No! Stamp Price Increase!”

  3. Those increases are incredibly high. Last year the USA decreased postage prices by approximately 2c, which was nice. This year they are increasing by the same amount, which essentially reverts postage prices back to what they were in 2015. Not at all bad, though I do get annoyed that a postcard and letter cost the same internationally. I will always opt to send a letter when I can just because if I am paying $1.15 anyway, than I may as well ramble on a bit.

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    1. Guess they quickly realised that lowering the price wasn’t actually a good idea! I do find it silly that a postcard and a letter stuffed full are the same price. Like, why would I just send one postcard when I could put at least 5 or 6 in an envelope and it cost the same price!

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  4. And I was just complaining about the prices here in Canada! (30 g or less: 85 cents within Canada, $1.20 to the US, $2.50 international). I agree with the sentiment that it won’t stop me, just make me a bit more choosy about what I send. I have always felt that the awesome feeling at the other end is worth the postage 😀

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    1. Yes, the feeling of sending out mail is too good so not gonna let the price increase deter me. Plus, love getting mail too and I’m not gonna get any mail unless I send some out! 30g or less though, that’s so little! Thankfully here it’s 100g or less and as I’ve discovered, there’s a lot you can shove into an envelope and still have it under 100g!

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    2. 100g would be a dream! Even larger greeting cards not fancily embellished (5″ x 6.5″, I’m sure you have a proper name for that) are almost always >30g. My tax return was over 30g and you can be sure I wasn’t ecstatic to put that second stamp on the envelope haha

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    3. I can imagine! Ya, I don’t think I’d ever be able to keep to a 30g limit. I really do need the 100g A5 size limit. Even if I’m making an A6 size card, I do tend to use heavy card to make them. They’re probably 20g at the lightest – wouldn’t much else into a 30g limit!

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  5. Uuuuuugh, yuck! We’ve had this happening in Australia with all sorts of shenanigans. It’s getting so bad that chain stores like Officeworks have taken up domestic shipping as part of what they offer.

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  7. That is pretty steep! I’d be cross too. I thought the UK costs were pretty high. I find it ridiculous that it costs less to send several cards in a jiffy bag than it does to send two cards in separate envelopes!

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    1. I know, like it is a bit silly that I can buy almost four postcards for the same cost of sending one and that sending those four postcards in an envelope costs the same as sending one postcard on it’s own!

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  8. Wow, that’s quite the jump! Maybe what they ought to be doing is asking what Spain & Portugal are doing right, in order to keep their prices down (the answer may be a negative, though, such as underpaying workers, or the system is running at a deficit).

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    1. I would definitely like to know what Spain and Portugal are doing anyway! Here they’re increasing prices because apparently An Post is running at a deficit. A €32 million deficit last year or so!

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  11. We’ve had an increase in the UK too but it wouldn’t stop me sending mail. I decided to send 40 cards over Lent, think I just about made it. Was such fun thinking of quirky reasons to send cards as well as the usual reasons.

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    1. The price increase isn’t going to stop me sending mail (got a lot of pen pals to keep up with!) but it means I’ll probably slow down with sites like swap-bot and postcrossing – I might send out a batch of postcards every second month rather than every month now.
      Sending 40 cards over Lent sounds like a fun idea!

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    1. Sadly I’ll just have to deal with the price increase because I really do love sending mail (and of course getting it too!). Oddly enough, I’ve had email pen pals in the past but I’ve always had trouble maintaining the friendship via email yet I haven’t had many problems with the ones I write letters too! Even though it’s more time consuming and costly, I do think it’s worth it 🙂

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    3. I definitely think it should be a right for people to send mail! At least at a subsidised cost, profit shouldn’t be part of a governmental postal service 🙂
      If you were wondering where you might start with finding pen pals, definitely check out this post that I wrote: https://puddlesidemusings.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/snail-mail-where-to-start/
      I link to all the different places I’ve found pen pals – maybe one of the sites will be useful to you!

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  13. I’m not very happy about the recent Royal Mail price increases, European stamps are up to £1.17 and Worldwide to £1.40. I haven’t been sending as many postcards lately, I’m prioritising my letters too.

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    1. Such a shame that the cost has gone up so much. I guess it doesn’t really impact people who only send the odd letter but for us snail mail enthusiasts it’s making things quite pricey! I guess at least in the UK you have nice stamps to try distract you from the price xD

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  14. I remember when it cost 45 cents to send a postcard within Germany! Then they changed it so a postcard and a “normal” sized letter cost the same then gradually put up the price for a normal letter. 70 cents used to be the price for an international letter in around 2003, now it costs that to send a letter within Germany! (And what that little graphic doesn’t tell you is that Germany charge square envelopes as “large” letters even if the square is smaller than a normal sized envelope!).

    I pay either €1.30 or €1.40 for a letter from Switzerland to Europe (rough prices – I converted from francs for you). The cheaper price is “B Post” – basically what’s called 2nd class post in the UK. An international letter to outside Europe costs €1.85ish. Within Switzerland it’s about 90 cents.

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    1. Wow, that’s so stupid about the square envelopes! So many ridiculous rules about sending mail. Thankfully the An Post rules about weight and size are fairly reasonable. A normal international letter is €1.35 now, as long as it’s under 100g. If it’s A5 or bigger, it’s classified as a large envelope and costs €2.50. I don’t think there’s any rules on square envelopes, there’s just minimum and maximum dimensions listed.

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  15. Wow… way to abuse statistics… that’s extortionate… and where on earth did they get those numbers from? According to Denmark’s postoffice calculator a standard letter (delivered within 5 days) only costs €0.84 (8kr) and even their next day priority service is significantly less than the price they use in that chart: €2.83 (27kr)

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    1. Did not know that! Someone has really just been having fun making up the numbers for that chart it seems! Tempted now to go look up the rest of the countries. Someone probably spent a lot of time figuring out the most expensive letter to send just to mess with the statistics.

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    1. I know! That seems a crazy price! Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten any postcards or swaps from Denmark – now I know why! xD

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