A blog for anyone who understands the joy of writing and receiving handwritten letters.


Tuesday, June 29, 2010

101 things I love about letters: #2 Everyone can afford a stamp

Australia Post has just been given permission, by the Australian Competition and Consumer Comission, to increase the cost of a stamp (for a domestic letter) to 60 cents, up from 55 cents. I'm not sure if this will mean an increase in overseas mail, but last week I sent a bunch of postcards overseas for $1.40 each.

I understand that for businesses who do bulk mailings, these price rises might effect their bottomline. But for a 'hobby' letter-writer like me, a stamp is still a very inexpensive purchase, particularly when you consider the joy a letter can bring.

I recently sent a long newsy letter from my town, Yass, to my friend Kerry, who is travelling around Australia right now with her family. She let me know she was going to be in Kunnunurra in about a week, so I sent her a letter there, c/- the post office. Kunnunurra is a town in the north of Western Australia, near the Northern Territory border. I reckon it would take me about five or six days to get there, driving hard. To post a letter there for 60 cents... well, I just think that is a pretty sweet deal.

Without going into things too much, money has been a bit tight in the Kaz household lately. I have had to ration purchases and sometimes do some juggling and rob Peter to pay Paul. Still, even on my worst day, I could afford to post a letter.

Of course, there is also the cost of stationery. Luckily I have a drawer full that will probably last quite a long time... but even if that ran out, I could pick up cheap and quirky cards and paper in op shops. And if that ran out, then I would just use plain old printer paper... maybe spicing it up with pictures cut out from old magazines, or my own doodles. Last week, Smithy wrote me a warm, affectionate letter on some pieces of plain, lined paper torn out of a notepad... it was lovely.

Whichever way you look at it, letter-writing is incredible value for money, and I know I'll always have money for stamps.

Love from Kaz

4 comments:

  1. Hi Kaz,
    I received a signed book from an author recently. I thanked her via email, but you've convinced me to write a handwritten letter of thanks.

    Cheers
    Charmaine

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  2. You found me, at last. Glad to see you are back online. And I'm excited to hear that I've inspired you to write a letter to that author. Let me know how it goes!

    Love from Kaz

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  3. Yes, will go through my notepaper tonight! I've even blogged about your site today :-)

    http://clancytales.blogspot.com/2010/06/power-of-pen.html

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  4. Great concept! You know, I have a friend who runs a ballet company in London and JK Rowling donated a signed book for a fund raiser, so this FRIEND had the opportunity to HAND her a THANK YOU and Jo was very impressed. I say if it impresses a genius like that, we ought to all be on board!

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