Can I Buy Forever Stamps in My 401k?

by Ron Daly 

I bought three books of forever stamps when I was out the other day. Holding them in my hand on my way back to my car, the thought suddenly struck me...I was holding something valuable. 

You might think that a book of stamps is nothing special, but these aren't just stamps. They're forever stamps and mean you can buy them at today’s rate and use them any time in the future without paying the current postage rate. Forever. There are few products, outside of Twinkies, that will last that long. 

The USPS is in trouble, which we've known for a while, but they still sell these little beauties in any of their buildings. When the price of postage bumps in May 2009, I'll be looking at a 3 - 5% return on my forever stamp investment in less than a month. That's almost worth celebrating.

This makes me wonder - could I buy forever stamps inside my 401k and lock in this great return? People buy platinum, gold and silver. Are stamps next? Look at the history of postage increases (click here to read about it). With postage prices that keep rising and will probably continue to rise as the post office does worse in the coming years, I might just make back some of that money that disappeared back in Q4 of '08. A guaranteed three to four percent? That's not crazy, that's pretty stable. Assuming, of course, the USPS can keep itself afloat until I'm ready to retire. 

This chart shows the postage rate increase from 1999 to 2007 (click here for the source story). 

Year	Inflation rate	Postage rate after inflation(cents)
1999	2.85%	33.94
2000	3.24%	35.04
2001	3.39%	36.23
2002	2.68%	37.20
2003	2.27%	38.04
2004	1.59%	38.65
2005	2.83%	39.74
2006	3.38%	41.09
2007	2.19%	41.99

And now that we've hit $0.44, we're paying 30% more than we were ten years ago. Three percent a year, with no depreciation? Not too shabby. 

But every upside has its downside, and the downside I get out of most people is that my company, which makes marketing by e-mail fast and stable and affordable, is part of the P.O.'s problem. I'll never go so far as to say to say that we should do away with postal delivery altogether.

I will mention, however, in economic times like these and with prices climbing on postage in May, credit unions can save even more money by focusing on growing eStatements, e-notices and marketing through e-mail. After all, you’ll never incur a "per eStatement" price increase in delivering electronic statements and can buy tons of Forever stamps with the monthly savings!

Any other thoughts on investing? Leave a comment below or e-mail us.