I recently rummaged through my kitchen junk drawer in search of a stamp so I could send off the editing fee for my book (just trying to tie this post into the purpose of the blog). I found rubber bands, birthday cake candles, and a host of random-sized batteries. None of the batteries were in their packaging, so I can only assume that these were the ones that did not have enough juice left for whatever device they were formerly in, but still had enough potential left that I just couldn’t bring myself to give up on them. Instead of trashing them, I must have put them in the junk drawer thinking they would make a comeback.
Eventually, I found some of those “forever” stamps with the Liberty Bell on them. Being the tightwad that I am, my first thought was, “cool, these stamps are now worth 1 cent more than they were when I bought them.” If you’re not familiar with these, the forever stamps can be purchased at whatever the going postage rate is and be used at any time, no matter how much the postage rate increases. This eliminates the need to buy those annoying 1 cent and 2 cent stamps to supplement your postage when the price goes up.
Later that day, I got my quarterly 401(k) statement. If you get one of these, do yourself a favor and don’t even look at it – this has been a brutal year for investments. The YTD return on my portfolio was NEGATIVE 12%. That’s when the stroke of genius hit me. Hey, I can start investing in stamps. They may not have huge returns, but at least they won’t lose value. Take a look at the price history since May 2002 of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 below.
Contrast that with the price of stamps.
Not only does the price of stamps consistently climb, but there are no capital gains taxes when you use your high-value stamps that you purchased at rock-bottom prices. Sinced I am pioneering this investment option, I think I’ll give myself a title like “Stamp Acquisition Advisor” and charge people a fee for advising them about the best time to buy and use their stamps.
August 26, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I happened to be watching the Democratic convention last night. Actually in all fairness, I meant to watch it. I was flipping through the channels and one of the politcal pooh-bahs said oh their’s Joe Biden with his family. Glowingly they said, oh he’s one of the least wealthy individuals in congress. That got my attention. Yah another political pooh-bah said, he’s worth like $150-250k. Wow, I thought how could that possibly be.
Turns out he’s worth 150k…according to the Washington Post
Sorry Jason, I think he apparently got to your stamp idea before you did.