My stamp box may be obsolete...

For over 10 years I've used a wooden box with hand-made dividers to keep my postage stamps organized.  It took me a few years to realize that a cellophane bag full of all different denominations of stamps was very inefficient.

This morning I was getting renewal reminder postcards ready for subscribers who needed them, and realized that there weren't enough postcard stamps BUT I could combine some others.  Normally I'd resist using up the others, but things have changed around here.

Sometime in the winter, the USPS changed their rates and in the process deleted the ability to access the Regional shipping boxes.  Shipping costs are a pretty big deal, and we try very hard to make them reasonable.  The regional boxes can be less than half of other options if we are judicious with them, so to have that disappear without notice caused a small panic.
By the end of that day, we signed onto another shipping program (Stamps.com) that charges a monthly fee, but also provides a commercial rate so that it's actually cheaper than the USPS site was.

In the meantime, the post office closest to the office almost never stocked the stamps we needed.  Some days we'd visit 3 P.O.'s before we found everything.  Imagine our surprise and delight to discover that our new program allows us to print First Class postage!  I don't think postcards or single ounce envelopes, but that's fine.
So once again, something that was an unpleasant shock turned into a very good thing.

Speaking of good things, this sale on incense and herb bead supplies runs until next Tuesday!

 Have a great holiday weekend!