No more letter delivery on Saturday

[MichaelB]

Well, the US Post Office finally announced what we have all be expecting since this thread http://www.early-retirement.org/for...veries-are-on-the-budget-cut-table-57801.html

WASHINGTON — The United States Postal Service announced plans today to transition to a new delivery schedule during the week of Aug. 5, 2013 that includes package delivery Monday through Saturday, and mail delivery Monday through Friday. The Postal Service expects to generate cost savings of approximately $2 billion annually, once the plan is fully implemented.

USPS announces new delivery schedule

This is going to be rough for all those people who's Saturday highlight is getting the mail.

 

[Dawg52]

Doesn't bother me. They should have done it long ago.

 

[timeasterday]

This is going to be rough for all those people who's Saturday highlight is getting the mail.

Boy, if that's someone's highlight for a Saturday then I feel sorry for them!

 

[obgyn65]

Will we get a discount from Netflix ?

 

[frayne]

Doesn't bother me. They should have done it long ago.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[MichaelB]

Will we get a discount from Netflix ?

We can still stream video on Saturday.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

Dosen't bother me a bit. In fact, I think they ought to eliminate delivery on Wednesday's also since that is when we get all the junk mail.

 

[pb4uski]

Doesn't bother me. They should have done it long ago.

+1 Besides they will be delivering priority mail and packages on Saturdays.

The next move will be to get rid of the oodles of dinky post offices in small towns. Around here we have many PO that are the size of a small house (or less). While I don't have a PO box, many do and enjoy the social aspects of the daily trek to the PO to fetch their mail. Strange but true.

 

[NotMyFault]

I would opt out of the mail system if I could. The mail that comes to my house is 99% junk. I do almost everything online. If something has to be done on paper I use FedEx because I don't trust the mail. The only thing that I get in the mail that I like is greeting cards and I can live without them if it would keep the stacks of junk mail from coming to my house. I know the post office is important to many people but for me it is not.

 

[Lazarus]

Hardly use the mail at all. Dropping Saturday delivery should have been done some time ago.

 

[frayne]

As far as I'm concerned going down to a four day week or even a MWF delivery schedule would be just fine.

 

[rbmrtn]

Thought they should have done it long ago. One less day to collect junk mail and throw it away. I would fine if they did something like the garbage collection, like twice a week.

 

[easysurfer]

Funny how things change. If I was still w*rking, I'd look forward to Saturday mail. Now it is one more excuse to not go out the door

 

[travelover]

+1 Besides they will be delivering priority mail and packages on Saturdays.

The next move will be to get rid of the oodles of dinky post offices in small towns. Around here we have many PO that are the size of a small house (or less). While I don't have a PO box, many do and enjoy the social aspects of the daily trek to the PO to fetch their mail. Strange but true.

+1. They really need to be given free reign to make it profitable. Too long Congress' slave and whipping boy.

 

[infoseeker]

I'm curious.....if you mark an unopened piece of junk mail with "Refused. Return to Sender" and mail it back does it get a free ride to its origin? I've done this on a rare occasion, but IMO its not the answer on how to deal with junk mail (as it just once again clogs the postal system with unwanted/useless mail.)

 

[Midpack]

Doesn't bother me. They should have done it long ago.

+5. I assume they'll further reduce # days of service per week, but it may be decades/generations.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'd estimate 80% of what USPS brings me is unwelcome junk mail, even though we actively try to get off those mailing lists. And when USPS tried to encourage more junk mail last year, I was (being polite here) "disappointed." http://lmgtfy.com/?q=usps+encourage+junk+mail

 

[HighRoller]

Once implemented during August of 2013, mail delivery to street addresses will occur Monday through Friday. Packages will continue to be delivered six days per week. Mail addressed to PO Boxes will continue to be delivered on Saturdays. Post Offices currently open on Saturdays will remain open on Saturdays.

It really doesn't matter much to me but the DW will be happy we have a PO Box so she'll still get her NetFlix on Saturdays. I don't know how NetFlix does it. I can turn in a DVD today by 4pm and have the next DVD in my PO Box often in less than 48 hours.

 

[LakeTravis]

Thought they should have done it long ago. One less day to collect junk mail and throw it away. I would fine if they did something like the garbage collection, like twice a week.

+1

I'd even be good with once a week. All of my bills are online, all of my finances online, all of my entertainment online. Can't think of anything I really need to get via mail anymore. Don't need the solicitations/junk.

 

[RockyMtn]

Now that I'm pretty much 100% ebills and am on all the "no junk mail" lists my mailbox is pretty much empty. Might check twice a week max. Maybe they ought to go to three days a week

 

[Mulligan]

Once implemented during August of 2013, mail delivery to street addresses will occur Monday through Friday. Packages will continue to be delivered six days per week. Mail addressed to PO Boxes will continue to be delivered on Saturdays. Post Offices currently open on Saturdays will remain open on Saturdays.

It really doesn't matter much to me but the DW will be happy we have a PO Box so she'll still get her NetFlix on Saturdays. I don't know how NetFlix does it. I can turn in a DVD today by 4pm and have the next DVD in my PO Box often in less than 48 hours.

I have a PO Box, so technically I will get mail too. I rarely check on Saturday anymore, because usually there is no mail in it, but a lot on Mondays. I think the boys back in the back room have been "taking Saturdays off" already for many years.

 

[GrayHare]

Will we get a discount from Netflix ?

Barring treks to a P.O. Box, it means no more squeezing out two-Netflix-DVDs per week on the one-DVD-at-a-time plan. Netflix could upgrade everyone to a two-DVD plan...

 

[ls99]

One less pound of glossy catalogs to throw in the trash. No wait, they will just deliver it Monday. Bummer.

 

[Midpack]

Now that I'm pretty much 100% ebills and am on all the "no junk mail" lists my mailbox is pretty much empty. Might check twice a week max. Maybe they ought to go to three days a week

How did you manage that? We use Catalog Choice and contact sources via phone or email, and new sources "find" us all the time. We HATE all junk mail!!!

 

[ERD50]

As far as I'm concerned going down to a four day week or even a MWF delivery schedule would be just fine.

Me too, but the USPS has a bigger problem.

One of their big expenses is paying the pension/benefits for all the retired and soon to be retired employees. Downsizing the business doesn't help with those fixed costs. The costs savings from reduced delivery days will help a bit, but just a bit.

That's the problem with these pension 'promises' (public and private). You just can't count on the business/entity being able to fund these in the same manner over long time periods. But people do count on it.

USPS needs to find a way to efficiently expand their business, not downsize it further. Good luck with that. Must be something a bunch o small trucks and people driving a route each day could do in addition to mail delivery? OK, I'm stumped.

edit/add after reading the cross posts: Maybe I'll take notes for a few weeks, and track how much mail or how many days we get mail that really was best handled by snail mail. Probably incredibly small.


-ERD50

 

[Midpack]

One of their big expenses is paying the pension/benefits for all the retired and soon to be retired employees. Downsizing the business doesn't help with those fixed costs. The costs savings from reduced delivery days will help a bit, but just a bit.

Though lots of articles still blame the 'unfair pension expenses', by their own admission they're losing money now even without the PAEA payments, so the "accelerated" payments have been a red herring for several years.

It's time to stop beating that drum...

"Initially, the effects of the PAEA’s mandatory payments to the Postal Service Health Benefits Fund on the USPS’s profitability were considerable. This may be illustrated with a hypothetical—if the USPS did not have to pay into this fund each year, it would have experienced no operating losses until FY2009. However, despite Congress’s reduction of the RHBF payment owed in FY2009 and its delay of the RHBF payment owed in FY2011, the USPS’s expenses exceeded its revenues these years."
​

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41024.pdf