Our mail has been coming earlier for the last few weeks. I was able to catch my carrier this week. She told me the reason she is able to come so much earlier is that mail volumn is  down quite a bit.. She says it now takes most carriers much less time to sort and get the mail ready for their routes - hence, the earlier pick up and delivery. She said most of the mail now seems to be "junk" mail and grocery and other store fliers, plus what is called bulk mail. That certainly seems to be the case - at least here. She also thinks the PO is seriously cutting delivery back to 5 days.  What will they come up with next?

Has anyone computed just exactly how much the cost of sending a book will be after next week? First class certainly remains the most economic way. All the weight fees have risen by only 5 cents, but look at media mail! WOW! under 1 lb rose 15 cents. OK, that doesn't seem too awfully much - most TPBs fall into this wt. range. Look at under 2 lbs, though. It rose 19 cents, 3 lb rose 23 cents, 4 lbs rose 27 cents, and on and on.  Might present a little "crunch" to those of us who enjoy filling orders! Will this be a bother to anyone else?

interesting.  thanks for sharing the news/gossip.  it makes sense if volume is down they would raise the prices.  and did I understand you right that they are considering maybe not delivering on Saturdays?  can't say I'd be heartbroken.  especially if that would be in lieu of another rate increase.

Denise,   my carrier told me the day most likely to be cut , if there is one, will be Friday! Go figure!!! She said there would be too much mail - I thought there wasn't as much now - to sort if it hadn't been delivered in 2 days. Hummmmm! I guess we'll just have to wair and see.

I'm not sure the lower volume makes that big a difference to rural drivers with really big routes. My mailman gets to the post office at 5 am, doesn't get out onto the route until 10 am, and doesn't get back to the post office until 4 pm. I can't imagine how swamped he would be on the days he DID work if they cut back another day. He says his route works out to close to 100 miles a day round trip with all the little back roads he has to cover around here.

It could possibly be a town by town thing depending on town size and volume of mail. Too many other places still have way to much mail to cut out another day. One of my carriers was talking about volume being down because of lots of people resorting to paying bills and stuff online and taking the paperless/email route on bills. But all they did here was cut out one driver and add a little more to the others route.

i had the most wonderful postal employee ever for ten years.  his hips and knes went out and he has had to have surgeries on all.  before he left he told me that there is almost no mail on monday, since  i had asked him  why i generally got nuthin' on monday.  my new mailman (ok i am not always politically correct) gets here about 3 hours earlier.  that's nice, but sometimes i have to rush to get things out. 

The latest word from the USPS is that the day cut will be Saturday and that will only be delivery. The retail services will still be open. The reason for Saturday is the carriers will not have to have a Sunday/Tuesday or Sunday/Wednesday split. This will save them alot of problems from the unions. Friday was never an option, don't know where that carrier mention earlier got that. My Post Office usually has heavy volumes Monday and every other PO I worked did also. I'd like to know which office has light Monday volumes. I personally think that Monday will not be substantially heavier if they cut Saturday because of the low volumes taken in on Saturdays. Of course, the plants will have to plan to spread out the bulk (junk mail) because here we get most of it on Saturday to deliver. I imagine Friday will become a heavy volume day as the plants try to clean up before the weekend.

So far our office has not talked about cutting out a day of delivery. I can testify that YES the mail volume is really low this year. I work part time as a rural mail carrier here in town and it amazes me how little mail there is to deliver on some days. When i started 5 years ago i would normally work until 4pm, it was rare for me to get done before that time. Now today, it is nothing for me to be done for the day by 2:30pm-3:00pm, in fact i worked the day after Memorial Day this year and was amazed that i finished delivering 2 days worth the mail and packages by 3:30pm. Mail volume is shockingly low lately!

They're clearly feeling the pinch of people using online bill paying services. They're cutting hours at the post office here as well. The one nearest me has been open for YEARS until 7pm during the week and from 9am-1pm on Saturdays. They're cutting out Saturday altogether and closing at 6:30pm on weekdays.

I pay most of my bills online but still have to write a check for the rent.  Most of what goes through our mail box is actually books and Netflix movies.  And how many of those we get should keep someone busy... 

Funny - it would seem to me that volume would be going up what with so many people buying so many goods online these days. I for one hardly buy anything in the stores anymore except groceries and household items.