JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – If you have something to mail, you’re going to want to do it sooner rather than later.
Mail delivery is about to get slower and more expensive.
The U.S. Postal Service admits it is not running efficiently and is losing billions of dollars every year with the way operations are currently running. In the last 14 years, the company has lost $87 billion, including $9.2 billion last year, and it expects to lose another $9.7 billion this year. USPS is facing $160 billion in losses over the next decade.
With that being said, USPS created a 10-year plan that is supposed to address those problems. Part of that plan goes into effect on Friday, Oct. 1, and it means you should get those holiday cards out even earlier.
READ: 47-page USPS document on changes
One of USPS’s solutions is to push back the delivery timeline. The delivery benchmark will go from a one- to three-day window to a one- to five-day window.
USPS said most first-class mail, about 70%, will still arrive in under three days. The delays will mostly affect pieces of mail that have to go farther, especially to and from Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories.
It’s not just delivery times seeing a change, it’s going to cost you more to send that package.
Starting Sunday, Oct. 3, through Sunday, Dec. 26, priority mail, priority mail express, parcel select ground and USPS retail ground will increase prices anywhere from 75 cents to $5.
That’s in addition to the price increase in stamps that went into effect last August, with the price of stamps going from 55 cents to 58 cents.
It’s not just USPS that’s raising prices. FedEx announced last week they are increasing rates by 5.9%, saying these changes reflect incremental costs associated with the challenging operating environment.