Postage in 50 Years (The stuff on this webpage was mentioned on page 31 in my book.)

When Granpa was my age, it cost only 3¢ to mail a letter. When the letter Georgie found in his basement was originally mailed in the 1950s, it cost 4¢. Now mailing a one-ounce letter costs 49¢.

In Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything, I wrote:

I wonder what it will cost to mail a letter fifty years from now…Maybe when I get enough guesses, I’ll put them into some kind of Internet time capsule, and fifty years in the future, if someone finds it, they’ll be able to see how close we were.

This page is as close to an “Internet time capsule” as I know how to build, so at the bottom of this page, you can make a guess.

Here’s a chart showing how the cost of mailing a letter has changed for almost the last 100 years.
Graph of stamp cost - line is below $0.10 in the bottom left (1920) and grows exponentially to $0.50 in the after 2010
I'm doing lots of graphing in middle school!

How much do you think it will cost 50 years from now?

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Book 1

Mystery, mice, and money at the end of fifth grade!

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Comments from my Readers & Friends

  1. I’ll use comments and email 📧 and Gmail 📧*

    *I used a second 📧 cuz there is no Gmail emoji☹️

    1. So I guess you are saying there will be no more paper mail. Just email and text and stuff.

      Hmmm. You may be right.

    1. Nub backwards is bun.
      (Dunno why I wrote that. Sometimes my mind does weird things.)

  2. I think nobody would send letters 50 years from now. Everybody will be sending emails instead. I know I will. Writing a letter does take some time to write, send, and receive a reply.

  3. It could be $10 because it would be like a rich/antique thing to do. Maybe in another 20 years it will be free.

  4. Well,it seemed to get expensive since 1950 or so,so I figured it will get more expensive .

  5. I totally think it will be at least a dollar. Most of us will still be alive in 50 years, so we’ll be able to know and see if we’re right!

  6. Actually, Cheesie, how much it costs to send a letter depends on how far it’s going. Of course, my answer to the problem (free) would kind of contradict that…
    Oh well, I suppose it’s a bit like 0^0 – Error. Trust me, I checked Google, and everything you read on the internet is true. Anyways, in 50 years, and I am living on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A or B (or C.. but its a dwarf star I think and probably doesn’t have enough mass to have a planet large enough to have a that supports life), and have become a technological, astronomical, and scientific hero when I have figured out nanotechnology and the Alcubierre Faster Than Light Warp Drive… Anyways, we’ll be in space so much that we will probably need a way to send mail instantly (or almost instantly) from place to place. The answer – IS-Mail (Interstellar Mail) Buy it for free! Or you can pay $5/month for no ads!
    Another possibility is that we will live in a utopian society and it’s not money that matters, Randy Newman!
    A third possibility is that two superpowers will have a war and totally wipe out the human race.
    Or another final possibility is that some alien federation will decide that the human race is barbaric and shut down fusion in our star

    P.S. If you don’t believe me that FTL drive is possible, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdaMI2wnVBg

    1. I made a mistake in the comment. It was supposed to be …enough mass to have a planet large enough to have an atmosphere that…

    2. Your comment is really interesting. I’m going to keep reading about stuff like this. Thanks.

  7. I wonder if i am correct. if i am then cheesie ows me a future dollar P.S. my answer was less than today

  8. Hi, thanks for signing my book, it’s really good, you and Georgie are looking up stuff about the stamp on the letter

  9. But it said one ounce, and one electronic ounce is MORE THAN HALF of today’s internet. So people better start posting more and more stuff so one electronic ounce is relevant to the total Internet, considering the amount of mail people send. Also, people will grow richer, so when more people can afford it, it’s a simple supply and demand lesson! So that’s why I chose $.75 to $.99 as my range for mail cost in fifty years. (Jeez, I feel like typing an essay with my format).

  10. I CHOSE $5.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. packages in a utopian society would be delivered by ways like quantum teleportation, “a process by which quantum information (e.g. the exact state of an atom or photon) can be transmitted (exactly, in principle) from one location to another, with the help of classical communication and previously shared quantum entanglement between the sending and receiving location,” as Google states.
      In short, “Beam me up Scotty!”

  11. we need to conserve trees anyway, i mean, that how we survive.people have to cut down trees to make paper and you need paper of some sort to mail letters and the envelopes are made out of paper most times too.

  12. I think it will be sixty cents because over the past hundred years, the price has increased by forty cents. That means that the price will increase by twenty cents in fifty years.

    1. But how about percentage increase? If it goes up the same percentage, it’ll be way more than sixty cents.

  13. It won’t cost anything, because it probably won’t exist with the rate people are using Email.

  14. As people are saying, there are a lot of cool things just waiting to happen! My dad said that they already started to make automatic cars! I think it will be all electronic… what do you think will happen Cheesie? And if you can, ask Georgie what he thinks will happen. PLEEEEEAAAASSSSSSSEEEEE!

  15. Sence 60 years is in the future, and things will probly be totally different the maybe the price to send a letter will go down and not up like today! So I think that maybe in 60 years from now, the price to send a letter will be about $15-$25 dollars.

  16. i think it would cost about $2.00. i hope not because that would cost alot of money. love cheesiemack.com.
    \

  17. it will cost OVER 9,000! or 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

  18. you wanna want to know what i think cheese person 88 cents.look here 50 is half of 100 88 is half of 44 so Kid is not guinuis or anything

  19. It’ll probably be free because with the technology rising In the industries and It’ll be electronic… With a robot helping you. We might not even have Post offices!

    1. hmm yah… maybe instead of letters there would be like flying emails that touch ur brain..wow im weird

    2. What if you don’t even need tech to send it? What we all become telepaths and and and… of course that would be a big evolution in such a short time… bit as Mr. Tuvok would say “Nothing is impossible.” Or was that some great poet?

  20. I think fifty years from now most people will not use the mail service as much but they will still use because what if they want a magazine or the newspaper??You need a mail or newspaper service to do that .Also Cheesie what do you think postage will cost fifty years from now??

    1. You might be right about that IF those magazine and newspapers are still being printed on paper.
      I am not going to say what my guess is because I don’t want to influence the vote.

    2. Oh true they may not even be printed on paper. Also i can see now why you dont want to say what you think it will be to mail a letter.

  21. I did a math equation. 90 years is to 41 cents = 50 years to how many cents. (I used the calculator) And I found out it will be 23 mroe cents than it is now. so it was 67 cents!

    1. Very good math, but the price is rising faster now than it used to, so maybe it’ll be more that you calculated.

  22. hi Cheesie!! today my class is going to meet Steve Cotler!! which is probably you!!! this book is awesome!! it is so funny!! today im going to buy one from you!! Please keep on writing more books and good luck with them!!

  23. I voted for “free because it’ll be electronic,” but that’s not my exact answer. I predict that there will be post offices and mailboxes and stuff like that, but nobody will ever need them because everyone will just use e-mail.

    1. You might be right, but what will you do if you want to send something like an old coin? You can’t send that by email.

    2. That’s your opinion. But how do I know you’re the real Mondy? You might be someone else. Maybe someone named Mondonna. Who knows?

    3. you are correct my name is Mondonna!! tee hee. I am so glad you came to our class and taught us more about cheesie and georgie!!

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