Thank you notes: they’re not just for Jimmy Fallon!

I want to talk about my favorite way to show gratitude and how I put my own personalized spin on what is really a timeless idea – thank you notes!

According to quick Wikipedia research, the origins of the United States Postal Service are traced back to the Second Continental Congress with Benjamin Franklin as the first Postmaster General.

Since that time, people have been expressing their thankfulness and gratitude through thank you notes delivered “through the mail.”

In more recent times, thank you notes have been replaced with thank you emails, thank you tweets, thank you wall posts, timeline posts, and even thank you blog post shout outs, like this one to Brent B. for leaving a comment on last week’s YouTube video!

The lack of quality mail that people receive is the perfect reason you should send thank you notes and make them make a comeback! But why send a generic thank you note like the one above when you can personalize them AND pay less for them at the same time!

Instead, I created thank you postcards! I customized these and put my name on the bottom. It was a fun, yet fake, way to make me feel important, like I have my own stationary! I just thought it was cool!

I ordered a box of 500 of these from one of the online printing companies and paid something like $25 shipped with a promotion.

A big advantage with postcards is that the USPS has special postage specifically for postcards. Currently, a standard stamp is 55 cents, but a postcard stamp is only 35 cents. Buy these in rolls of 100 and save yourself $20. My wife and I also sent out save the dates for our wedding through postcards. Saved a ton on both the cards and the postage!

A quick word of caution! Whatever you write on your thank you postcard is not concealed. This may not be the best way to confess your love to someone unless you’re OK with the postal workers and whoever might be sorting the mail on the receiving end seeing it.

While you’re at it, score some brownie points and start writing thank you notes to your spouse or significant other. Odds are they deserve a thank you more than anyone you might write to.

Now, I wouldn’t want you to think I’m suggesting you try something I’m not willing to model myself! Here’s a photo of an actual thank you I wrote earlier this year. Check my YouTube channel for an alternate ending to this post!