Monday, May 12, the price of a stamp will increase to 42 cents. The one cent increase will generate billions for the postal service, but there is a way to avoid the increase.

U.S. Postal officials say that, believe it or not, the continued increase of gas prices throughout the country are to blame to for the increase price of stamps. Because of that, millions of Americans on a daily basis are buying up the "Forever" stamps.

Right now, "Forever" stamps cost 41 cents, or $8.20 for a book. Buy them now and you won't have to buy another stamp when they increase to 42 cents or if they increase again, in the future like postal service officials project.

Some say it's "only a penny", but with the increase of everything else, like gas and food, some say it's the principal of the matter. But those are, in fact, the exact reasons postal officials say the penny increase is needed.

They project that by gas increasing just one penny, it's costing an extra $8 million a year for their vehicles to get filled.

"Unlike other shipping companies, the postal service is not really able to charge surcharges in line with fuel costs or any kind of increases in expenditures," said Jeanee Mooney of the United State Postal Service. "So the price change does enable us to recoup a little bit of our losses for fuel, etc."

The exact amount of extra money per year, the post office will be taking in by the penny increase, is not known.

However on average there are 900 million parcels of mail that are delivered daily.

U.S. Postal Service officials say that to put things into perspective: the first stamp came out in 1847 - 161 years ago - and the price was five cents, an increase of only 37 cents since that time.