Cost Of Mint Stamps @2002 To 2013

What is the approximate cost of filling my US album with MNH from 2002 to the present? I started colleceting again @2009, after having stopped in the late 80's. Through auction winnings and purchases at stamp stores I have filled most holes form the late 80's to the early 00's. As many of you know it is rough. I am beginning to wonder if it is worth the cost. Any ideas are most welcome. Thank you in advance.

You can probably buy the annual collections for each year in the $60 range, although the post office won't carry some of the "older" ones any longer. You might be able to get some of them from dealers, possibly for less than the original cost if they're trying to get rid of stock. You might even find auction lots that have several of them in one bundle - I've picked up a few Canadian ones that way.

The only thing to watch for is that the US annual collections don't typically contain all the stamps issued in a given year. If I remember correctly, they're notorious for not having the definitives and Christmas issues, and if there are any massive issues (the "Greetings From..." sets from several years ago come to mind), they usually only contain one from the set, not the entire set.

So, the collections aren't a perfect solution, but they're a pretty good start.

More than likely better to purchase complete year sets then fill in with the high values, etc. Sure you can find below 150 percent of face. Hard to find dealer willing
to pay 80 percent of face.

Your plight sounds familiar. I stopped collecting in 1992, then started up again in 2007. Took me just over 3 full years to fill in my 15-year hole. But at the same time I was selling off items I no longer wanted & used the resulting proceeds to fund the new purchases.
One way to approach your problem is to set a budget and divide your "hole" into two parts. Stamps are usually cheaper when purchased directly from USPS, so plan on obtaining the latest part (current stamps) in that way. Then whatever is left in your budget can be systematically applied to the 2002-2009 part. Year sets do sound like a good idea and sometimes the post office will still have sets from years past.

Keep your eye on Craigslist and ebay. There are plenty of good deals to be found. A few weeks ago on Craigslist I picked up all the mints sets / yearbooks from 79-93 and several sheets (the birds, wildlife series, 1986 president sheets, and a few others for $100. We had a snowstorm the next day so I was bored and decided to add up the face value and it came to $234.68

Things like that pop up all the time. Probably could have even talked the guy down to 80 but didn't bother. I knew I was getting a pretty good deal at 100 without adding it all up

In all my years I never knew stamps were sold on Craig's List.Wonder how safe it is.

As with everything else on Craigslist, just be careful and meet somewhere safe. In this case, it was an older gentleman that got them from his uncle's estate and he had no desire to deal with them. I picked them up at his shoe repair store :)

sounds like an interesting story Mike. The punch line would have been he gave them to you in a shoebox.
Tom