A postage meter for printing a mail piece with an indicium representative of a postage amount, said postage meter comprising: a secure mechanism for accounting for postage amounts expended; an indicia generator; a programmable controller programmed to: respond to a first signal from a postal scale to debit said secure mechanism for a minimum postage amount and control said indicia generator to generate an indicium representative of said minimum amount; respond to a second signal representative of a determined postage amount for said mail piece to control a printer to print said indicium representative of said minimum postage amount on said mail piece if said determined postage amount equals said minimum amount; and respond to said second signal to debit said secure mechanism for said determined postage amount less said minimum postage amount, delete said indicium representative of said minimum postage amount, control said indicia generator to generate an indicium representative of said determined postage amount, and to control the printer to print said indicium representative of said determined postage amount on said mail piece if said determined postage amount is greater than said minimum postage amount. a secure mechanism for accounting for postage amounts expended; an indicia generator; a programmable controller programmed to: respond to a first signal from a postal scale to debit said secure mechanism for a minimum postage amount and control said indicia generator to generate an indicium representative of said minimum amount; respond to a second signal representative of a determined postage amount for said mail piece to control a printer to print said indicium representative of said minimum postage amount on said mail piece if said determined postage amount equals said minimum amount; and respond to said second signal to debit said secure mechanism for said determined postage amount less said minimum postage amount, delete said indicium representative of said minimum postage amount, control said indicia generator to generate an indicium representative of said determined postage amount, and to control the printer to print said indicium representative of said determined postage amount on said mail piece if said determined postage amount is greater than said minimum postage amount. respond to a first signal from a postal scale to debit said secure mechanism for a minimum postage amount and control said indicia generator to generate an indicium representative of said minimum amount; respond to a second signal representative of a determined postage amount for said mail piece to control a printer to print said indicium representative of said minimum postage amount on said mail piece if said determined postage amount equals said minimum amount; and respond to said second signal to debit said secure mechanism for said determined postage amount less said minimum postage amount, delete said indicium representative of said minimum postage amount, control said indicia generator to generate an indicium representative of said determined postage amount, and to control the printer to print said indicium representative of said determined postage amount on said mail piece if said determined postage amount is greater than said minimum postage amount.