How to Save on Priority Mail When You’re Incredibly Cheap
Psss-hey baby. Do you want to save fifty cents every time you ship something from the post office? You do? Then gather around and listen carefully.
As you probably know, your local post office in the United States provides customers with free envelopes and boxes of various sizes for priority mailing. For a flat fee, you can mail anything * you can fit into one of these containers, provided you can seal it. The image below shows asmall flat rate mailbox for USPS Priority Mail. You can send it from your local post office to any address in the United States for $ 8.45.
By comparison, for $ 7.95 (50 cents less), USPS will send this small flat rate envelope to any address in the United States:
But you may not have guessed: the box fits inside the envelope, closes tightly, and the cost remains the same lower.
So if you need to protect your priority mail with a sturdy cardboard box, you can seal your precious cargo in a box, tuck the box in an envelope, and walk out of your local post office with an extra $ 50 jingling in your inbox. pocket.
Although the post office does not advertise this “feature,” according to my local postal clerk, there is nothing illegal or unfair about it. But if you want to be ethically picky, it uses much more useless packaging than shipping the box on its own, which means more trees have to die. But if that suits you, go for it.
* You cannot mail airbags, ammunition, explosives, gasoline, marijuana, cigarettes, and other forms of tobacco, and there are thousands of items with shipping restrictions, including cremated remains, leeches, emu, and radioactive materials. ( Full list here .)