Mailing Packages and Cards
Packages
Mail your packages now, early and in plenty of time. This will you save a bunch of money. This may seem obvious but you might be surprised at how many people wait until even the day before Christmas Eve to send things. Don’t pay for express or priority mail. The cost of express or priority mail will eat you alive. Besides saving money, it is so nice to have that done early. Then that will be one less thing to worry about when you get closer to Christmas.
When you send gifts through the mail, think about what are buying. Are they fragile, heavy or very large? None of these are good candidates. Some great things to send through the mail are DVDs, CDs or books (Dining on a Dime hint, hint). These are especially good because they can be shipped media mail which costs quite a bit less.
Cards
Shorten your lists. In the same way you reduced your gift list, you don’t have to send a card to every Tom, Dick and Harry.
Don’t send holiday cards to these people:
- Anyone who never sends you a card anymore.
- Someone you knew 50 years ago for a few months and with whom the only contact you have had since then is a Christmas card with just their signature.
- Anyone who you are buying a gift for. Don’t send a gift and a greeting card. The whole object of giving a gift or a card is to let the person know you care, so you don’t need to do it twice. I do that for birthdays, too. I don’t give a card and a gift– just one or the other.
Finding time to write and mail your greeting cards can be tricky. Keep some with you all of the time. Work on them as you are waiting for the kids after school, when you’re waiting at the doctors office or make it a point to write one or two on your lunch break at work.
Think about sending post cards instead of regular cards. There are lots of cute Christmas post cards available now and it costs less to send them than to send regular letters or greeting cards. You can also use the fronts of old Christmas cards as post cards. You might want to check with your post office on the regulation size of them so you get the correct postage.
photo by: voxtheory
I do not send cards.
With all the phone plans where you pay a bit and call unlimited to anywhere in Canada and the States a phone call is much nicer.
My mother lives in Florida over the winter and doesn’t really do Christmas so a phone call that lasts up to an hour if she isn’t headed out with her friends makes a wonderful present and card all in one.
Web cams on computers make even better ones since grandma can see and talk to her grandchildren while they open gifts from her and grampa.
Skype works great to talk computer to computer and it is free so you can be online talking all day if you want.
I send email letters to the few people I keep in touch with but don’t send out cards.
If anyone asks you can say you are saving the environment.
Thanks for the tips. I only send cards to people I really care about, and know appreciate them. Some people like to hang their cards up on a doorway in the house to decorate it. It does look lovely.
How about sending email cards?
A lot of people won’t open them due to virus’. I know they have improved their security but people are still nervous about them.
better to send a nice chatty letter with a picture you have taken as an attachment.
I’d like to add that the websites who send personalised Christmas cards to your chosen recipients with the message you have chosen will add that friend’s email address to their database and flood the friend with spam. Ho ho ho.
What a helpful post of information. I am sitting here saying “duh!” to myself because you have pointed out the obvious that I have been overlooking. Why do I make such an effort to get my packages out close to December 1st when I am sending them Priority Mail???? That means the pkgs arrive in PLENTY of time and I’ve paid a high price for it when it’s unnecessary! I have really fallen for the TV ads about the convenience of the Priority boxes. Thank you for pointing out what I should have figured out for myself. You have done me (and others, I’m sure!) a great service. Keep up the good work! Merry Christmas!
Had to laugh at your “duh” moment mama bear. I have a few of those myself (ahhh maybe a lot of those). You would think after so many years I would have most of it figured out but just goes to show I’m never to old to learn.
A very cheap way to get Christmas postcards is to tear off the front cover of Christmas cards you receive and save them for a year. The next year, you have losts of pretty Christmas postcards to send!
Well, this is the one area of this website that I disagree with. If I have to cut other things all year, I will have enough money to buy my stamps for my Christmas Cards. I make my own cards, for all of the holidays, and the only ones that I don’t mail cards to are the ones who never send me any cards back.
Before I was making my own cards, I would shop the weeks after Christmas and get 50 cards for less than 1 cent apiece.
My husband and I run a mailbox store in Rhode Island. The best way to ship or mail Christmas presents is to go to an independant store like ours. We can weigh and measure your packages and tell you the most economical way to send them. So many times our customers think shipping one way or another that they always do is best. Boy are they surprised when we tell them another way. Generally the independants will ship through the usps also. We also offer packing material for sale and packing services. It can be very overwhelming trying to figure out how to send things. God Bless and Merry Christmas everyone.
I’m glad you and your husband have integrity and are honest. We have an independent in our neighborhood and they always try to get you to ship the highest rate. You have to ask if that if the best rate or they will automatically give you something higher priced.
I use priority mail simply because boxes provided by the post office at no charge and there is a 75lb weight limit. When I use that service the window attendant will tell me how much money I saved by shipping priority rather than first class, which is usually no less than half the cost. The contents should dictate which service to use. Ask next time you ship and decide for yourself. This also works very well when shipping overseas military boxes. Unless you ship Christmas boxes before Thanksgiving there is no guarantee first class will arrive in time. Unfortunately, there is no independent shipper in our area without driving nearly an hour, which defeats the purpose of trying to save money with the price of gas these days.
When ordering something on line, have it shipped to the recipient so you don’t have to pay for it. Address it to your name plus theirs such as Grizzly Bear Mom Jones-Zebra Schmidt. Either they know they didn’t order anything from Jumboshop, or seeing your name on it let’s them know its from you. I do this even though I normally drive to my family’s home for Christmas so I don’t have to bother transporting gifts and know that the package is for Zebra and not Hyena. Remember that you have to use the family at the mailing address’ last name regardless if the gift is for a visitor. But Hyena Johnson knows he’s not a Schmit.
Mama Bear, do I know you from the Parent-Teacher-Animal association?
If you know someone only in an aquaintence capacity and the only contact you’ have is exchanging holiday cards you could also save on a card by posting a nice holiday message on their wall at FaceBook if they have an account there. A lot of people do stuff online nowadays and don’t send actual correspondence in reality but do message or emails online.
On shipping: I’ve been buying/selling on eBay over a decade. The new “flat rate” Priority mail is only worth it for shipping heavy items but then of course they’d have to fit in that small box (twelve inches in length)! Sometimes it costs less to send something by Parcel Post or First Class (or Media Mail if it qualifies). You can always get free boxes from most stores (usually the local liquor stores have them most often) and try to find the box that best fits the item without a lot of extra space. The post office charges sometimes by the size of the box too and larger boxes add extra weight to a package. If you shop online a lot (like I do) and you have room then save the boxes and packing materials to reuse them for your own shipping. Also paper mailing tape (I buy Staples brand tape from their store) goes a lot further and costs less than plastic sticky packing tape does. I wet mine with a damp sponge. That tape is strong and sticks to cardboard better than the plastic tape does anyway. If you’re mailing heavy items, wrap the tape around the box on each side so that it crosses in a plus sign at the top and bottom of the box. It gives added strength to the box (My sister is a manager at UPS and gave me packing tips). Crumpled shopping bags make a good cushion/box filler if you don’t have packing peanuts. I save up the bags when I go shopping and re-use them this way, as well as for free trash bags.