When I mailed out yesterday they had a large plastic board with a slot in it at the post office. If your envelope could pass through the opening as well as weighed under a certain amount you could mail out with just a regular stamp. Mine didn't but then I sent people multiple teabags. I also put each one in its own mini Ziploc bag to try and help keep the different tea smells from blending, as well as placed them each in small, party invitation type, odd size/shape envelopes. Though small, it made for a pretty thick envelope, the weight was under limit but it wouldn't pass through the blue measure-o-matic template thing at the post office. Knowing that, next time I would package them differently so they'd easily fit through. I'd also only buy teas of the same brand/flavor if thinking to include extras, rather than different types, so that way I'd only have to use one plastic bag for them rather than multiple mini ones. I'd also cut the zipper top off that one bag, just heat seal it closed, fold over and tape to keep other smells out while in transit as well as reduce the weight. If I'd have done it that way then I would have only had to pay for a regular first class postage stamp to send to those in the states, worst case scenario maybe needed to slap on an additional stamp. Then I’d have only had to mail those headed to Canada at the post office. I hate having to go into the post office here so the quicker I can get through the line and out of there the better. Anyhow as for mailing out to Canada by putting them in a cardboard mailer the shipping cost was about the same as those mailed first class here in the states. However since I had to buy the mailers basically it doubled the cost. But generally only one or two people from Canada participate. So that means I only have to pay a little extra to ship to Canada. On the other hand I'm thinking people in Canada have quite a few more people to ship to outside of Canada at a higher rate. Anyhow long story short next time by packaging differently I would be able to send the same amount of teabags out (assuming two participants to Canada, the rest to here in the states) for half what I spent yesterday. To me anytime I can pay 50% less it’s worth the fuss. Knowing next time it will be less work as well, because I’ll just be slapping everything together into one zipper less Ziploc for each participant, that I figure is substantial enough savings (in terms of both time and money) to be worth discussing here for those who might be thinking of participating in this type of exchange in the future.
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