<p>This seems like a good way to get some of D’s small stuff (eg, school supplies) from California to Indiana. This is from the USPS website:</p>
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<p>Has anyone used this? How does it work – Do you buy the box, take it home and cram it full, then take it back to the post office?</p>
<p>You actually just go pick up the box from the post office (don’t have to pay for it at that point) - take it home, fill it up and seal it, take it back to the post office, pay for it and ship it.</p>
<p>Actually, if you want, you can print postage online at home and arrange for your mail carrier to come by and pick it up. If you print your own postage, you get free tracking.</p>
<p>Used it last year when my son went to a summer governors school for a month. Great way to ship items. Plan to use it the next few years, as he attends college 12 hours from home.</p>
<p>Actually you can go to the USPS website and order a pack of boxes (you choose the size) and they’ll send them to you for FREE – so it’s delivered right to your door! [Category</a> - Flat Rate](<a href=“Store redirect”>Store redirect)</p>
<p>Crazy, huh? Value from the postal service!</p>
<p>Those fixed rate Priority mailing boxes are TERRIFIC. We keep a few here (we just pick them up at the post office) all the time for use for DD who goes to college on the opposite coast. They are especially economical when you are mailing heavier items as the do NOT get weighed at all. If you are sending very light weight items SOMETIMES you are better off using a regular priority mailing box…but for cross country the fixed rate are usually better.</p>
<p>They come in two shapes…one that looks like a shirt box, and another that is deeper. We keep both sizes here…you never know when you’ll need which one.</p>
<p>We use them to ship cookies and stuff through the school year. But at $10.95 & $12.95 they’re really not big enough to be a value for anything that could be bought at the final destination. Useful mostly for long distances and very heavy stuff as the charge is by volume, not weight.</p>
<p>We have not used USPS for important items of any size for years because about ten yeras ago there was an issue of a delayed to the point of assumed lost item being returned to J Crew and it was virtually impossible to communicate with the post office or get the cost of the item back. </p>
<p>For shipping items of reasonable weight I would strongly recommend looking into FedEx Ground or UPS Ground. Might not cost more, might cost less, but in my experience service is more courteous, the package more trackable, and delivery time easier to determine. (I have found that USPS does not update its tracking in a timely fashion throughout the day.)</p>
<p>I have one of each size at home, but have found that unless the items being sent are heavy, I gt a better rate from fedex. I have a discount account with fedex as a USAA member and the rates are GREAT. Anyone who is a USAA member, I strongly recommend you get one of these accounts. I had a personal and a business account, but the business account gives a better rate.</p>
<p>***crossposted with mattmom-- and her comments about the tracking and how quickly (or not) you can get updates is spot on</p>
<p>There’s two sizes of the deep box–deep and deeper. I find it very useful to send something like lots of books to someplace far away.</p>
<p>I think there are now at least 3 sizes of flat rate boxes; a large and small “square” box and the one that looks like a shirt box.</p>
<p>We used them all the time to ship care packages to our daughter, because we knew exactly what they would cost (and we crammed them full of stuff) and we printed the postage at home or at a machine at the PO. The boxes virtually always made it from Southern California to Michigan in 2 days. We just kept boxes at home and would put things in that she asked for or we bought; when full, off they went.</p>
<p>Having said that, I agree that this wouldn’t be a particularly economical way to ship for moving.</p>
<p>These fixed rate priority mailing boxes are not large enough to be much help for moving. To be honest…if it’s that small…it’s probably inexpensive enough to buy at the college town.</p>
<p>For moving, use Ground all the way, either Fedex or UPS.</p>
<p>These are great to ship:</p>
<ol>
<li>heavy stuff that is not bulky (shampoo, canned goods, books, chocolate);</li>
<li>fruit, because they travel fast, 2 days typically (I’ve shipped kiwis, blueberries, apples and satsumas from Seattle to Boston)</li>
<li>small care packages</li>
</ol>
<p>I keep a stash of boxes at home and fill them as needed, then drop them off at the Post Office on my way to work.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that that if the items you are shipping don’t weigh much you’re better off using a regular priority mail envelope or box. The cost of the postage will be less.</p>
<p>If the stuff you are shipping could benefit from shrink-wrapping you can fit more stuff in that way. I’ll go out on a limb here but you could probably fit a comforter, winter jacket and maybe a couple of sweaters in one of the bigger boxes. The trick is to put the bag in the box before you take the air out. It’ll shrink to fit the bottom and sides of the box and then you can add another bag on top and repeat the procedure. Works very well in suitcases. The bags are re-usable and S brings them back on breaks. Good $15 investment at BB&B (used a $5 coupon).</p>
<p>I have found that a regular priority mail box, not the flat rate one, actually ends up being cheaper, because for me it is only going about a hundred miles. I talked to the USPS rep and he explained that the square flat rate box really only made sense for me if the item was really heavy or going a lot further. You might want to compare.</p>
<p>I used the flat-rate boxes to ship some books from New Jersey to Chicago at the beginning of my son’s freshman year. Very helpful, and a lot cheaper than shipping them based on weight.</p>
<p>
Yes! Used to do this when shipping care packages as a Soldiers’ Angel (flat rate boxes are the best for shipping to military bases, since they don’t accept FedEx or UPS). I’ve shipped multiple blankets, a sweatshirt, and a full set of UnderArmour in a single flat rate box, along with several other items. I used a Foodsaver to reduce them, but other angels reported success using trash bags and a vacuum cleaner’s hose attachment. You can suck a down pillow down to near marshmallow size.</p>
<p>One nice thing about flat rate boxes is, well, the rate is flat. So you can pack a prepaid label into the box for a return trip (e.g., swapping dirty sheets for clean ones). Or if your kiddo is jonesing for a special canned food from home or something like that, the flat rate box is a great way to go because it doesn’t matter how heavy the box is as long as you can tape it shut (my personal weight record for one box is about 15 pounds :D).</p>
<p>As to using them to ship stuff for the move-in, I think other ways would probably be better. They’re awfully small.</p>
<p>Also, if a friend has a business that does a lot of shipping they can ship it for you at their special rate.</p>