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Comment by Broken_Hippo | Hacker News Reader

IIRC, the USPS puts both size and weight limits on their deliveries. You'll do OK shipping trinkets and small electronics, but you'll have to do something about the furniture and appliances (if you are taking the last). You also have a list of things you might have issues shipping (chemicals, for example)

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They don’t like to advertise this, but (incredibly heavy) books, magazines, and a/v media can be shipped at absurdly cheap rates via as “media mail.” It is my understanding that every bookstore in America would instantly fold if this service were discontinued.

If one were to go cross country and didn’t mind ditching their furniture, media mail plus a few suitcases full of clothes could make for a very cheap move.

I got rid of my huge bookcase of books I was carting around the country and just got them all for kindle. It was amazing how may boxes and how much weight it all was, and all to carry information, which weighs nothing. I take pictures of important documents before trashing them.

How do they know the contents follow their guidelines? For example how do they know you don't have kitchenware in there instead of "media"?

They reserve the right to inspect the contents.

I sold a bunch of books to someone in Hawaii. It was a 40lb box and cost $10 to ship from the East Coast. Took 3-4 weeks to get there. Crazy cheap. Would have been >$100 if not media.

I wouldn't be surprised if they xray the package. They will still deliver your kitchenware, but will arrive "Postage Due", requiring you pay a fee.

Sounds like a good gamble to take unless there's some additional fee beyond the fee of if you were paying the actual shipping cost.

That said, I've had more issues with Media Mail than other services. The final straw was when they lost a large box of books I sent to my nephews, except they found all the box parts with the information to send back to me. I filled out a report with a list of the books (didn't have pictures, unfortunately) and they never found them. No refund, of course.

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