Well, yesterday afternoon, after visiting Target and getting some great deals on clothes and school supplies, I made my way to our local shipping store to send my package to Yaroslav. Everything cost about $100 to purchase. When the clerk told me how much it was going to be to ship, I about sh*t a brick.
$700.00
That's right, seven times the actual cost of goods. I shipped a package of almost the same weight three months ago for $125. So, we went through the process of taking all of the school supplies and the new tennis shoes out of the box to save on weight.
The price went down a whopping $100. No way in heck I was gonna pay $600 to ship anything anywhere.
So, I pared it down to one tshirt, one hat, two yo-yos and three Russian comic books. That was a little more acceptable at $55 via USPS. Seems the other boxes were all too big and had to go either UPS or DHL and the fuel surcharges were outrageous. I will be writing Yaroslav a letter very soon telling him that we will not be able to ship any school supplies this year because of the cost. I kept the clothes. Either I will send them in smaller packages or keep them until we need them for our trip.
3 comments:
Natalie,
That is shocking that the fees to mail things to Ukraine have gone up that much. I'm getting ready to mail a package next week. I love reading your blog!
It's late right now so I'll have to look this weekend, but there is a company that ships to Ukraine and it's quite reasonable. I had come across it on one of the boards several months ago.
Just catching up on some blogging. I hope they get your passports processed soon.
Chris
Meest,Inc. is a Ukraine-based international shipping company. For packages where time is not of the essence, you can send about a 25lb package for around 40 dollars. I send packages a couple of times a year to our son's maternal grandmother and little half-sisters. They send you a label to drop off your box at any UPS pickup station and take it from there. Once they weigh it and ship it, you get a bill in the mail. After having the USPS sticker shock, I knew there had to be a better way. Jeri
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