If you ship occasional packages and want to avoid the lines at the post office as well as save money, here's something I just came across that seems to work really well. The best part is that it's a FREE service with no monthly fees like with Stamps.com and others. It's free to sign up and no extra fees ever, plus you get the best discounted commercial USPS rates on packages, including Priority Mail Cubic that is usually only available to commercial shippers shipping over 50,000 packages. Plus they can link to your eBay account and more.

The service is called Pirate Ship ( www.pirateship.com ).

As an example, it just cost me $2.78 to mail a First Class Package (padded envelope) weighing 4 ounces (zone 3 distance).

Seems like a great service so far.