A Love Token Cost

I bought issue 23 of "Mollie Makes" a few months ago. It's British so I guess I paid about $7, I bought it for mild amusement but decided to spend a miserable Sunday afternoon making the little fox character for my daughter in Hobart....just a little love token much to the bemusement of our son ("Yeah but what do you do with it?" "Well she'll just put it on her desk for a couple of weeks and think of me and then she'll give it to someone else or give it to the dog or spill coffee on it and throw it away"). I start to wonder if this is a silly idea because part of me agrees with Mr. Practical.

The relevant instructions are roughly five pages out of 100 so 5% of the magazine cost would be 35 cents.

I purchased one piece of orangish coloured felt for 90 cents and used a third of it so we'll call it 30 cents. 

I used leftover floss and felt from my stash so lets call it another 10 cents worth.

The stuffing was a couple of handfuls 

So I am going to cost the actual little piece of affectionate folly at no more than 80 cents. It is about 7cm x 5cm, just a small trinket.

I want to surprise my daughter and post it to her 200km away in Hobart - same State - just a 2hr drive....

$6.45

It weighs only 3g but it is more than 2cm thick so it can't be classified as an envelope item but must be classified as a parcel. I'm definitely thinking this is a silly idea.

So I took it home and gave it some thought and then squished the life out of it between the pages of a small many years obsolete mobile phone instruction book and taped it to a flat 2 cm yet less than 125g weight envelope size. 

So I got my love token cost done to $2.00 in total.

Seriously Australia Post there has to be a better way of rate calculation. I have just added 120g weight and reduced my cost by $5.25 but the extra weight to petrol ratio has cost you more.

Are you re-thinking your parcel post this Christmas?

What are your ideas for low cost far flung gift ideas?