Mail A Potato, Step by Step How to Guide

Mail A Potato

Step By Step, How To Guide

Did you know you can mail a potato without a box or any packaging?  I recently learned you can literally ship a potato.  I went to my local post office who gave me a 15-minute class on all the rules and tips.  I created this “Mail A Potato” article to help make it easy for you to mail a potato the first time.

Mail A Potato, How To Guide by Claudia S. Nelson Real Estate Team

My Dad was in the Marine Corps.  I grew up moving and PCS’ing my entire childhood.  I learned at an early age the importance of staying in touch with friends and family.  Now that I am older, I still look for creative ways to stay in touch with family.  As a result of my father’s duty stations, my sister has made her permanent home outside of Camp Lejeune, NC and I am here outside of where our dad retired in Quantico. 
A couple of weeks ago, I was on Groupon and saw an ad for Anonymous Potato.  It was a service where you could mail a potato.  I was intrigued and immediately sent my brother, Steve, a potato through their service.  It cost a total of $15 and took almost 2 weeks to get there.  I wanted to see if I could mail a potato myself and what it would cost and the shipping time compared to Anonymous Potato. Here is what I learned.

• Make sure you pick out a potato that is large enough
• Nothing too lumpy
• You must clean it so it doesn’t have any dirt on it
• Don’t scrub too hard to bruise or tear the skin
• Allow your potato to dry overnight

 

• You will need to make mailing labels, writing the address takes too much room
• Gather these supplies and take with you to the Post Office
  • Mailing Labels (To and From)
  • Scissors
  • Pencil (the eraser helps push down edges when gluing)
  • LOTS of paper towels (it gets messy)
  • Markers
  • Permanent Marker
  • Super Glue
• Take all your supplies to the Post Office and set-up a station, You will be there a while!

 

• As soon as you get to the post office, have them weigh your potato and get your postage label
  • Mine Cost $4.14
• Super glue postage label first since this will take up the most space
  • My Post Office said they prefer on the top of the potato but be careful not too high that it is on the bend.  Where the potato starts to curve it is hard to make the label stick
• Be sure that all corners of the labels have super glue, this is the most important part to make stick
• After I put the super glue on, I would hold down the corners with the eraser of a pencil so I could hold the very corner edge without getting glue on me.  Once I felt like it was starting to set, I would hold it with a paper towel until I felt like it was dry enough.  This probably took me 15-20 minutes for all 3 labels.
• Make sure you place labels like you would on an envelope with return address in the upper hand corner
• After they were all dry, I used my permanent marker to write: To and From:  

 

• Use your permanent marker to write a message 
• Use your markers to decorate

• Coconut
• Flip-flop
• Sombrero
• Lime
• Rock
• Brick (Remember you are paying for weight, but it would be funny!)
• Inflated Beach Ball
• Pinata
• Frisbee
• Bucket
• Pillow (My best friend recently moved to Wisconsin, I think she is getting a pillow!)
• Orange
• Plastic Toys 
• And the list goes on and on

 

I like being able to decorate the potato I mailed

• Only Cost $4.76
• Arrives in 5 days (based on my experience)
• I got to decorate and personalize it myself

• Took approximately 1 1/2 hour of my time

Anonymous Potato looks boring in comparison

• Took approximately 5 minutes of my time,
  • maybe less if I didn’t have to confirm his address with his best friend, Mike
    • SHOUT OUT TO, Mike Counterman, for answering my message at 7 a.m. on Saturday

• Cost $15 to ship 
• Takes 12 days to arrive
• Message arrive very plan, written in black sharpie, nothing more

AND I LOVE TO MAKE HER LAUGH!