Linda:
If you wish to avoid the costs of shipments of items altogether (e.g., items other than purchases at Amazon, etc) an alternative is a mail drop.
St Brendan’s Isle
http://www.sbimailservice.com/how_it_works.htm
This one in Florida provides a variety of services: scanning the outside of your envelopes and sending you a notice you’ve received mail. You can tell them to trash it, forward it, or, open and scan the contents and send an image of the contents to you.
tom