International Shipping Help

I was wondering if anybody has any experience with shipping items internationally?

I have some friends in Europe I wanted to ship some stuff to. It would weigh somewhere between 5-15 pounds and maybe be like 8x12x4 inches or so.

Basically my problem is being able to ship things to them without getting screwed by the cost. UPS international wants $180 base cost, then like $5 for the fuel required for the stuff. I think I may have found a service that I can get by with only paying maybe ~$80 for it, but does anybody have any experience or suggestions about this? I'm just recently graduated from high school and am not bringing in money hand over fist. :P

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Oh yes, the world of int shipping... I've done this a lot and honestly the USPS (US Postal Service) has always been the cheapest. Granted, about $80 is going to be the cost of most packages that size/weight. And where you are shipping to changes the price some as well.

Use this to check cost. When you get the price list there is another blue bar that says "Priority Mail International® Options "
Hidden in there is usually your cheaper options.

https://ircalc.usps.com/Default.aspx

Hmm, ok good find, definitely cheaper than what I found earlier.

I found a service called Borderlinx that is supposed to be used to send items you buy in another country to you from that country, but I've seen the reviews mostly as 1 or 5 stars, not a ton in between. Although their sales rep Majed was a pretty cool guy. Still, I've never heard of them so I was hesitant to go through them.

But yeah this actually looks great, since I know for sure they are reputable and somewhat reasonable in cost. Thanks for finding this for me, now I guess I'll learn lots about what papers I need to get it shipped over.

Definitely read about it. The USPS website can help a lot. And when you go the USPS location, depending on how nice they are, they usually help.