HOW TO BUY ONLINE POSTAGE: Be your own Post Office. Print your own stamps.

Trying out a new thing every day... never bought stamps online so printing my own postage for letters, parcels or packages for pickup. This is how to print your own postage online in the UK in 2020.

LINK for buying postage online: https://send.royalmail.com/

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HOW TO BUY ONLINE POSTAGE: Be your own Post Office. Print your own stamps.




Transcript: (click play on video above)
Let's see how this goes...
Hello I'm Neil, and usually I'm the Tightwad Dad, trying to be happy with what we've already got -- those words on the screen.

The Great Shutdown of 2020... and oh by the way look at our lovely town statue.
Everyone's getting into the mood

So here's how you can buy postage online at home for yourself.
Hello I'm Neil welcome to the Happy Hut - thanks for clicking on this video

I'm like you I hate going to the post office even when there isn't an international emergency going on
We're in the middle of The Great Shutdown of 2020
I could not think of a better excuse to not go and use one of those self-service machines at the post office - and I thought there has to be a better way of living

And also at the moment this has given me a chance to try things that I've never done before
So today's thing that I've never done before is "buy postage online"
I've got the internet ready and come see my screen...
There's no internet.

Okay so I've finally got the internet back on - thanks kids - and it's, it's the evening now so I thought I'd come in here and this is the website that you need

Now I'll put the link to this website in the description you might be watching this in 2021 or 2022 even
I'll change the link in the description if it changes, but that's the link that I'm using and they've got this walkthrough system with you - so the first thing you need to know is where you're sending your parcel

That's the United Kingdom I know that, that's good
Now the next thing you need to know is the weight, so this is a shot of me right now weighing the package on our kitchen scales

They want it in either grams or kilograms as you can see there
We're lucky enough to have the scales and it's it's 480 so I can type that into the website
480

And it's grams so I'm going to click on the grams, not the kilograms - that will change the price quite a lot
And then we'll click on "Send an item now"
Now we put in a few more details about the item - we have to put in the size of a package

Let me get the package here - by the way I think this is probably my favorite part of buying postage online: you don't have to answer that stupid question that you do in the post office
You know when they ask you "what's in your package?"
What I want to say is "It's a small packet of none of your business" but that's not very-- that's not very nice

So I usually end up going "Oh, it's my embarrassing package"
But this is actually embarrassing - I've cleared out the loft and gonna send some stuff back to my sister
It's a Top Of The Pops magazine from 2001 and some photos of her
By the way the photos... just cover this up
What were my parents thinking?!
What-- that was that was a fancy dress costume on holiday
Not only do I appear like that on holiday but we've captured it on film?
What's, what's in the package there sir?

Oh it's just a photo of me... with a... as Adam - with fig leaves - that we've just found on the holiday complex?
Oh you should see what the complex looks like now
Absolute wreck.
Like me!

This is the package of embarrassment that I want to send and buy the postage for
So it wants the shape of your item.

If you put in a very low number of grams you can actually just buy a stamp for a letter
Yeah if I put in here, say it's, I don't know, 20 grams, you can see you've got you've got the option of a letter
So you can just buy a stamp for a letter using this system - so it works for big parcels and small letters
And you can see it's offering me a Large Letter - it's definitely not a large letter.

Basically click on the box that is the size of your package and mine looks like the small parcel - from £2.95.
Click continue.

It takes you to another section now which is what service would you like it?
How would you like it delivered?
And the options here are second-class. first-class, signed for second-class, you can see the prices going up here
Signed For First Class... to arrive in one to two business days
Tracked 24 - the next day delivery signed for...

I'm a tightwad dad and I'm not made of money so I'm gonna go for second class - plus I don't think anyone's in any rush to be seeing this stuff
I think the longer it's in the hands of the Royal Mail the better

We click on 'continue' which takes you to the next section - which is where is your package going?
Now you can type in a postcode and look for the address with this pull down menu - now I don't want this package falling into the wrong hands, so let's send it to... let's look up a postcode SW1A 2AA
Oh how about that? How... will it send it to number 10 Downing Street as my example address
This is gonna cause a visit from, er... some kind of authority...
So this is just the demonstration.

But as you can see if you type it in the postcode it offers you addresses for that postcode
So you choose the right address and it fills in the boxes for you, or you can fill those in manually yourself - and then we'll click continue

Here you just type in your address and then you can also enter your address manually... and then there's an option on this page: "Check this box if you do not want your sender details to appear on the label."

There's an option where you can have like a return to sender address put on the label but given it's got all of your details anyway I don't know why you wouldn't want to do that... but anyway that option is there for you
So this is the next page where you can now complete your purchase and actually pay for the postage.

I've blanked out the address it's going to and the address is going from, but you can see that it's telling me - confirming me - it's a small parcel, Royal Mail second class postage - and you can see there's an option here to edit any of those details or delete it if you've got it wrong and start again... and then you can complete your purchase.

So it says once you've completed your purchase your items will be need to be posted within 7 days
So you put in your email address - don't write those words obviously - write your email - your actual email address - and then finally you just need to take a couple of boxes

First I confirm I have entered the correct weight for the items being sent and I'm not sending any item which is prohibited or restricted in the UK
I don't know. Some of those photos?
But I'll tick it anyway
I'm sure you would have read the terms and conditions right?

Now it gives you two options at the moment: it's pay with PayPal or pay with debit or credit card
Let's go with pay with debit or credit card - but also here you can see there's a nice handy infographic to show you how to buy postage online
Once we've paid for it, we're going to print a label and stick that label onto the package - so we click with "pay with debit or credit card" and this is really straightforward
All you do is type in your card number, the card holders name and the expiry date, and the security code
So I've clicked on "Make payment"
It's now saying my payment is being processed - always a worrying time - so there we go!
It says "Thank you for your purchase. Your purchase postage."
And it's confirmed the addresses and the payments

Now you can get your postage to print out from two places here - you can either click on "view your documents" and there is the postage label ready to print out
Or next to the details it says "view label" so if I click on "view label" there it is
And if you view your label you will have an option there you can download it onto your computer, or you can just hit print, straight from there

I like to save it on my computer because I'm of an age where I want to hold on to stuff!
So let's send it to the printer straight away and here it comes out to the printer
And here's the label fresh off the printer

It's huge! Look at it! It's massive! So the next thing you'll need is a bit of crafting
I can never find glue
I always get it, and then the kids nick it
So you stick it to the package - there!

That's good to go!

You have now successfully bought a stamp online
Leave a comment down below if you have any questions
I'm sure someone will be able to help you, even just to say hi
If you reach this point in the video thank you for watching
I really hope this this helps you to do it
I've not done this before so I'm quite excited

This is me recording the worst piece to camera ever, showing me posting the actual item!
"And that's how you can buy your postage online too!"
Well that was a different envelope... so anyway if you have reached this point in the video thanks for watching
Why not hit the thumbs up button if this video has helped

If you're feeling even kinder why not hit the subscribe button down below - that helps me to keep this going
We're trying to get this to about 10,000 subscribers. I don't think that will ever happen but if you do hit subscribe I really appreciate it
Good luck on your avoiding the post office, avoiding using those self-service machines ever again. You and me. We can stay out of this, and do this at home. Thanks for watching!
Can you please help my daddy get 1000 subscribers - just click on his face. Thanks, bye! How's that?


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