For National delivery there’s actually a second post system in most cities in 
in my area they’re cheaper. Like 0.15€ cheaper for a card and letter.
If you do that much you can take this into account.
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What great tips and tricks already!
When it comes to stamps, I buy them from a website which sells them for a small discount.
Also, this year I received a voucher for Christmas from my workplace and we could choose which one we wanted, I chose a voucher which I can spend at a shop that sells stamps.
(I still have a voucher of a shop I don’t shop at, maybe if I sell the voucher I can use the money to buy stamps. 
)
For cards, I buy a lot of postcard boxes, discounted cards, discounted postcard books, any cards in sets or bundles, cards from second hand shops and I make cards from recycled materials like used cards, (food) packaging and magazines.
To add, it’s a bit like being on a diet. If you focus constantly on not being allowed to eat chocolate, the only thing you’ll be able to think of is chocolate. Instead if you focus on what you are able to eat or drink, in my case that would be a hot chocolate made with oat milk and good quality cacao powder, it makes it so much easier.
Find what you really love about Postcrossing and focus on that. That way you will feel fulfilled and most likely will spend less money, you will spend it on something you really, really love.
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I have a loyalty card for a stationary shop and on your birthday you recieve a £5 to spend in store. I’ve just used it on postcards 
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Oh the agonising wait! But also, a rather effective strategy! It made me laugh out loud 
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I know that not everyone is a fan of it, but making postcards and envelopes is also saving money. If you’ve time for it and enjoy it, than I can recommend that 
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In Poland, the one way to save big on sending snail-mail is… to send it from Germany. In Germany postage is only half as much as here in Poland. So if you’re lucky enough to live near the border, you use the mailbox on the other side. If you have friends or family in Germany, from 3 postcards up it pays to send them in an envelope to Germany and have them posted there.
There is even a small company in the Polish city of Szczecin that offers this as one of its services - you send them your snail-mail in an envelope, and they take it across the border to post it in Germany 
http://napiszkartke.pl/postcrossing.html
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Totally agree! I feel this way about second-hand items in general. Why create new things when there is a perfectly usable option waiting for a new life for a lower price? Keeps stuff out of landfills/incinerators as well.
I’ve had luck with this only once so far. I had chosen a pile of one hundred cards and the checkout employee just looked at the stack, sighed and said “1 Frank” (so about 0.90 Euro). Left the store very happy that day!
Nice to know. Now all I have to do is wait until all those places open up to the public again. Bloody virus.
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Ah, but why would they give me stamps and cards when they could give me. Yet. Another. Vanilla. Candle. 
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Don’t you think this is against the Postcrossing Community guidelines?
I know that postage in some countries is high, but in my opinion it doesn’t give the right to share the addresses to somebody else. The postcrosser is responsible for sending the card.
If someone doesn’t have the money to send thier cards, then the option is to send fewer, or not to send.
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Postcrossing officially allows sending services like Touchnote, where the address is being given to a 3rd party corporation that may keep it and potentially be compromised in a data breach. That is much more troubling to me than sending cards, with the address already written on, to a friend or relative to put in the mailbox for you.
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Yes, but Touchnote is a postcard sending company. They have responsibilities and workers who get paid to do that. I don’t like that so much either, but it’s different from handing others addresses to someone who has no obligation towards sending the card, or maybe even doesn’t want to have someone’s cards to forward.
The relatives or friend might get sick, die, forget to send the card, not care to send the card, let it sit somewhere for weeks. Or just come to someones door to drop the card without mailing, if the receiver lives near enough.
Having swapped many years, the most common reason for missing swap or a late swap/letter must be “my boyfriend/mother/wife forgot to send it”. Therefore, it’s safest to do it yourself. Also I understand Touchnote and similar, when you can’t write the card, and still can use Touchnote. Personally, for me, these cards look easily like junk mail/commercial leaflet, as the message is just part of the card layout, and nothing personal looking.
(But, I have only received one TouchNote, and the picture was lovely, taken by the sender, so I like it, and two from MyPostcard App, so for me that is not so big issue. Of course I don’t know how many has spread my address around 
hopefully no one, but probably a few.)
To tell the truth, I am not freakingly worried, but just a heads up, since it often surprises me how neglectful people can be of others privacy.
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I think this is a good point. I have never been thinking about sending through another country (wouldn’t really bother to go through all that hassle to organize that just to get some few more cards sent… and just think how disappointed people would be if they finally got a card from Sweden and it comes with German stamp…), but I have been bit of whatever about others doing that. This really gave me something to think about the case.
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If we want to be THAT strict about data protection, it is not only SENDING postcards through friends & family that is a problem, but also just HAVING friends or family in your house while addressed postcards lie around openly… You’d have to either always take your postcards straight to the post office once you have written them or keep them in a safe - lest any other members of the household get to spy the addresses
That said - some people point out in their profiles that they are touchy about data protection - in that case I don’t do this. Same when someone insists on “sent from origin”.
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Some people don’t care about “sent from origin”. Others point out that they do - in that case I send from Poland 
By the way, my first postcrossing card from Sweden actually arrived in my mailbox sent from CYPRUS 
- from a Cypriot postcrosser and with a Cypriot ID. At that point I actually HAD mixed emotions - but not because the stamp didn’t match the postcard picture, but because back then I didn’t have any postcards from Cyprus at all and had missed out a rare chance here to get one… (Whereas I did have a postcard from Sweden, sent by sister years ago.)
Generally, I usually don’t mind when postcrossers send a card from some past vacation rather than from the place where they live.
And I’d certainly prefer if postcrossers from Denmark, for example, chose to send their cards from Germany rather than stop sending cards at all, or hardly any
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Hmm, my friends and family don’t go snooping my letter or cards.
I keep to be sent -mail in a bag, and no one goes looking what I’ve written, because of secrecy of correspondence and because they respect me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t welcome them, and I couldn’t call such person as a friend.
But even if they happened to see the address, having them at home I have control over who comes here. When sending them to someone, I don’t. Very different thing. And it’s not nice that you shift your responsibility to someone else, along others addresses.
I think you should treat everyone’s address like they are “touchy” about it. I believe many postcrossers don’t even think someone might send cards meant to them, to someone else first, just to be able to send a few more cards. Or for whatever reason.
No one should mention not to share their address, as this is said in the guidelines, and for me it’s common sense to appreciate others privacy.
The guidelines also say, send the card as soon as possible. Of course you can twist the words and say you sent them but should the rules really point out that the card is meant to be sent to the receiver, not some friend or relative first.
But, somehow I get the feeling you won’t understand my point of view, which is sad.
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So your “friends and family don’t go snooping [your] letter or cards”???
Then why do you assume that MY friends and family DO? :’(
You are right, I do not understand your point of view, which may be sad, but no sadder than the fact that you don’t understand mine
I trust my friends & family not to do anything improper with the adresses on my postcards - in fact I am certain they don’t even look at them. Also postcards don’t necessarily get delayed by sending them via Germany. It’s just 2-3 days for them to get there, and Deutsche Post may be faster to deliver them to some countries than Poczta Polska… Anyway, my postcards will still be much much faster than any cards sent from Russia, China or lots of other countries.
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Well, if you see it like that, you should not only complain about people economizing on postage, but actually first of all about those who economize on the postcards themselves. After all Postcrossing is about postcards in the first place, not about stamps 
Personally I respect the fact that all postcrossers are different. Some are here for the postcards, some for the stamps, some first of all enjoy the messages. So we all have different preferences, and that’s OK. But when we feel strongly about any of them, we’d best put them in our profile - better than complain later.
For me it is a much better option for a Danish postcrosser to send me a postcard he or she brought from a holiday in France and post it from Germany, than for that Danish postcrosser to cut back the number of cards he or she sends and thus not to send me a postcard at all!
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Actually I don’t assume, you wrote it’s a problem.
But I don’t think normally people would look others mail, and not your friends either. Not accusing anyone
I do understand your point of view, it is to save money. Right?
So, you think it’s more important to save a little your money than follow the guidelines and appreciate others privacy. Even if you have agreed the rules when joining.
Edit. Longer quote.
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Sorry I don’t understand this part.
I don’t complain on saving in postage or stamps, I am worried about the disrespect towards others privacy by sending cards to strangers, pushing your responsibility to some one else.
You don’t seem to care about that?
In my opinion, it’s only good if you find a deal in postcards, or unused stamps in eBay or similar 
I:
- buy sets of postcards ( usually much cheaper comparing to buying each one separately)
- take free cards from restaurants, museums, theaters…
And my friends use external post services which are cheaper than in Poland.