USPS now has a legal sized flat rate envelope - it costs the same to send as the regular sized flat rate envelope.

Need to ask for it at the post office. Your post office may or may not have it on hand.

And a Priority Mail Padded Flat Rate Envelope - has to be ordered - it's lined with bubble wrap. Also costs the same to send as the regular Flat Rate Envelope.

I ordered a small package of the flat rate padded envelopes. I am not to crazy about them though. The least little thing will cause a hole to tear in the outer wrapping of the envelope.

I like these!!! My post office doesn't have them there, but you can get them off of the usps website.

You can ONLY get them online.

Here's the link to the padded FRE's:
https://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/sto...uctId=10007166

Also, they are $4.95, with no online discount, unlike the regular FRE's. And PayPal doesn't yet have them set up as a shipping option, so you have to chose FRE, and add a $.20 stamp. Or take your chances. ;-)

Yes they have been available for some time now. You have to order the legal and padded online . I use then for my swaps and they work great. Highly recommend them if your post office allows chunky packages like mine does .

I've been using so many of the flat rate packages, I'd forgotten about regular options. Luckily when I was rummaging around the front of the post office, the woman behind the counter asked me what I was looking for. "Just trying to find the smallest box a stuffed monkey will fit in" She told me not to use flat rate and gave me the regular box, ended up costing me $6 to ship instead of $14.95! I know fabric can be heavy though. Just something to keep in mind.