A better way of filling supply boxes

I felt like I took too much time making up the first food box for mailing.  I made some meals and threw in about 50 trailbars and snacks along with a jar of nut butter and had filled it to about 7 pounds.  I had no idea where I was sending this nor whether I should add or remove food.

A better way:

1. Figure out my supply locations and the distance between them
2. Decide how many days I'll need to travel from one to the next.
3. For each day make up a bag with food**, snacks, six sheets of double ply toilet paper, 2-4 ibuprofen tabs (I hope to have many of these to drop in hiker boxes), dental flosser,and weigh each bag until its weight reaches my estimated limit.
4. The nut butter stays in its container.  It's 16 oz may cover 4 to 8 days.
5. 8 oz of oil covers 4-8 days also.
6. New shoes go in at 400 miles.

Great tip from Chris Cookiemonster Pirrello:  USPS has regional flat rate boxes, same service as Priority flat rate, but cheaper by 10% or so.  You have to order boxes online--when online pay attention to the number of boxes you order--you can order one batch of 10 boxes and one batch of 25 boxes in each size.  For me size B worked well for 4-6 days of food (1.3-1.5 lb of food/day).  You must print the labels yourself--no one at the p.o. can help you get the better rates.

**A day's worth of food.
2 oz of rice plus 2 oz of Fantastic Foods refried bean or black bean mix for the mid afternoon meal.
2 oz of potato flakes with 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of salt, onion powder and garlic powder mixture.
trail mix bags.
bags with gummy bear like treats.

Things to buy along the way:

1. sun screen and bug juice.  These things you don't want to mail to yourself b/c if they spill, you might not want to eat your food.
2. maybe tortillas to go with the nut butters, 
3. oil to go with the mid afternoon meal and ease its passage--buy it along the way and leave the rest of the bottle in the hiker box.
4. replacement shoes, if you're wearing sneakers.  Grandma Gates wore sneakers to hike the Appalachian Trail--I am trying to justify boots even as I myself plan to hike in non waterproof trail shoes in southern Cal.
5. Other food for a change.  Of course, you can just trade with other hikers and with the hiker boxes at each outpost.