plan ahead and $ave
My project was on a very tight budget and i knew it could not all be done at once anyway. So in order to save as much money as i could and still get the parts i needed, i prioritized the parts i needed and planned out my order of parts carefully.
Our host (and others) ship for FREE when your order totals up to $350 (or other). Any parts needed over that, i just waited until i knew what else i would need next (and i had saved up enough paychecks). The savings on the shipping costs allowed me to buy more parts.
Also, where there was an advertised sale, i was ready to take advantage of that savings as well. When it came to the over-sized items, suppliers don't usually waive any shipping charges, so i made sure all of those items needed were placed all in the same order when there was a sale on (luckily i didn't need many over-sized items).