SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- With budgets tight this holiday season, many shoppers are looking to save money when mailing their presents.

KCRA 3 sent a box weighing 3.85 pounds using three shipping services to see which one provided the cheapest and fastest shipping service.

The first shipping service KCRA 3 used was FedEx.

The cheapest shipping option with FedEx is by ground, which takes about 5 business days for delivery and costs between $11.40 for a 3.85-pound box.

The quickest option is overnight morning delivery and that will cost you $89.18 for a 3.85-pound delivery with FedEx.

Next, KCRA 3 went brown, as in UPS, to deliver the 3.85-pound box.

UPS gave a quote of $13.03 for ground shipping, which should reach its destination in about 5 days.

And for overnight morning delivery of the 3.85-pound box, it would cost $83.72.

UPS offers free insurance for packages valued less than $100, and you can track your package online as it travels to its destination.

In 2007, the United States Postal Service was the most cost effective shipping option during the holiday season, but KCRA 3 wanted to find out if that would still hold true with recent rate increases.

Delivering the 3.85-pound box using parcel post, would cost $9.38 but that also means up to 7 days of waiting for delivery.

Using a flat-rate box, the package would arrive at its destination in about 2 to 3 days and would cost about 40 cents more.

For overnight express using USPS, it would cost $33.10 to ship a 3.85-pound box, but the package could get to its desired destination any time the next day.

So, according to KCRA 3's investigation, the USPS remains the cheapest option out of the following three delivery services for shipping a gift this holiday season.