Every time I do this it costs a fortune. What am I doing wrong ?

Nothing. That's just how the U.S. Postal service is.

I asked the guy at the post office and he said something about people coming in with foreign stamps or buying postage through a third party company.

Do you pay for the packaging/bag you put it in as part of it? That's a common/lazy thing people do here. I avoid that and just tape a CD firmly between two bits of cardboard (like this), and put it in the smallest envelope it'll fit in and then tape that up. Not 100% sure but in your case you might be able to send it as a large envelope, as the page says those are allowed to contain CDs.

I remember trying to ship a small square box that perfectly fit like 6 CDs to Canada (not even over any seas) and the very cheapest I could get was like $20. Sad!

But yeah I gave up on ever trying to sell anything to anyone outside of murka.

Same here. Want to buy CD in Europe, but how to count shipping costs?

Shipping cost depends on origin, destination, service, package weight, and other considerations. Last time I paid amost $30 for fast delivery. Once I didn't receive my purchase at all, but it was completely my fault, I entered the wrong postal code. Now I prefer to check it through site https://worldpostalcode.com/israel/ to avoid any delivery issues.

Shipping costs have been bullshit for a while virtually all over the world; when it comes to manufacturing and selling physical media they're doing some serious damage.

I do my best to support artists and labels directly but I have to restrict my purchases within EU countries in order to afford a few more items (as well as skip the nightmarish crapshoot of Italian customs).

I always try to buy from non USA sellers/distros, since USPS has proven time and time again to be one of the worst carriers you can find, they're slow, expensive and parcels come damaged more often than not.

Postage is something you gotta bite the bullet on. I typically try to buy stuff at shows or when labels have sales to offset the cost. One of those situations where you gotta suck it up really. It's why I dont buy a lot of music from discogs anymore. Or I look for deals where the seller will soften the blow of I order enough.

It's just expensive anymore to mail a cd out of the US. As of right now first class is 14 dollars for one cd in a jewel case to most countries. And even if you try to send it without the case, it doesn't make it cheaper. From what I understand, they don't allow a cd as a large envelope anymore (unless you get lucky and they punch it in the computer incorrectly) so even if you use a mailer that has no bubble wrap and sent without the case, it won't be cheaper. And even if it was, I don't think it's worth the risk of it getting broken by sending that way.

The only good part is that you can still send four or five cd's for the same price (without cases) just as long as the package doesn't exceed a pound. Cause if it does, the price nearly doubles. It's lame.

Indeed that's another huge problem right there: in a lseveral countries the national post has cancelled a lot of intermediate categories when it comes to size and weight, so a matter of a few centimetres/grams more or less will knock your fares from "small package" to "hugely bulky parcel" with nothing inbetween. Ridiculous.