Buying Many of Only One Thing

August 11, 2022 4:51 AM

I’ve recently tossed all of my random Pyrex and Tupperware containers and switched to 10 of the same plastic Rubbermaid containers. It’s such a game changer. I’m thinking what are other things where you routinely have multiple types of but you should just get identical versions?
posted by sandmanwv to Shopping (59 answers total)

Socks.
Sheets.
Cloth napkins.
posted by kellyblah at 5:01 AM on August 11, 2022 [14 favorites]

Socks, yes. I do this with most of my clothes, to be honest, but I'm a bit of an outlier there.
Pens, once you've found the kind you like best. It's great knowing that whenever you reach for a pen, it's going to be a reliable one.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 5:09 AM on August 11, 2022 [23 favorites]

Still in the kitchen: pots and pans.

Tools: a professional shop might buy Snap-On or some other brand for most of their tools.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:09 AM on August 11, 2022

Underwear
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:11 AM on August 11, 2022 [16 favorites]

For rechargeable power tools: just choose one ecosystem. I am currently at 4, a terrible situation.
posted by rockindata at 5:21 AM on August 11, 2022 [17 favorites]

shirts
posted by amtho at 5:24 AM on August 11, 2022

Pants.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:34 AM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Socks +100.

Door locks/keys - when I moved into my home all the exterior doors took different keys. I still have one that has a different key, because it has a fancy lockset that I can't easily replace, but it is really nice to have the other doors all use the same key (I replaced the knobs with handles at the same time, and that is also really great).

Bras - and this ends up restricting my shirt/dress choices as well, because if it doesn't work with the bra I'm wearing that day, it's not going to work with *any* of my bras. (OK, I can make exceptions for special occasion wear, but for everyday it's just the one style of bra.)
posted by mskyle at 5:37 AM on August 11, 2022 [11 favorites]

That's funny - I've tried to do the "one kind of food container" thing several times, but oddballs somehow creep back into my cupboard.

Towels! Especially kitchen towels.

Seconding pants and socks for officewear. I know that's not possible for everyone, but I'm at a desk and no one sees my pants and few people seem to closely observe the khakis men in offices wear. Like, who cares?
posted by Caxton1476 at 5:59 AM on August 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

I'm not sure it's a game changer but I switched out all my hangers to these slim IKEA hangers and my closet looks much nicer.
posted by jabes at 6:25 AM on August 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

I've replaced a lot of different things (casual drinking glasses, liquid measuring cups, small food storage containers, some prep containers) with wide mouth Mason jars plus washable/reusable lids. There is also now an ecosystem of accessories that let you use Mason jars as things like citrus juicers. Some of these are garbage, but I think the citrus one is fantastic, and a few others are okay. This wasn't a 100% replacement -- I still have a pyrex wet measure, some traditional drinking glasses for nice occasions, and some specific containers for specific things -- but it was absolutely an improvement to just have a default Wet Ingredient Management Object and only deviate from the default when there was a good reason.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:25 AM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

oh wow, seconding keys. I recently moved from an apartment where it took 4 different keys just to go to and from the laundry room, to one where everything except my personal front door uses the same key, and it's great.

I'm a big believer in buying multiples of anything clothing wise that I love and that fits, but I can't bring myself to go full Steve Jobs about it. It's more about always having a close replacement if one of them shrinks or gets ruined somehow.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:26 AM on August 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

Underpants, bras, socks, black t-shirts/polos/tanks, and jeans. Buy multiples of each one and put in drawer in order so they all get equal wear.
Identical water glasses and mugs.
Seconding keys - we have the same lock on front door, back door, and back gate padlock.
posted by Peach at 6:26 AM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Also, getting a set of matching mugs that all stack nicely with each other when full has been a solid choice. 99% of the time it's just like normal mugs, and then the 1% of the time when I need to bring hot chocolate to three different people or whatever, it just works.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:30 AM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I keep a pair of scissors and a flashlight in every room.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 6:33 AM on August 11, 2022 [7 favorites]

I keep a pair of scissors and a flashlight in every room.

And reading glasses. too.
posted by Dolley at 6:38 AM on August 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

I am going to very much disagree with the universal suggestion of socks: If you buy ten identical pairs of socks, you are guaranteed to not use/wash each pair the same amount - also if you line dry you will be exposing them to different solar UV levels depending on the weather.

A year later, you will have twenty socks that are faded to very similar but different shades of their original color that must be matched in pairs coming out of the laundry and will have to either compromise with wearing slightly different-looking socks on each foot every day, or complicate your laundry sorting enough that it defeats the purpose.
posted by each day we work at 6:39 AM on August 11, 2022 [10 favorites]

Duralex Picardie Drinking Glasses in all sizes. They're sturdy classic stackable glasses that feel good in the hand.
posted by Elsie at 7:09 AM on August 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

Re socks: Oddly enough, nobody notices that my socks look slightly different, not even me.
posted by Peach at 7:09 AM on August 11, 2022 [31 favorites]

I think the keys thing is more like "replace multiples with one." I needed four keys for my old place, one for my current place. It is a quality-of-life improvement.

To the point each day we work makes, I occasionally declare "sock bankruptcy" and start over with a bunch of the same socks, though they're all pretty worn out by that point.

I had a mishmash of different soup bowls and coffee cups in the cupboard, which made them difficult to stack. Replaced them all with like items. Anything that stacks or should be stackable should be identical (and ideally designed to nest)—I've got a bunch of storage tubs in the garage, and if they didn't nest, they'd take up the entire garage.

If you are a runner and you find a pair of running shoes you really like, buy a bunch of them, since shoe manufacturers churn their designs. This is true to some extent with other athletic equipment.
posted by adamrice at 7:13 AM on August 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

I did this with our plates and glasses; we had developed into the mish-mash of glasses that develops when you break two and buy a new set of 4 in a different pattern, and the plates were looking rough and chipped.

I bought a bunch of restaurantware Anchor Hocking clear glasses and plain white ceramic plates (who needs fancy plates and cups for everyday use?) and donated the old ones.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:17 AM on August 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

Canning jars. We can/preserve a lot of fruit and after moving house twice in two years my wife and I decided to get rid of every canning jar that was not a Ball wide-mouth pint jar. So now instead of hunting through three or four sizes of jar, two types of closure, or multiple sizes of lid, ring, gasket, glass cap and spring clip - we just have one jar size, one ring diameter, and one lid size. I just put up 30 jars of apples these past couple of days, with no teeth-gnashing. Standardization for the win!
posted by niicholas at 7:21 AM on August 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

I do this with t-shirts. Current favorite is this dreamweight merino t from Outlier. I have 6 in black and 3 in other colors.

Pens, once you've found the kind you like best.

I'd suggest a pen with a replaceable ink cartridge, especially one that can take various different cartridges. That way, the pen is always the same comfortable one you're used to regardless of what color / line thickness you're writing with. I use a CW&T Type B pen.

I replaced the majority of pot lids in my kitchen with a One Lid.

In a similar vein to what you're asking, but not exactly the same, I try to buy things that are multi-uses but aren't normally seen as that. For instance, Rolling Square charging cables. They'll charge pretty much anything that isn't proprietary (so anything USB-C, Lightning, Micro-USB), but are just one cable instead of having to take multiple cables when I travel. They're so good I started selling them in my store and they're the second most popular item I offer.
posted by dobbs at 7:26 AM on August 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

As a word of warning, doing this with clothes is really great at first but then when you start to get tired of the ones you have the sunk costs make it feel very hard to branch out again. I suppose this is true of anything like this, so it's worth thinking in advance about whether you might want to be able to pick up different versions of the same thing in the future.
posted by wesleyac at 7:55 AM on August 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

socks. (differential wear makes zero difference.) hangers (I have found what I think is the ultimate best one; happy to find the link if anyone cares.)

a basic uniform (multiples of one kind of pant and one kind of top) is very helpful, and I've been doing it for a while, but if you wake up one day and realize that for whatever reason (weight gain, age, fashion, self-image, whatever) it looks wrong to you now, there's a lot of replacing to be done.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:58 AM on August 11, 2022

KSU head coach Bill Snyder famously bought like a hundred pairs of his favorite running shoes and rumor has it decided to retire from coaching when he ran out. That's definitely a gamble but I think it paid off for him.
posted by pwnguin at 8:37 AM on August 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

Still in the kitchen: pots and pans.

Agreed, mostly for those cases where it gives you a better chance of being able to use lids interchangeably. Another lid solution is a universal lid, which I really like having, especially for pots and pans that didn't come with lids in the first place.

Anything that stacks, nests, or needs to be stored efficiently, including silverware.
posted by trig at 8:51 AM on August 11, 2022

I've been doing the sock thing for years at this point and have absolutely not noticed any noticeable fading issues that would require matching the socks by fading level. Possibly I'm just oblivious and everyone else around me is staring at my mismatched socks, but eh.

A recent upgrade to a couple of trash cans in the house means that other than the big kitchen one, all the individual-room cans now take the same size bag, so I'm not keeping multiple sizes in stock, which is nice.

Some lamp replacements are coming up and I'm considering whether we might be able to consolidate lightbulb types and not have a jillion different kinds/sizes cluttering up the hall closet.
posted by Stacey at 9:12 AM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I do the sock thing too (specifically, the Costco athletic socks which are so popular you can get 'em on Amazon) and since they're white, fading's not an issue.
posted by Rash at 9:24 AM on August 11, 2022

About the sock thing: I just put the freshly laundered socks at the bottom (or back) or the pile, and they fade/wear at the same rate. Two colors: white and a dark color like black or brown.

Also: if you like different colored socks, you do you.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 9:37 AM on August 11, 2022

Towels, sheets, and bath mats (the towel kind of bath mats)

Water bottles & travel coffee mugs (can always mix and match the tops)

Tissue boxes (all of our tissue box covers are the small size)

Hangers (we use the velvet slim ones from Amazon, use the the kids size for pants)

Shower curtain and liners (we buy a curtain that is ringless and has a snap out liner)
posted by jraz at 9:38 AM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

.Scissors, flashlight & tape in most rooms.
.Socks - esp. for kids, buy a dozen at once.
.Sheets - white, or a color that can be coordinated. 1 pillowcase will get destroyed and it's great to just buy another set of white pillowcases.
.Travel mugs with the exact same lids. I still have some that I marked w/ nail polish, because I'm a "Use It Up" person, but a couple now have same lids and it's nice.
.I like to have small, medium, large containers because I freeze stuff. Large yogurt containers have lids that match a ton of medium and small containers. I try to have an extra lid or 2.
.Coffee mugs must be stackable.
.My dishes are blue or blue & white enamel, and I have various blue & white ceramic bowls, and a few glass plates for the microwave. Things don't precisely match, but they go together well. I buy them when I see them at thrift stores, because stuff breaks.
.Enamel plates act as a universal lid for pots or bowls (fridge). Other plates, too, but enamel and glass are easy.

There's a special purgatory for the companies that make plastic storage that looks alike, but the lids don't quite work together.

Don't tell my sisters, but when I visit, I secretly throw out old containers that have no lids, and vice versa.
posted by theora55 at 9:59 AM on August 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

Screws. Whenever possible i buy roberston screws.

Socks for sure. I'm in sock hell right now because Costco has discontinued my go to so i've got a dozen different types trying to find one i like.

My laundry, and i hesitate to use this word because it implies some sort of active management, system by default enforces equal use on my socks. Socks get worn one day, get washed, and then get put at the back of the drawer. There is probably some inballance there because actual lived use is different on work days vs off days but not noticably so. When one gets a hole it gets tossed.

we just have one jar size, one ring diameter, and one lid size.

I've got burned by this twice when there was a shortage of lids and i've been forced to buy jars of a different type.
posted by Mitheral at 10:15 AM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

A little different, but when my daughter was 2, she fell in love with one of her stuffed animals. It went missing once on an unauthorized trip out of the house. There were 2 days of panic and crying until I tracked down a replacement about an hour and a half drive away. I purchased 4 of them. I am a trader. I know when to cover my short. That was it. She knew the few times we had to use "backup stuffie", but she was accepting. I have in my safe to this day, the original stuffie. Said stuffie will go to her daughter (or son) one day. To this day, whenever I give a gift of a similar item to a newborn or a child, I give them two. Just in case.

Any item your young child is attached to should have at least one or two backups. Kids know when they have been slipped a fake.

I use a heavy white terry cloth towel in my kitchen for everything. When I found the size and weight of the one I liked, I purchased two packs of 50. I am close to 60. I will never need to buy another one again.

Like KSU head coach Bill Snyder mentioned above, when I heard a rumor that Converse and my Chuck Taylor sneakers were going out of business (subsequently bought by Nike), I went into our local sporting goods store and made a bid to buy all of their size 11 white or canvas color high and low inventory. This was about 30 years ago. I left the store with 15 pairs of sneakers. I still have 3 or 4 in their original box. Cost me $375, but I covered my potential short.

Although I (mostly) live alone, I buy everyday items in bulk from BJs or Sam's Club. I have like 20 tubes of toothpaste. (I did find out that toothpaste has an expiration date. Who knew? Who cares?)

When I was in my Chinese mustard phase, I went to a restaurant supply site and purchased a box of either 500 or 1000 of them small packages.

When I realized that the T-shirt (tank top?) plastic bags were no longer going to be available at stores, I purchased two boxes of 1000. They are reusable so maybe I only needed one box, but... I have had friends ask me for some. They make great trash can liners for small bins like in the bathroom.

Generally, if I find a product I like and it has a tendency to wear out or break, I buy multiples as backups.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:27 AM on August 11, 2022 [7 favorites]

I want to recommend bamboo textiles, like socks. And I'm team identical socks.

I also have a lot of identical duvets and mattress covers and pillows. This is perhaps a niche, because I have a rental cottage, but now that I am also a grandmother with toddlers who sometimes (rarely) pee in bed, the stack of duvets and covers is a good thing. I've also begun to wash my personal eiderdowns and pillows more, now I was made aware of it and have replacements during laundry.

I don't know if this happens where you live, but here, Nutella sells their lovely product in jars that are very nice as drinking glasses and also have a reusable lid, so they can do double duty as drinking glasses and containers for the fridge. The lid also fits standard cans, so you can put a Nutella lid on a can of tomatoes if you are only using half the content. Sometimes I buy Nutella just for the jar, although I have people in my household who are very grateful for the extra sweet in their lives.

For pots and pans, I'd advise against this, even as a person who has all the pots and pans. The thing is, I've made this mistake, so now I have some fairly expensive cookware I will never use.
posted by mumimor at 11:27 AM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Some the more unusual items I have standards for:

Kitchen stuff:
Drinking straws
Spice jars
Kitchen towels
Knives I haven't settled on. I like both Mercer Culinary and Victorinox for low-cost quality knives. It's nice having multiples of decent knives.
Deli containers stack and store easily, go from the freezer to the microwave, and the lids are universal. I buy these in 8-,16-, and 32-oz sizes.
For food to go, these Snapware 24-oz. containers are perfect to slip into my bag and never leak.

Scissors
Boxcutters
I haven't standardized on a brand, but I only buy rechargeable batteries anymore, and I have had this excellent charger for years, which does AAAs, AAs, and 9Vs.

Electronics:
Cable ties
Outlet saver extension cords
iPhone cables
Ethernet switches
Flat Cat 6 ethernet cables

I built out a simple, powerful multi-room streaming audio setup out of Belkin AirPlay receivers, SMSL amplifiers, and bookshelf speakers. I don't actually have KEF Q150s in every room—I went through several models and brands before I decided these were my favorite speakers—but that's what I'd buy now. They go on sale for $300 a pair several times a year.
posted by Wilbefort at 11:38 AM on August 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

Our bath towels, hand towels and washcloths are all the nice white ones from Costco - I love that I can bleach the crap out of a load of towels with no worry, and there's no concern about what goes in what bathroom.
posted by ersatzkat at 11:48 AM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ok this is a weird one, but salt & pepper shakers! I'll never know how I had accumulated six or seven styles of grinders, shakers, etc - but I donated them all and got multiples like this. Cheap, easy to clean, go with everything, can carry both in one hand.

Other standardizations that are (imho) 100% worth it:
Charging cables
Reusable water bottles
Mixing bowls
Plastic containers (tupperware etc)
Face masks
T-shirts
Umbrellas
Underwear

I recently UN-standardized our sheets, because queen-sized and full-sized beds are close in size... until you're trying to get the dang flat sheet on. So the queen bed has patterned sheets and the full bed has solid white. Easy peasy.
posted by nkknkk at 12:08 PM on August 11, 2022

We have six identical small round plastic laundry baskets. You never have the "wrong" basket, they stack, and they're small enough to be tucked away easily and they're never too heavy or awkward. They also can be used to transport non-laundry items from one side of the house to the other.
posted by troyer at 12:23 PM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I standardized all our bedsheets to flat sheets, no elasticated ones at all.

If you find yourself often rooting around in a dirty sink/dishwasher for The Implement, get two more of The Implement. At ours that was little spatulas and the pancake turner.
posted by clew at 12:26 PM on August 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

On the clothes front I found a seamstress who created a pattern from one of my favorite shirts with slight adjustments to make it fit even better.. Any time I wander into a fabric store I buy 3 yards of something cool and have her make a shirt from that pattern.

At this point I have the same shirt in dozens of fabrics for every season and occasion and they get constant complements and questions.

A bit more expensive than buying something nice from a store, but totally worth it especially if you're an odd size.
posted by mikesch at 12:56 PM on August 11, 2022 [14 favorites]

Cats. If you're adopting a cat, get a bonded pair (littermates are ideal). When you're busy they will be SO MUCH HAPPIER and thus consume less of your headspace with guilt about either your one lonely cat or your two fighting cats who weren't bonded before you adopted them.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 1:43 PM on August 11, 2022 [9 favorites]

Absolutely socks. It's life changing.
posted by MythMaker at 3:08 PM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Notebooks. Once I found the kind I liked the most (Maruman Mnemosyne twin-ring vertical format, model N165), I bought a bunch and put them on my various desks (home, work), in my book bags, next to my bed, etc. Along with that, I also standardized on pens, like other people in this thread.
posted by StrawberryPie at 3:09 PM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

T-shirts. Zara, black, plain.
posted by signal at 3:26 PM on August 11, 2022

We have 2.5 bathrooms. I used to have one set of cleaning supplies I'd have to drag around the house, which was a disincentive to doing quick and frequent cleans. Now I have a toilet brush, paper towels and identical cleaning supplies stored in each bathroom, and it makes the whole thing so easy. You can easily do a clean whenever the inspiration strikes. Everything is right there.
posted by amusebuche at 5:36 PM on August 11, 2022 [7 favorites]

Oh! Yeah, I don't have the One True Notebook yet but I do have the one true legal pad, it's these for me. I buy one or two five packs at a time, keep them anywhere I want to make notes, and am pleased every time I use one.
posted by Stacey at 5:49 PM on August 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

A year later, you will have twenty socks that are faded to very similar but different shades of their original color that must be matched in pairs

each day we work, you are a person after my own heart. I have switched to buying packs like this for dark socks, so that each sock has exactly one friend (but they’re all of the same style). I’m so much happier. Because, and I cannot emphasise this enough: they must be matched. They must.

If I saw any of you scoundrels wearing two differently faded socks, it would definitely make me twitch. I bet you don’t even use your clothes pegs in matched pairs.

It’s currently making me sad that we have a very mismatched collection of luggage. Perhaps that is an opportunity!
posted by breakfast burrito at 5:50 PM on August 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

I used to almost exclusively wear black slim-fit khakis from a particular store, and had many identical pairs. I've moved away from that, but I still do something similar with shirts -- I probably have about 15 in the same style, in a range of colors (with 3 or more shirts of each color). In fact, almost any time I buy an item of clothing and find that it fits well, washes well, etc., I will then buy 1 or more duplicates of it.

Another thing I've done: Buy the hair styling product I like in bulk. In fact, I just placed another order for 5 tubes tonight. I think the company that makes it may have phased it out; I can't find it in retail stores any more. But it's still available online, so I'm building up a supply that will last years. It's the best stuff I've ever found for my particular kind of hair, and I've never come across anything comparable.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:43 PM on August 11, 2022

I switched to that old-lady footie mode sock in 2020 because I decided it's a pandemic and I'm only ever wearing comfortable tennies forever but I don't want floppy hot sock garbage climbing up my ankles and shins, I want them to only cover my foot and be thin and minimal so they barely show more than a hint of sock when I'm wearing shoes. So then of course I lost all control and purchased wildly and indiscriminately and now I have about a million different black socks in different thicknesses/degrees of fuzziness/blahblahetc. I will wear mismatched but I'm much happier when the stars align and I get a real pair.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:09 PM on August 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

Bear in mind that for things like plastic containers or plain china or cutlery, buying multiples can jinx you when the line is changed or updated or discontinued a few years in just as you need a replacement or three. Guess who had Ikea change its basic 365 plates on her.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:28 AM on August 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Laundry detergent - I found a brand that works for me and a couple of times a year, it goes on sale at half price. When it does I get 5-6 bottles and then never have to worry about running out.
posted by dawkins_7 at 8:21 AM on August 12, 2022

I buy one pair of these Haflinger shoes each year. Last year's pair becomes the new back-up. This works for almost all the days of my year. One less decision to make.
posted by mdoar at 11:28 AM on August 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Absolutely socks. It's life changing.

What's life changing about socks is realizing you don't need them.

I switched to "barefoot shoes" in 2016. They allow my feet to be naturally wide-toed because the shoes I wear have wide toe boxes.

As a result, my feet can breath and do not stink. Socks aren't necessary for maintaining stench-free shoes.

I own two pairs these days and I wear them at airports and in strangers houses. Otherwise, I'm barefoot or shod.
posted by dobbs at 6:04 PM on August 14, 2022

I've found towels I absolutely love and have been trying to standardize on them, although even when they do 50% off sales, they're expensive enough that it's still a tough sell to replace all of our bathroom towels with them. We're getting there, though.

This post inspired me to actually go through and get rid of a bunch of socks I have with holes in them and also narrow down to the one type I always reach for, and try to find where I can buy more of them. Seems like they're "exclusive" to Canada (hubby, who lives there, is the one that bought them for me, so it makes sense) so I'm currently debating whether to get more of those there or buy a similar (but different enough???) US style.
posted by tubedogg at 7:22 PM on August 14, 2022

I've racked up a bunch of those little pairs of cheap stretchy mittens that are sold at places like Target for $2-5/pair, and keep them in my car, in jackets and sweaters of different weights, and in the backpack I take to work. I do have nicer pairs of gloves, but they always seemed to be in the pocket of whichever coat I was NOT wearing at the time I needed them.

I'm also a huge fan of buying multiple pairs of whatever jeans I find that are actually comfortable and fit reasonably well. When I used to wear other kinds of pants more often, I'd do the same with them, too.
posted by DingoMutt at 7:44 PM on August 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

if you buy ten identical pairs of socks, you are guaranteed to not use/wash each pair the same amount

Not if you buy two colors of socks and only wash one of the colors when every sock in that color is dirty. I have a primary color (12 pairs) and a secondary color (4 pairs) and this gives me a regular two weeks worth of clean socks plus some flexibility about when, exactly, I do the laundry containing all of one color sock.

+1 for Mason jars and the plastic lids that fit them. If you standardize on wide mouth jars you can get them in pint, quart, and even half gallon size with common lids, and the plastic lids are freezer safe. We've also got two sets of nesting glass containers with matching lids for other kitchen leftovers, and the nesting is key.
posted by fedward at 8:44 AM on August 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

Just thought of another thing I buy multiples of: combs, and Carmex. I try to keep one of each in my pants pocket every day, but they love to hop out when I'm not looking, so I'm constantly having to replace the darned things.
posted by DingoMutt at 6:12 PM on August 17, 2022

Niche, but as someone who drives multiple vehicles, each one has the same magnetic phone mount/charger. Makes life a lot easier for all of us.
posted by breakfast burrito at 7:29 AM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]