Salty Everyman

Storage solutions should work for you, you should not have to work for them.  They should be useful and simple and I prefer them to be cost efficient. After all, when you find that amazing dress on major sale – the dress becomes even more amazing right?  I feel this way about storage items.

Several years ago my husband and I became interested in Costco’s mixed nuts.  You know… the ones in the clear, square plastic jar with a blue lid.  The slightly salted almonds, cashews, pecans, Brazil nuts, and Macadamia nuts became an obsession.  A tasty “must have” with a bonus of re-purposing capability.  We dropped $20 at every single visit to Costco for nuts that would not survive the basic non-football or non-holiday week but a plastic jar that could last far beyond a zombie apocalypse. We were addicted.  I almost called for an intervention.

But then I realized this jar is a great jar - square, clear, and a good height so I figured that we had enough “do-das” to legitimize feeding our nut fixation because the jars would be re-purposed and help me in my never ending goal to stay organized. 

I like to re-purpose things.  This was not a hard sell.  If I think that I can reuse it somehow, I’ll hang onto it for a “possible” project at an unidentified date.  The nice thing about today’s packaging is that much of it can be re-purposed to hold or manage the “do-das” that inevitably collect in a household.  Grandpa did it in his workshop with the baby food jars and the turn table hanging from the shelf - it kept all of his little things in order and up off the work-space – so I was sure that I would find multiple ways to reuse a plastic box with a screw top.

Let me stop to add a disclaimer here - I discourage the urge to keep things ‘just in case’ with my clients unless I see a successful pattern of follow thru habits because keeping things ‘to possibly use later’ can become just another form of clutter. 

Well, we kept buying the nuts and this square, clear, plastic jar became my favorite container.  We used the jars for party goodie bags.  We made terrariums to give away as gifts.  We collected our compostables. We stored our hardware. It was my Everyman.

We’ve since moved on from the Kirkland Fancy Nuts.  I have found my taller Everyman in the Kirkland Peanut Butter Pretzels.

If you ask me, we spent far more than we should have for square plastic jars. But if you ask me about nuts… it was worth every salty handful.