Bag clips — anyone got any storage ideas? (Storage for, not storage using.)

[SoManyTeeth]

These things: plastic hinge, bar section, plastic catch — long ones, short ones, old ones, new ones, pricey ones, flimsy ones, oblong ones, rounded ones — so many bag clips and they need somewhere new to live.

My kitchen is minuscule with almost zero storage space. The only drawers are two small plastic ones in a drawer unit on a shelf inside a cupboard, and there absolutely is not room in there for dozens of flaily bag clips to rattle around. (We do keep the long slidey rod-type bag clips in there, though.) So the hingey bag clips currently live on the countertop between the cooker and the sink, in a click-lock Tupperware type plastic box just small enough to fit in the space between two other things, tessellated in the one specific configuration that allows all of them to fit in there, which can only be achieved by highly experienced and extremely patient 3D Tetris players. And if you want a long clip, those are at the bottom, fuck you.

There must be a better way — some fantastic but simple arrangement I haven't yet thought of that's compact, reasonably aesthetically tolerable, protected from dust/vaporised grease/moisture, doesn't require complex installation, easy to put the clips away in, easy to select the clip you want from, and also cheap.

(Apparently we do have to keep them all, because they're useful but break sometimes, and because it seems that in DP's mind they're still as tricky to get hold of as they were several decades ago and are therefore a scarce resource to be guarded. Even the useless 4cm ones which constitute the majority of the bloody things. Throwing any of them away just isn't worth the argument, and I haven't got it in me to gradually, sneakily dispose of at least a few of the crappy little ones behind his back.)

Help?

That's funny because when I first read this post that was my first thought; too.
Put the clips in a spare mug, but then I thought about my own situation and decided that most likely OP doesn't have space for any mug that's not in use daily!

I use clothes pegs and I keep them with the other pegs in the peg bag.

I think if I had those clips, I’d keep them in the freezer drawer as that’s where most of the things I need to clip are.

I keep them in a shallow pot in a drawer.
bag hanging off the end of a unit?

Oh rant away @SoManyTeeth , I hope you settle on a solution for the accommodation of your bag clips.
When you don't have a lot of space you really have to be tough with prioritising what you need the most, when and where.
Ruthless even, boxing things away under the stairs where it's most inconvenient but if you need it....
You learn to juggle, improvise, be creative, make do and do without, all the while trying to make the worktop neat, tidy and as uncluttered as an ikea kitchen.
Oh I wish...

It sounds silly, but I think all that prioritising and ruthlessness is partly why I don't want to get rid of something DP likes to use that's small enough that I really should be able to find a good place for them.

Lack of space already curtails so many things we might otherwise want to do with the kitchen, and makes so many decisions for us about the things we own, that I'd feel pretty churlish telling DP he shouldn't have bought the bag clips that he likes to use, because they're unnecessary plastic thingies and we haven't got space for them.

So what that they're quick and easy to use and generally give a good seal? He should use a handy nearby roll of masking tape(?), or a twist tie (that we don't have), or a clothes peg (that we don't have)

I use mushroom trays as drawer tidies in the Drawer of Shite and have one just for these clips. Doesn't stop them migrating into the breadbin though.

Good Luck.

Do you need me to list the great things about being single...

But if this is his major crime, ilm'll hold back. They do gave their uses. Very occasionally 🤣🤣

That's a cute idea. I always feel bad chucking those in the recycling. I think it's lingering mental traces of childhood art projects involving washing up liquid bottles, or echoes of making labyrinths out of cereal boxes and loo roll tubes for my pet mice as a kid. There's always a little "I could use that for something!" dinging away at the back of my head.

Yeah he occasionally comes in handy for getting something down off a high shelf. That he installed all the way up there in the first place.

I’ve got a Tupperware type box with them all in. They are a pain but I use them so much. I hang a bag on a hook I stuck inside my under sink cupboard with my cleaning cloths in. Could you do something like that?

Inside an existing item - a seldom used mug or glass or tupperware box you are already storing for its own sake.

We use this method a lot, eg utensils are in a jug which we can always dig out, wash and use as an actual jug on the very few occasions when we need one. I don't like having special "pots for putting things in" when I already have a whole kitchen full of, basically, containers.

I don't have any seldom-used mugs, glasses, jugs or tupperware, unfortunately! They all get used at least once a week. Well, there's the tupperware box the clips are already in, but that's what I'm trying to move away from because it's annoying fitting them in and annoying getting the right one out.

I do have one lovely big mug with a hairline crack in the handle which I've kept because it's decorative and has sentimental value, but there's nowhere for it in the kitchen now that it's not a drinking mug and it lives on the living-room mantelpiece being pretty.

I would love to see everyone's 'real' kitchens instead of the show home kitchens!

@SoManyTeeth I was assuming you were much younger than me, but your comment at
22.03 makes me wonder if we were brought U.K. kn the same era or maybe your parents instilled in you what they (&I grew up with) everything 'might come in handy'. Yet my parents were always very neat & tidy & not overwhelmed. I think we just have so many more things mis 'that could come in handy'.
for me the major culprits are pots that my council doesn't recycle (yoghurt, BOL, humous etc).

I'm about forty 😅 but yes, parents were neat and organised and also unwasteful. The attitude was not to throw things away unnecessarily, to mend things, reuse things. But that wasting space, by filling it with crap you're never going to need, is also wasteful. Don't unnecessarily waste food, but cleaning your plate when you're already full is just as wasteful as putting it in the bin. Fairly pragmatic on the whole, I suppose.

For clarity, I do throw away my recycling, unless I genuinely need to make plant labels and there's a handy yoghurt pot, or something like that. But when I'm chucking stuff there's a part of my brain that sometimes flickers slightly with "I could make something with that"

I have this kind of thing hinterdemregenbogen.de/lego-ikea-hack/ attached to the side of a kitchen cabinet - use them for scissors, pens and bag clips. The tubs are from ikea. Could you fit something like that to the side of a cupboard or under the stairs with the hanging mugs?

That's so adorable Cushions. Interesting idea and the gravity aspect would play well with my slanted surface. It's a bit tricky because the microwave is under there, on top of a double cupboard thing (one sadly dedicated to non-kitchen stuff), and there's a striplight mounted on that under-stair surface too, but it's possible I might be able to find somewhere to mount it. Thanks for the idea!

I had the same problem — ended up sticking a small magnetic strip inside a cupboard door and clipping most of them on there. Keeps them off the counter, easy to grab, and no more bag-clip Tetris.

I have one of those IKEA stainless steel cylinders and the bag clips get tossed in there, along with the bottle opener, tube squeezer and bottle stoppers.
It lives on a tray on the top of the microwave, AKA the “miscellaneous grot” area which also has
wind-up timer
sugar bowl
microwave pedestal
a little silver dish for rings and watch when I’m baking.

The question is whether anyone has found good ways of storing this specific thing

I imagine that most people don't have enough of the things that it actually becomes an issue irrespective of kitchen size. Mine live in the cutlery drawer when not in use. We have quite a few but at any one time most are in use so only have a few max that are spare.

Yeah so a bit younger (I'm 56) but the same upbringing. It still pains me to throw out tin foil. (Nowhere to recycle it here, which is bad as it was collected here 59 years ago)

It’s not just me then that can’t chuck anything out without thinking it could come in useful one day!
Cardboard boxes are a particular weakness but it is so satisfying when I can find one that is exactly the right size. I sold a job lot of old mobile phones recently and they fitted into a shoe box so neatly that it could have been made especially. I nearly took a photo to share with my kids, but they already think I’m weird.

My clips live in a drawer in an old ice cream tub that they share with the measuring spoons and cups.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Perfectfit/ 😍

It's this trap, which gradually and imperceptibly springs shut over the course of a couple of decades:

• Buy clips, which come in packets of (say) 10.

(Count: 3 large, 3 medium, 4 small.)

Large ones are most useful and also most delicate, so get used the most and also break the most.

• 2 large and 1 medium break. 1 small one gets lost.

Only 1 large clip left!

• Buy new packet.

(New count: 4 large, 5 medium, 7 small.)

• 3 large and 2 medium break.

Only 1 large clip left!

• Buy new packet.

(New count: 4 large, 6 medium, 11 small.)

3 large break, 2 medium break, 1 medium and 1 small get lost.

Only 1 large clip left!

• Buy new packet.

(New count: 4 large, 6 medium, 14 small.)

Or something along those lines. At least, that's if you discount the reproduction theory.

Here's my cutlery drawer (at least, when the image gets approved) — currently a bit empty as I'm ill with a cold/cough and been puking my guts up, so haven't got round to doing any washing-up 🤣 Usually the compartments are full — forks, knives, peelers/implements/steak knives, spoons — and there's just room in front of them for a couple of long slidey clips, and then down the side is where shorter slidey clips, drinking straws, chopsticks, and things of that nature go. I could fit a couple of springy bag clips there, but not many. Sometimes lots of the clips are in use, other times it seems there's nothing much needs clipping.

Love the mouse labyrinth...
I use the long thin trays portobello mushrooms come in to store all sorts - 3 stacked together is great to hold jars of pesto lazy ginger lazy garlic and miso in the fridge and the big ones are great to contain all the different types of butter and spread everyone seems to have.

Best was when we'd just finished a kitchen roll and I had an extra long tube to add to the structure

That's a good idea with the jars. Fridge organisation can really benefit from a bit of grouping.