An inexpensive light bulb organizer

Today’s tip is not the prettiest.

But what it lacks in glamour, it makes up for in being frugal and practical. It involves the use of an old Henry Weinhard’s beer box and a pair of scissors. You can see I cut the flaps off the box and then arranged my light bulbs by type and wattage.

Now if this was Martha Stewart, I’m sure she would advocate covering the box in some trendy fabric and using your labelmaker (you have one, of course) to label each individual slot with the wattage and type of bulb. Personally, I don’t care how the box looks because it sits in our basement behind a closed pantry door. You may feel differently.

We still use a mix of CFLs and incandescents, because we have some old lamps and light fixtures that can’t use the CFLs. So this method separates them out and keeps them safe from breakage. No more pantries full of a dozen bulbs still in their original boxes. One more organizational dilemma solved!