Lane: “I live in a small apartment [and use] organizers from Container Store”

Thanks for posting that link; I had heard about it in passing, but never saw the actual site address before. It looks like it has the kinds of things I need, at good prices.

Erin: “it’s incredibly inexpensive”

When you said that, I was expecting to see the cost be a few dollars… For somebody that doesn’t have a decent income, like poor college students, elderly/disabled on SSI, etc. $10 + shipping is actually quite a bit of money. :-/

I use a combination of battery boxes from Container Store (a different size for each battery size) plus a 2 qt tupperware for the overflow. The only batteries I charge in advance are ones for a musical toy my todder uses incessantly. For the rest I keep a set of batteries in the chargers. I have two chargers, one for AAA & AA, one for C, D and 9V.

I do need to find a battery tester.

If you want to use what you have around the house, any sort of small square or rectangular box will work fine: shoe box, tupperware, shipping box.

The second is zip-lock bags.

My intent is that perhaps we need to look at different methods of organizing at times. I don’t have huge amounts of disposable income and I’m also becoming increasingly aware of the environment, and so rather than racing out and spending $20 for 2 battery organizers, perhaps I would do myself (and the planet) a better service by looking around at what I DO have – shoe boxes, etc. -to see how I can use them. I can better utilize that $20, even by giving it to a charity.

Oh, and I remembered another one … walkie talkies. We go anywhere with the kids and we bring them. They’re easier than cell phones and work when cell phones don’t. We have half a dozen and each takes four AA’s.

Let’s see. Three remote controls (TVs/Cable). At least a dozen toys that take anywhere from two to six AA’s each. Oh, wait, some toys take C’s and some take D’s too. Oh yeah, and the hand things for his video game take AAA’s. The there is the flashlights that my son uses ALL the time that need to have the batteries changed often. The digital camera that uses up 4 AA’s fast so we use rechargeables for that .. four in the camera and four on standby for the camera. Then our electric keyboard takes four D batteries (we keep it unplugged for safety purposes for our boys). Let’s see .. what else. Oh yeah, 9 volts for our radio fence for our dogs .. each of our two collar units takes a 9V. And then there are the wireless speakers. We have six. We typically plug these in when we’re using them but if we have a cookout or something, they’re outside, sans cords, using 6 C’s each.

This is just off the top of my head.

The only thing you need to do is put a rubber band on the batteries that are charged, ideally as soon as they come off the charger. Once they are depleted take them out of your device and leave them without a rubber band.

Now, you can just toss all your batteries in a box or drawer.

This isn’t a judgment – I’m genuinely puzzled. I have three things which I routinely recharge – cell phone, iPod, and digital camera – which have dedicated batteries and chargers that live in a drawer. We buy batteries for emergency flashlights and the smoke detectors, neither of which need to be replaced all that often, and the kids have maybe two toys apiece that needs batteries… am I missing something here?

Rubber bands

Bought a multicolor/multisize pack, and bundle charged batteries in Green/Blue color bands, and depleted ones in Red bands.

Hope this helps!