The Yankee motto -

Use it up, wear it out, make do, do without.

I use plastic buckets. I purchased 50 buckets from a floor cleaning company, Half were soap and half were wax - the washed up nicely when I rinsed the wax ones and washed all of them in a tub, using the floor soap. I washed buckets, covers and seal rings as groups. Then can hold heavy stuff and are stackable.

I also save rectangular buckets from kitty litter to store lighter items. Do you have a friend with a cat?

For wire, I found that if you wrap a wire around a metal, one pound coffee can, each wrap is one foot long, I wrap the wire and put twisted wire on in two places across from each other, When I look at a coil of wire wrapped like this, If I see 6 loops, then I know the wire is about 6 feet long.

For small parts and stuff like nails. I use plastic 1 quart milk containers, cut them down to the base of the handle and you have a nice sized container that fills rectangular space efficiently and will not react with their contents. BTW - we use whole milk as a coffee creamer, purchased a quart at a time.

I found that Hills brothers coffee containers are air tight - Do you smell coffee when you pick one up.
I store used kitty liter in several, and even a stranger cannot smell the litter in the can. I have stored latex paint for several days and id toast even skim over!

Share a few of your tricks with us.