My Apartment Has Almost No Storage Space — Here Are 5 Things I Buy in Bulk Anyway

You know those kitchens with rows and rows of cabinets, and a walk-in pantry that’s almost as big as the kitchen itself? My apartment doesn’t have one of those. In fact, it hardly has any storage space at all: Neither of the two closets in my apartment are in the bedrooms, yet they’re still devoted almost entirely to clothes. So, I’ve had to get pretty creative when it comes to stashing things away.

Even so, there are some things I’ve found it’s better to buy in bulk, and find ways to store it later. Thanks to some storage cubes and plenty of open-air shelving units, I’ve been able to stock up on the things I’d hate to run out of — and even save a little money in the process, given that retailers often offer discounts if you buy things in a set. Here are five things I’ve realized it’s better to stock up on, rather than buying one at a time.

Other Apartment Therapy contributors have waxed poetic about the happy-looking Scrub Daddy — including Shifrah, who is a cleaning expert — but I prefer to stock up on the brand’s old-fashioned looking sponges. This set comes in a three-pack of four sponges each, which means I’m more than set when I need to swap out an old sponge for a fresh one.

If I’m home, I’m probably burning a candle nearby, which is why I keep these safety matches handy. Because these matches are extra-long, I feel safer about trying to reach the bottom of a nearly-finished candle without burning myself. Two-hundred is a lot of matches, so store the rest in an empty candle cup for instant decor.

Somewhere between lugging multiple cartons of non-dairy milk back to my apartment on the subway, and then running out of the last of my stash, I realized there had to be a better way. Getting this six-pack of unsweetened almondmilk delivered to my apartment every five weeks or so is both a time- and an energy-saver, and it means I rarely run out of milk to splash into my morning coffee or my afternoon cold brew. Bonus: Doing so is also the most cost-efficient I’ve ever found non-dairy milk to be, given that most cartons at my local bodega cost around $5 each.

As someone who rarely cooked before March 2020, it feels like I’ve been doing more dishes than ever (and they keep multiplying!) The first time I stocked up on this bulk buy of six refill packs, I chalked it up as one of the smartest things I might ever do. Each plastic pouch houses enough soap to refill my dispenser at least twice — and because I know I have plenty of soap on hand, I can maintain that perfect pop of green that somehow overtook my kitchen before I realized what was happening.

I love both of my cats more than anything else in this world, but I don’t want my apartment to smell like their litter box. To help with that, I sprinkle this deodorizer into their litter just about every other day — which means I go through it pretty quickly. Though Chewy only sells this deodorizer as a two-pack, the site offers the large box at the cheapest price I’ve found. To that end, I’ll stock up on several boxes each time I buy, which also offsets packaging and delivery emissions. That, and no one would ever know that Holly and Olive might be doing their business just around the corner from my living room.