What are the most useful inexpensive items you carry?

I agree with Franco's use of bread bags.

Also, if you find yourself out hiking during the South Asia monsoon season, the bread bags can go between an inner pair and an outer pair of socks. With shoes like the Inov-8 ones, rain water will soak right through in an instant. But then the bread bags stop the water from soaking all the way to your skin.

–B.G.–

Garbage bags and Ziploc bags

A small water carrier/sink – useful for washing (me and clothes), tent storage, pack storage of small items.

Franco, I've used bread bags like that before. They also work to cut the wind when bicycling in colder/wetter weather. Your shoe tie method in the picture intrigues me; could you explain more what's going on with the laces?
Thanks,
James

Campbells soup cup. great for measuring (i added lines on the side), oatmeal, hot chocolate, etc. It also fits inside my pot and keeps my stove from clanking around.

I take my uses lip balm and melt or cut deodorant and put it inside and use them as ultralight deodorant sticks.

Just twist and out comes new deodorant as you use it ;)

"Campbells soup cup."

Don't understand. Did you make yourself a cup from an empty campbell's can?

Chopsticks saved from a Chinese restaurant.

Trash-compactor bag (raincoat, mini ground tarp, and, hey, even a trash bag).

A square of wax paper as a fire starter.

Likewise, small squares of waxed, corrugated cardboard boxes (they contain produce and can be found behind your local grocery store) as fire starters.

Heat-sealed soda straws to hold pills, vaseline-impregnated cotton balls, and spices.

6" x 24" of heavy-duty aluminum foil as a wind screen.

Mini-Bic.

Free, professional samples of anti-itch, antibiotic, sunscreen, etc, lotions.

Super-mini toothpaste tubes from Chinese hotels (not counting the airfare).

Scrap of copper wire, bent into a U, and hammered flat on the ends to use as a heat conductor for a butane canister.

Found-on-the-beach bits of Spectra and woven dacron fishing line, 60- to 120-pound test, cut into guy-line and emergency-shoe-lace lengths.

The smallest bit of vac-pac bag material to make pills, emergency TP, etc, super water-proof.

Cut-off bottom 1/3 of a gallon milk jug as a SUL bowl, sink, bucket and water scoop.

Dumpster-diving at the recycling center for Foster's, energy drink, and other interesting sizes and thicknesses of aluminum containers as multipurpose pots and water bottles.

Old, wide-mouth Avian bottles. Wish I could still find them. So now I use. . . .

Gatorade bottles – lighter and infinitely cheaper than Nalgene.

"Your shoe tie method in the picture intrigues me; could you explain more what's going on with the laces? "

Nothing special there, it was meant to show that at camp I often don't do my shoelaces up tight .
(it does look like a knot for folk that have a problem foot or shoe but that is another story)

I just made these in-camp thongs from closed cell foam and tape. The pair (size 12) 56grams.

EDIT: Sorry guys and gals I cannot change the photo to be pointing right way up…..

100# test fishing line and duct tape wrapped around the shaft. you can also wrap the duct tape around a water bottle.

i was just going to post my blue foam camp shoes but someone beat me to it. They are cheap, easy to make and light. No need for crocs, thongs, or flipflops.

If you add strips of duct tape to the bottom of the sole they last a little longer in rocky terrain.

+1 Franco. I use newspaper bags myself but that's one of the best tips I've picked up here.

I've used bread bags to keep my feet dry and warm, especially in winter. Do you put the wet socks over the bread bags in order to help dry them?

If you are trying to dry out damp socks overnight during the winter, then take them into the sleeping bag with you and put them next to your bare chest within your sleeping shirt and with your face up. In the morning they will be all or nearly all dry. Note that the moisture leaves and goes into the sleeping bag insulation. If you are warm enough, it will continue to migrate to the outside of the sleeping bag and be gone.

–B.G.–

Yeah, only do this if you have plenty of warmth to spare.

In winter I've dried socks inside sleeping bags at night and also inside my puffy parka during the day – but – haven't dried them on my feet while walking around in camp. Not a bad idea if you're warm enough.

– Earplugs

– ZPacks tent repair tape. Foot health is essential on long hikes. This tape is ultra strong and thin — works great for many purposes. I share with others when on a big trail like a PCT section.

Bic lighter+3

If you are not warm enough to dry socks on your chest the first night you might just be the second night.
When I was young we were so poor that one of us had to have pneumonia just to warm up the house.

Mini Bic

I love to take fresh fruit backpacking on day or weekend hikes, so I save my plastic cottage cheese containers, line it with a half paper towel and insert a peach or nectarine seal with the lid and this protects the fruit in the backpack. Tall cottage cheese containers work great for halved bananas. And cottage cheese containers are light water scoops too!

– 8 sandwich sized, double-zip ziplock bags, 15g

each filled, just under half way, with air and put into my sleeping bag stuff sack makes a comfy and light pillow. (43g for the stuff sack + 15g for bags = 60g/2oz)

I picked up a Thermarest Z-Lite sit pad while trying to make it to $25 on an amazon order. It now goes on every trip; I sit on it around campfires, in snowbanks, and I use it in my hammock. I'm in love with it and it only cost me $11.

However, the inside joke with my friends and I is that it's actually outrageously expensive. "Not all of us have $90 sit pads, Max!"

Lightload Towels – $1-2 – many uses, reusable and are durable.

My wife came up with an idea for putting toothpaste into small screw top containers you get at at Target. I think they are sold as make-up jars (<$2 for a 3 pack). They are plastic and crush proof. These held enough for close to 3 weeks worth of use. Compared to tubes, they were much easier to refill and get the stuff out especially when you start running low. You dip the brush in the jar vs squeezing it out.

Reflectix freezer bag cozy.

I am loving this thread! So many great ideas!!

"double-zip ziplock bags, with air and put into my sleeping bag stuff sack makes a comfy and light pillow…"

Genius! I think you just removed an inflatable pillow from my want-list. Wondering if fewer gallon bags would be even more efficient?

"double-zip ziplock bags, with air and put into my sleeping bag stuff sack makes a comfy and light pillow…"

Great idea!

I have a cheap blow up travel pillow $2 from a cheap shop (the U-shaped ones) that weighs 48g (1.75ounces). I tried using my pack, my spare clothes but nothing worked till this. Very happy with this but would not mind having a go at this idea!!