I peruse garage sales, thrift shops, estate sales, etc. for useful "things". Two of my favorite finds were ruler holders. I bought one of the old metal record 'worms' for my big rulers (remember the things we used to put our lp's in?) and a smaller envelope holder one for my small rulers. My envelope one just looks like a spring with feet but some of them were made to look like wiener dogs. They're very handy and I have a total of 75 cents invested in them.