Custom inserts vs baggies - which actually saves you money?

I spent $35 on a custom foam insert for Terraforming Mars last month thinking it would organize everything better and save setup time. It works great but honestly I could have just used $3 worth of baggies and it would have done the same thing. On the flip side I dropped $50 on a laser cut wooden insert for Gloomhaven and it cut our game sessions from 25 minutes of setup down to 8. That was a no brainer for me. So here's the debate: does spending more on fancy inserts actually pay off or are we just feeding our own hobby addiction when baggies do the job fine? Which side have you landed on and what game made you either swear by inserts or ditch them forever?

2 comments

2 Comments

charlienelson14d ago

Picked up a used copy of Mage Knight that came with this custom foam insert and honestly the foam was cut so badly none of the minis fit right so I just threw it out and went back to baggies lmao. The game takes forever to setup regardless of how you store it, I think people overestimate how much a nice box organizer actually speeds things up for most games. I'll stick with ziplocs until I find another game where the insert actually saves more than two minutes.

sammoore14d ago

Honestly @charlienelson I just use labeled baggies and it works fine for me too.