I'm currently running around my room like a chicken with its head cut off packing for a move to Houston later this week.

As I'm packing, I'm coming across a bunch of outer boxes and containers, but... they all have their purpose.

When I was a kid, whenever we'd get a new NES game, my parents would toss the box.  It pains me to think how much my NES collection would've been worth today had I kept the boxes.  Anyway...

I'm finding that I've saved boxes for all kinds of things, mostly video game systems.  Not just for collector's purposes, though!  For example, I have two PSPs.  I only need one power brick, and who actually uses the headphones that come with the thing?  Thought not, so those stay in the box too.

Many of my seldomly-used electronic gadgets all have their original boxes as well.  That comes in handy for things that are delicate, like this 5" (or whatever it is) MadCatz portable LCD screen thinger (that I used exactly once, on a work trip to California :\) and I also saved the box for my LCD monitor, because it has a handle on it, and I can be guaranteed that the thing will survive the upcoming move with nary a scratch.  There's no better packaging than the original packaging for this type of thing.

Does anyone else here keep boxes for stuff? 

I'm eyeing my original Prodikeys box, not really wanting to toss it, but also lamenting how large the damn thing is... ...maybe if I actually put the Prodikeys inside, it would be more useful.  Hmm.  I've kept it mostly for the image on the outside.  It screams "cheesy Creative product" ...which as you all know, appeals to me. :(

Back to packing. :)

Yes, I used to be very much a packrat.  I do still have boxes full of...boxes.  I still have pretty much all my old NES and TurboGrafx boxes in the most convenient place possible (my Mom's basement, five states away).  When/if I ever do get a a house of my own, my mom has given me a one-month window to get it all out of there.

When my grandfather was ill four years ago, I went out to his home with my mother and brother.  We were there to try and clean out some of the junk out of his attic because neither he nor my grandmother were really capable of moving anything heavy.  After three days of solid work, we had hardly made a dent.  My grandpa literally had fifty gallons of paint in his garage, some of it never opened, most of it partially used.  He had ten gallons of boat paint in there.  He never owned a boat.

Our theory is that, since he grew up during the Great Depression, he never threw anything away, because he would never be sure he wouldn't ever use it again.  I think he would go through other people's trash to salvage things that might be useful later (but which seldom ended up being so).

That was a sobering experience.  After we left, my cousins spent another two weeks moving stuff out of the attic and his shed, and succeeded in getting most of it out.  And I vowed not to save nearly as much stuff that I did not need.  But I haven't really kept that vow.

As Amber has pointed out, the original box is almost always the best packing material, and since I move to a new place pretty much every year, I like to keep those around.  I still have the boxes for my PS2, speakers, rice cooker, DAC, A/V switch, all my Bemani stuff (including my Samba de Amigo maracas), toaster oven, etc., and each time I move, they get used again.

Yeah, I still have the original boxes for most things.  I'm saddened that most of my original GB game boxes are cut down since my parents forced me to at the time, but everything else is more or less intact.  I do wish that I hadn't amassed so much useless gaming promotional signage though.

Oh yeah, I keep my boxes. Most have actual use -- like you, I use my console boxes to store extra cables and stuff. I also keep all my video game boxes -- stored mainly in the console boxes ^_~ but I have a whole Xerox box full of them as well. My brother used to make fun of me that I was obsessed with keeping boxes in mint condition...that's not the actual phrase he used, but I can't remember what it is right now, heh. I do also still have the honkin' big boxes for my monitor, DVD player, printer, and some other things, although I probably should get rid of those, since about the only time I'll be getting rid of those electronics is when they're broken, and they're way past their warranty for returns.

I also still have the cute box for my Para Para Paradise controller. ^_~