Thanks so much for all your responses. Looks like genius runs in the OG 'family'! Or maybe it is more a drive to never throw anything away! I appreciate the links, I am newish to the sight and have mainly been posting in the new gardeners area. Sorry about the repeat post! Planting time is so close I can smell the seed starting mix!
Tracy

The best thing I've ever used to start seeds was the small size mushroom or tomato paste cans with the bottoms cut out. I cover the can with aluminum foil, then drop the can lid back inside and fill with potting mix and plant. They're easy to transplant--just remove the foil and push the lid up from the bottom. Or you can take off the foil and the bottom and leave the can around the root ball to act as a cutworm collar.

Last year, I found a great way to start tomatoes. At my job, we buy a lot of CDs in spindle packs of 100. I saved the clear covers from them and dropped the clear spacer CD back into it, filled the container with about 3" of potting mix and planted the seeds. The containers are clear, so the light gets to the little leaves even though they're far below the rim. As the plants grew, I kept adding more potting mix until the container was full. The root structure was great by the time I set the plants out. The spacer in the bottom made it easy to extract the plant at transplanting time. This year, I have about 20 of them ready to go. The only drawback is space. The containers are about 6 inches high and 5" in diameter.

All these wonderful ideas made me think of other useful containers. I work in a hospital and certain bottles of medicine comes packed in plastic that looks like a tray with 2 inch indentations. They might be good for holding peat pellets in place and waterproof to boot!