I'd like to have a stock of say 0603 and 0805 capacitors and inductors for the lab for prototyping, testing, experimenting and occasional repairs. This will include mixed analog and digital apllications such as filtering low power switching regulators, filtering voltage references for ADCs, compensation caps for opamps etc. - ie. mostly undemanding.
I have stock of the most common decoupling caps. There are plenty of sample kits available on Aliexpress of unknown quality but probably perfectly Ok for non-critical applications. For example £21.75 for 47 values, 1nH to 100uH x 25 pieces 0805 inductors in a sample book (there are cheaper selections but the sample book is useful and worth around £6 alone):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33051989082.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.5860abe0yxQryu&algo_pvid=ca2262c8-6831-47f6-864e-2ce3e337f9a6&algo_expid=ca2262c8-6831-47f6-864e-2ce3e337f9a6-38&btsid=0be3764515905258753392780ee9bf&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_Similarly for capacitors. Problem is that there is a lot of choice and I could end up with an awful lot of parts that never get used and it could get expensive by the time you decide to add 0402 and perhaps 1206 into the mix, NPO and X7R etc. At least smd parts in sample books don't take up much space. But when the time comes, the chances are you still don't have a suitable part so end up having to order some in anyway (eg. high voltage or 1% capacitors for a filter etc.).
An alternative is to buy much more limited selection of quality parts from a distributor and order in parts that I don't have in stock as needed.This can get expensive too if you don't get free shipping - or you end up waiting until you can consolidate enough orders to get free shipping.
I'm sure plenty of others have been in the same situation, so what did you do or recommend? Are there any well priced sample kits from good quality manufactures available - most seem to be pretty expensive?