I'd suggest you think about what you want to have in your parts cabinet. assortment packs can be good for getting random stuff but it's often not what you will use. I've gotten a number of these over the years and still have the vast majority of what i got.
On resistors and caps, you can get assortments for 12-14 bucks from a number of places. glitchbuster was (is) going out of business with some good prices and I bought a ton of different value resistors from him. at $.27 per bag of 12, I got about 30 values for a bit less than $8. pretty good deal.
There are a number of people selling "kits" on ebay. these often comprise parts with a common theme (audio, op amp, ...) for experimenting. I've had good luck there.
You will (may already have) discovered that certain values are used a lot more than others - 10K resistors, 2N3904s, 100 nF caps, 1N400x rectifiers and so on. I often order those from places like Mouser - when you buy 25 or 100, you get a really good deal.
Also, I keep an eye on the surplus places (goldmine, all, ...) for special deals. I stock up on those.