I saw this thread, and rather hijack it, I started this one.
I often get these Kanji confused. It’s demoralising to get to guru, then wham: wrong do it again, back to apprentice, see you again in 30 days to get it wrong again.
次: You lack ice (but the ice 冫 is in the kanji 
) so you need to go to the next store… You pray to Jesus (じ)
欠 - Next. You’re lacking something in your fridge. You look around, trying to find the ketsup
The mnemonic is bad because “lacking” is overloaded - it’s used in both and they both visually look very similar.
Somebody suggested meaning + on’yomi + Kun’yomi mnemonics, regardless of how wanikani introduces new lessons - is that a good idea? Is that a good strategy long term?
e.g 鳥 - this bird is Mrs Chou's his name is Tori.
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The number one thing that works for me with similar kanji is to learn a word (or even a sentence) that contains the kanji. Ideally the meaning of the kanji is involved in the meaning of the word. For example maybe learn a really short sentence containing 次に and then you will be able to remember that the kanji with the ice radical means next. For some reason i am able to distinguish them when it is in a word I know or a simple sentence. You can even just learn a word for one of the two similar kanji and then use process of elimination to be able to answer correctly for the other one.
As I started reading and coming across the words naturally, this problem just started to work itself out. Sometimes your brain is just not ready to acquire certain words/kanji. I recommend starting to read if you haven’t already. I used Bunpro to learn N5 grammar and vocab and then started reading simple material as I continued with N4 grammar. Also I can recommend the website “Comprehensible Japanese” as many of the kanji and vocab words from WaniKani show up in her videos and having the visual connection and context really helps.
Just know that you are not alone and a lot of people have the same problem. It does resolve itself eventually.
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I don’t have any good tips for you but wanted to post to let you know you aren’t alone.
I don’t struggle with these two (but can see why it’s confusing). But I have been wrestling with あげる and あがる. Got them all the way back to apprentice and still got them wrong on a daily basis for a week. Then it just “clicked” and somehow got it.
Keep at it!
Wanikani makes mnemonics based on the radicals of kanji, so kanji with the same radicals will have similar mnemonics… I don’t see a way around that tbh. I sometimes confuse visually similar kanji as well, but the remedy is just to focus on the differences. Is the ice radical there or not?
Apart from that, I’ve found that making my own mnemonics is always more effective than relying on the WK ones — it’s just that it takes extra time and effort so I only do it when the WK mnemonics don’t make sense to me.
Good luck figuring this out 
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I think when it comes to mneumonics and word association, whatever works for you is the right way to do it. Honestly, after half way through I ignored the Wanikani mneumonics (they are great btw) simply because it was better for me to make associations based on earlier Kanji I had already learnt that had similar radicals (like in your example). After a while I started making simple sentences and scenarios with related Kanji (either kanji I learnt together or Kanji that looked similiar).
Even now while answering an old Kanji or Vocab that I havent seen in 4 months, sometimes the scenario just comes into my mind, and it would be easy to pick the right element for the specific question.
FWIW, I still seem to have problems with 欠 from time to time, but not with 次 - probably because I have seen 次 so often “in the wild” when watching anime as part of the word 次回 (jikai - “next time”) or even as part of the longer phrase 次回予告 (jikai yokoku - “next episode”), both of which often appear at the end of a show as they give a preview of the following one.
Whereas I have yet to encounter 欠 in the wild.
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