How is your pantry looking? I don’t have one but no matter where you store your cans and boxes, you might be looking at nothing more than a hot mess.
The other day I blogged about organizing your spices so they are easily accessible. I mentioned how I had duplicates and sometimes several containers of the same spice.
Well the same thing can happen with your non-perishables if you don’t have a good organizational system in place. You may be wasting money on items that you already have.
Let’s start with your cans. It’s best to organize them by category. For instance you should put all your canned vegetables in one area, canned soup in another, etc. Keep cans in one section and jars in another, instead of mixing them up.
With your boxes, do the same thing. You might have your rice mixes in one area, noodles in another and so on.
If you purchase envelopes of taco seasoning, gravy mix and other types of packaged dry mixes, keep them located in one spot such as a drawer. Or you might put them all in a large plastic Ziploc bag
and store that somewhere. You can also use a large jar or small plastic container.
Keeping your pantry well-stocked is a good idea. But you don’t want to go overboard. If you want to make sure that you always have some canned vegetables on hand, every time you pull a can off the shelf to use it, immediately write down on a grocery list that you need to replace it.
No matter how you like to stock your pantry or kitchen cabinets, the key to not running out of things is to immediately write down when you have used the last of something. In our house we prefer the dry erase board on the wall to write down when something is needed.
And the key to not having too much is keeping everything organized and once-a-month doing an inventory of what you do have. Just like your spices, you can keep your non-perishables organized and easily accessible.
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