Organizing Your Kitchen Pantry in 10 Steps
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Taking control of your kitchen's food cabinets will give you peace of mind as well as save you money going into the holidays.
Here are 10 steps to get your food closet organized.
1. Take everything out of your food closets.
This means everything! Right down to the bare shelves. Wipe down shelves.
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I guarantee you will have expired food in the closet.
3. Remove anything that you find in the food closet that does not belong in the kitchen.
Do you really need to store nails, tennis balls, a hammer, and glue gun in the kitchen?
4. Place food in categories on a table as you take them out of the closet.
Categorize breakfast foods, baking, pastas, snacks, etc. Keep baking items together. Keeping like items together will save you time and money.
5. Put food back into closet organized by food types and categories.
Utilize organizing bins if you must.
6. Store flour, sugar, pasta, rice, etc. in seal tight, labeled containers.
Once food is opened, it will last longer in these containers. Write on the label when you bought the product and the expiration date.
7. Do not keep food on top of your refrigerator.
Heat will wreak havoc on your food and it is also an eye sore. I guarantee once your closet is organized, you will have room to store the food that is on the refrigerator.
8. Rip off tops.
Carefully rip the tops off of granola bar boxes, snacks boxes, or oatmeal boxes so you can grab and go.
9. Condense like items.
Powder drink packets, small items, or fruit snacks. Keep opened seasoning packets together out of boxes in a labeled zip lock bag.
10. Go through all your spices.
Most spices have expiration dates on them. If there is no expiration date, smell for potency. Organize your spices.
Once you have completed this, you will be able to make your food shopping list for the holiday right from the closet. You won’t waste money at the market and you won’t waste time trying to figure out what you need to buy. Your time in the kitchen will be a little less stressful. Organize! Energize!
Kristin Carcieri-MacRae, the founder and owner of Organizing in RI, has always enjoyed finding creative ways to streamline the environment around her. Kristin spent several years working in retail management, medical offices, and was even a successful certified personal trainer for 4 years. She discovered that in each of these fields she had a natural ability to streamline spaces and processes. Through her organizing ability and her passion for motivating others to achieve their goals, Kristin created Organizing in RI. Kristin has appeared on air on www.talkstreamradio.com and Patricia Raskin's Positive Business Radio. Her articles have been published in the Rhode Island Small Business Journal and New England Home Life. She is also available for organizing workshops.
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