Organizing Your Pantry

Organizing your pantry not only makes it easier to prepare meals, it will make drastic differences in your grocery budget.  Since frugal living is always a bonus when it comes to making positive changes in your home, this is one organizing tip that anyone can get excited about.

From sorting and arranging your canned vegetables to throwing out your expired foods, organizing your pantry is a must in every household.  Getting things in order will help you to have more time to focus on your children and spouse, and that is what is really important in a family unit.

Tips to Organize Your Pantry

• Remove expired items.  The first thing on your list should be to go shelf by shelf of your pantry and remove expired items.  For things like spices and flavorings that are pantry staples but used infrequently, you may want to make a list of items you'll want to replace in the future.  Make not on that list of items that you obviously don't use often, and could potentially buy smaller amounts of.  Spice bins in stores with bulk items (Whole Foods is our favorite) are great places to get just a few teaspoons of something as you need it instead of buying a large jar that goes to waste.
• Organize by type of product. Canned goods, pasta, baking items, soups, breakfast items, snack items are all categories you may want to consider arranging your pantry in.  Typically you'll find spices together, and since we already have a great article on organizing your spices you'll want to reference that as well when you are organizing your pantry.  Make sure your pantry is arranged in a manner that makes sense to you.  For some having oatmeal with breakfast items make sense if they eat it for breakfast regularly.  For others, this wouldn't work since they only use oatmeal for baking purposes.  Use the method that works for your family unit for optimum success.
• Organize by how frequently used.  Another step you can use while arranging your pantry is to organize by how frequently you use a product.  There are some things you don't use often, but keep on hand that can be placed on higher shelves and out of the way for more commonly used items.  Baking products may not be used every week, but still need to be handy.  Putting those on higher shelves and out of sight will make sense when you are trying to keep your dinner ingredients, breakfast ingredients or kids lunch box items easy to grab and at sight level.
• Arrange snacks and kids items for easy access.  If possible, arranging a shelf that is for kids snacks only is a great idea.  This gives you the chance to pre-approve snacks for your kids by putting them in a tub or on a shelf they know is okay to grab something from.  Next time they want a snack, you can say yes and all they have to do is go to that shelf and pick an item.  This also helps when you are trying to organize lunch box assembly and make things easier for quick lunches during the week.
• Invest in proper shelving and storage systems. One last tip for organizing your pantry comes with investing in the right kind of shelves to keep things in order.  If budget allows, there are great choices for pantry shelving that is made just for spices, as well as perfect for canned goods.  This can help you keep things orderly, and prevent you from letting canned foods go to waste because they grow outdated before you use them.  Proper rotation of food in your pantry is key to staying in budget and not being wasteful.  The right shelves help this tremendously.

What aspect of keeping an organized pantry do you struggle with?

Looking for more ways to get organized?  Check out the entire 31 Days to an Organized Home series!

Are you looking for more tips beside what is being shared in the 31 Days of Homeschooling Tips for Moms? I would love to invite you the community inspired by this series, as we strive to inspire, encourage and empower our readers in everything homeschooling.