28 Days to Love Your Home – Day 10

Organizing Tips to Love Your Home

Day 10

We are loving our homes and currently we are in the kitchen. One area that gets the most abuse is the refrigerator. It is opened and closed over and over again! We stuff things in the fridge and and leave things behind longer than they should. We sometimes find science fair type experiments we didn’t even know we were trying to do!

Because this is such a vital part of our homes, we need to treat is with love. If our refrigerators are cleaned out, we make room for healthy good food. We want to make healthy choices, but if they are not convenient, we choose a less healthy option which is. Here is how you can organize your fridge (who knows you might even lose weight!):

• Take all food out and clean the nooks and crannies.  All the shelves and drawers should be wiped down.  You can use a vinegar and water mix (a spray bottle filled with 1/4 vinegar and 3/4 water).
• Check all the expiration dates.  Toss expired food and anything you won’t really eat.  (Yes that means the green fuzzy cheese!)
• Like any organizing project, when you go to put things back group like with like.  In the door, keep salad dressings on one shelf, marinades on another, condiments on another, and so on.  Sounds simple I know, but if you don’t do this, you wind up searching for items wasting time, and not knowing what you actually have you will waste money if you buy a duplicate.
• Assign homes for items.  Again, like the grouping of items, you need to assign a home.  This helps all who use the fridge know where items are and where to put them back.    Also, you will have an easier time scanning the fridge while making a shopping list.
• Don’t keep eggs in the door of the fridge, even if you were given a container to hold them in the door.  Keep eggs in the container they came in.
• Check the manual (can find online usually if you don’t have the one that came with the fridge) to see what the recommendations are for setting the temperature of the fridge.  This will help keep your food for longer, saving you money (just think how much food you throw away because it didn’t stay fresh.
• Keep healthy foods at eye level.  If it is in front of us, we will make better choices!   This goes for children, too.  At their eye level, have healthy snacks available.  String cheese, fruit, carrots, yogurt and nuts in a basket or bin ready to grab will help kids make wise choices.  Have the snacks in ready to go portions, so there is no opening the fridge and saying, “I’m hungry and there is nothing to eat!”
• Invest in good food storage containers.  I love (as mentioned many times before) Rubbermaid’s food storage containers.  They stack well in the fridge, are square (so is your fridge – think less wasted space than if you used round), and are see thru, allowing you to see what is inside.
• Keep leftovers in one section of the fridge so they are not burried in the back.  Also, before you make the effort in packing leftovers, make sure you really will eat them.
• Take the time to put away groceries right the first time.  A little extra time up front will help keep your food fresh and allow you to quickly find what you need.  I love to say, it takes time to make time!
• Use produce containers or the produce compartments in your fridge.  These help to keep your food fresh longer (Can you say savings? You actually get to eat what you purchased!).  I LOVE the Tupperware FridgeSmart containers and Rubbermaid’s Produce Saver containers.  I am not kidding, I have had strawberries last a full week!

A clean fridge is easy to keep up.  I would love to hear your tips and recommendations!  What do you do to keep your refrigerator clean and organized?