Tips Having an Organized Pantry

Take a look at your pantry shelves. Is everything jumbled up and stuck anywhere it will fit? Can you easily find what you need? You need to organize your pantry!

1. The first thing to do is take everything out. While you are unloading onto the counter, try to place like things together.

2. Make sure to check dates on your food and throw out what has gone bad or past freshness date.

3. Clean and scrub pantry shelves. Replace shelf paper.

Restocking Your Pantry:

When organizing your pantry it is a good idea to always keep like items / food together. For instance:

* all canned vegetables together
* all canned meats, chili, soups together
* all box mixes together - mac and cheese, hamburger helper, rice and noodle mixes, etc
* all breakfast items together - cereal, cooked cereal, granola bars, etc...
* all canned fruit together
* all dry goods together - rice, flour, macaroni, etc
* all baking items together - cake mixes, icing, etc..
* all snack items together - popcorn, nuts, chips, fruit rolls, etc..

1. Place things you rarely use on the top shelf. (or taller items)

2. Place the items you use the most at eye level.

3. Place items that you use less frequently at the bottom

4. We place extra items that we keep on store such as catsup, salad dressing, salt, jams, peanut butter, etc on the bottom shelves. Then when we run out, we know just where to look.

5. Keep a pad and paper in the pantry to mark when you get something out of your stored items or are running low on something - if you keep track, you will have a ready made grocery list.

6. If you have room on the inside of your pantry door - install coated wire shelves. These small shelves are great storing for soup mixes, spices, extracts, candy sprinkles for cakes, etc.

Remember that everyone places different things in their pantry - place your grouped items in a way that makes sense to you and how you live.

When you unload your grocery sacks, remember to put things together and back in the right place - then it will be easy to keep your pantry organized all of the time!!

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