Saturday Pantry Suggestions

As you can see, I finally figured out where the memory card can be inserted into the desk top.  It took getting on the floor and even then, cringing when I inserted the media card... hoping that was the right place.  But it was the only port that looked like it would work for this purpose.

Mr. "Keep every bit of paper he's ever owned" for some reason had misplaced the booklet that came with the desktop but it all worked out.  :)

The garage has been mostly reorganized and decluttered.  It took a long time even though we don't have a very deep pantry because we decided to go through every can and box of food and write the "use by" date on them.  Which in some cases meant calling the company (did you know most companies have a person whose job is to decipher those "use by" codes for you?).

Our favorite canned tomatoes are the Red Gold brand and they told us all of their products but one are good for 2 1/2 years (or more) past their "use by" dates.  That one product was a tomato juice drink we never purchase, anyway.  It is good for 1 1/2 years past the date.

We don't have many cans of tomatoes on the shelf right now but it is good to know they are still in the safe time range.

Hubby asked the employee at Kroger who was breaking down boxes if we could have some of their flats (shown above) that their canned goods come in.  He said we could have all we wanted and they were instrumental in getting items organized that we actually have stocked up on... like green beans.

The oldest cans are on the top flat and the newer dates in the bottom flat.  It is good when we get free stuff to use for organizing.  :)

We brainstormed ways to use those items way past their "use by" date but still within the time they are good.  Hubby came up with this idea that has worked wonderfully the past two weeks.

It is just a deep, flat box where he put all the items which need to be used first.  It has been very easy to look in that box first when I need an item from the pantry shelves for cooking.  Having them right in front of me encourages finding ways to use them, too.

No more items getting thrown away!

This shelf is the one where I keep miscellaneous items that don't have their own place as there aren't all that many of them.  I pretty much know what is on that shelf... so it's easy to keep track of them.

Soooo... what lesson did I learn from this whole reorganization and decluttering of my pantry shelves?  That you really need to be just as organized with a small pantry as you would be if you were stocking up even more.

I just have a set of shelves in the garage but even then canned goods got lost in the shuffle.  With the flats we got from Kroger, we now have the green beans, corn, and soups sorted and stacked on each other instead of jumbled together.

Now my garage is pretty much organized, I just have to convince the other person who lives here that we need to send some of those extra containers, boxes, and glass jars he put back "just in case" to recycling.   Sheesh...

But he did a great job reorganizing the pantry shelves.