Organize Your Pantry, Step 3

Not sure about you, but I'm excited about this step. It's the doing part! You'll need to block out about an hour for this step. Put some music on - it'll help you have more fun...

1. Take all the food out of your pantry. Discard anything that you either can't tell what it is, has expired, or you know you won't eat. Group the remaining foods together with like items.
2. Put them in their appropriate bin and then stick the bin in the pantry. See how easy that was?!?! When doing step, keep in mind to:

• Label your bins. Don't use a permanent marker to label though, because then you're stuck with that. Use a label maker, stickers you can write on, or even paper taped on it. Use bins for whatever you typically have in your pantry. I have a bin for each of the following categories: baking items, potatoes, dried fruit, nuts, rice, box mixes, vinegars and liquid sugars, salty snacks, sweet snacks, and candy. You can also use them for pasta, canned goods, breakfast items, etc.

• Maintain it! Anything that you organize needs to be maintained. Try to keep it in order and you’ll spend less time maintaining. But, every so often, take a look in your pantry and see if you need to redo it.

Here are some pictures of my pantry from the top:

I keep oil and flours up top, along with a bin of vinegars and liquid sugars.

 

Next shelf has my snack food on it...all in bins. One for salty, one for sweet, and one for my children's candy stash.

My pasta is on the left, the rice is in a bin in the middle, and box mixes are in the bin on the right. My bread crumbs, peanut butter, or any other random item goes in between the bins.

 NOTICE: I have 1 more shelf that's not really pictured...it's the one on the bottom in the picture above. The shelf in the top of the picture below is the same shelf. I didn't take a picture of it because it's not typical for me. I have a ton of canned goods that I got for free, which I usually don't have. So, all of those are on the left. My ziploc bags are in the white shoebox in the middle, and all my oats are on the right. 
 

My bottom shelf has my dried fruit and nuts in their own bins as well as all my cereal, grits, and pancake mix.

Obviously, the floor. I keep potatoes and onions in one bin and my baking items in the other bins (yes, it takes up two bins!). My popcorn is kept in a container on the floor as well as whatever large snack items I may have.

Keep in mind to utilize the wall space! Hang aprons or...

 

...hang grill items.

And lastly, I keep my spices and canned goods in my door.

I hope this series has been helpful to those who need a pantry makeover. Please make some comments on this post if you have any great tips to share with others!