Spring Cleaning.........why not?

The weather outside is yucky and beautiful Spring weather is at least 3 months away and that is if the ground hog doesn't see his shadow in a few weeks. What better time than now to dive into my unorganized mess. I will say if you come over to my house it is very neat, tidy and most drawers are very organized, BUT dig just a little deeper and you will find the mess that lies beneath.

I think everyone, even the tidiest of people we know, have messy messes. For the most part my messes are small piles of magazines, coupons and weekly ad. I love to coupon and it doesn't always get filed away every week so the piles start growing. My husband, very lovingly, calls them 'Gypsy piles' because quite frankly they migrate around our home until they are gone through and filed away.

Another organizing task is the stock pantry. I didn't really see the benefit of 'stockpiling' large amounts of food items until about a year ago. I try and stock atleast a years worth of certain foods especially if they will be free after coupons or almost free. For example: dried pasta, rice, cake mixes, cereal, and juice. All of these items have a long shelf life, sometimes two years and can easy be stored and used for in your stock pantry.

Back to organizing, this weekend I started organizing my pantry/kitchen stock. I have very good intentions of organizing the pantry at the end of every month so older items don't get pushed to the back and forgotten about until after they have expired. I have a pretty good system to organize my food items. I keep a count right on the boxes or cans. I label them with 1/10 (which means that is 1 of 10 cans I have in my stock) I also date my items and pull the earliest expiring items up front so I use them first.

Here is an example of how I date and number my pantry stock:
I know we are all tired when we get home from a hard days work but pick a small drawer or cupboard in your kitchen and follow this simple plan:

1. Empty the drawer or cupboard completely

2. Check dates on everything and through out expired food, also make a donate bag of unexpired items you would like to bring to your local food pantry.

3. Wipe the drawer or cupboard and scrub any dirty spots

4. I organize items by likes:

a. Canned vegs. and canned fruits

b. Quick canned meals for my husband: Soup, canned pastas (I sure don't want him 'rearranging' looking for something after I take the time to organize it my way~)

c. Canned tomatoes, cooking soups, broth

d. Baking supplies

5. Wipe all cans and boxes (you would be surprised how may dirty things are on the outside of your canned green beans) I use Clorox anywhere spray, before I ever put a can or box in my stock pantry I wipe it down so it is clean going in. You will be shocked at how dirty your kitchen towel will be after you wipe everything down.

Note: I also wipe every container that goes into my refrigerator. You will see a huge improvement on how clean your shelves and frig. are if you just make that little extra step and wipe everything clean before you put it away.

6. Now place everything back in. Place the items you use the most at the easiest place in your drawer or cupboard. I place my canned vegs./fruit on the bottom shelf and my husband's 'quick meals' next to it. Next I work my way up to my cooking soups, canned tomatoes and broths, next I replace all the baking items and the top shelf is for the overflow of whatever I have stocked lately.

Every one's needs are different so it may take a few unpacks and reloading of the shelves to decided what arrangement works for you.