When I got home from the grocery store yesterday and went to put things away in the refrigerator I had realized that it had been a long while since I have taken the time to go through it or re-organize it. Neglecting to keep your fridge organized is a recipe for wasting money from your grocery budget. I'm guilty of slacking in this arena so today I thought would be a good day to go through my fridge and prove my point... and remind myself in the process that I need to quick slacking!!
First of all, I couldn't ever find anything. Crap was always falling out and I was having to pull things out, putting them on the counter just so that I could get Woodchuck a glass of milk. Annoying! Next, I was buying doubles of things! I didn't realize that I already had an opened jar of pickles in the back corner of the bottom shelf... so now I have TWO open jars. They are both too full to combine so now I have to sacrifice shelf space. UGH! Same thing with some bottles of mustard. It's not like I have an overabundance of shelf space for all of our condiments! Third, the waste... oh, the waste! Because I can't SEE what's in there I don't know what needs to get eaten. I'm so guilty. The shame...
As you can see there is a dramatic difference. At least I can see it! When you map out where certain items are you know where to look when you need something. For instance, I have decided to keep all of my leftovers on the bottom right corner. All of my dairy goes on the top shelf and my eggs and yogurt go in the middle. Find a system that works for you and do your best to stick with it... at least try to do better than I have in the recent past! Ha!
This is the part I was dreading. Exposing my wastefulness. I did promise that I wouldn't be a hypocrite and I would give knowledge based on experience and honesty no matter how brutal it may be. I'll admit that the waste wasn't as bad as I was expecting (considering how long it has been since I have really gone through the fridge in depth) but it certainly wasn't good!! Most of these items were either at the very bottom of the drawers or pushed to the back of the fridge with new items hiding them behind. The salad dressings were to be expected. Nobody was a real fan of the taste of these so it's no wonder that it wasn't used up but it should have been thrown out a long time ago as to keep the condiment shelves less cluttered!
Here's what was thrown away today with the approximate cost:
2 & 1/2 cucumbers $1.74
Velveeta Shreds (UNOPENED but expired 30+ days) $2.79
Velveeta Shreds 1/2 full $1.40
Sargento Sliced Provolone (UNOPENED but expired 30+ days) $2.68
Sargento Sliced Baby Swiss (2 slices) $.45
Variety of Yogurts x6 $4.50
Greek Yogurt 20oz remaining $3.00
Half bagged salad mix x2 $1.59
Opened salad dressings x2 $3.18
Ragu (nearly full) $1.39
Leftover soup (1 portion)
Leftover Healthy cookie dough dip (nearly full)
Total of around $22.72 not including the leftover cooked foods. This makes me feel very upset with myself. When you lay it out like this it makes a much bigger impact. The only thing keeping me from losing it is that I know that most of those items I was able to purchase at a much cheaper cost due to coupons but it still angers me that all of this was wasted.
Because of the waste that I have encountered after not having done an inventory of my fridge for so long - I have decided to designate one day a week to re-organizing and evaluating what items are about to expire. Fridays seem like a choice day for me and my family... mainly because anything that needs to get eaten can be consumed by the family over lunches AND dinners since we are all home over the weekend. I also tend to do shopping on Mondays so the fridge should be nice and roomy for when I need to put those new groceries away!
Who will join me in participation of Clean Fridge Fridays??! Anyone... anyone?! :-D
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