Organization-Pantry

This ties into your meal planning very well.  A well organized pantry equals less clutter and mess, and hopefully no expired goods! :)

I do this a couple times a year, at least.  This way I don't have anything slip under the radar and sit in my cupboard past expiration.  And I don't forget about what is in my cupboard.  This is very helpful when meal planning because you know your stuff is organized by shelves, and sections.  You know where to find stuff and more importantly, you know what you have on hand and use it up!

So...sometimes it is a big deal and is really messy, and other times it's just a little messy from little hands helping put groceries away and it just getting stuffed in there instead of placed nicely. :)
Here's my pantry before....not too horrendous, just starting to get messy.

So I go one shelf at a time and pull everything off of it.  Wipe it down and place the things back in there one at a time, putting like things together.

So on my first shelf I have all the canned goods.  I put the tomato things together like, pizza sauce, canned tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, etc.  Then I put the veggies together, beans and corn.  Then the cream of mushrooms to the side.  Broth in the back, then on the right is extra things, syrup, honey, peanut butter.

Now while you have everything out, you need to set aside the things that don't belong on this shelf.  Pull out everything from the next shelf and only place in there the things that belong to that group.  For me this is the boxed items/bread shelf.  So I have my tortilla shells, bread, homemade tortilla mix, and the few boxed things I buy, onion soup mix, taco seasoning, jello which is all in a Tupperware container so it's easy to pull out the box, pick which one and put the box back.

Next shelf for me, is our snack shelf.  Here we have different kinds of crackers, marshmallows, raisins, candy/treats.

Then I have my rice/noodle goods.   Instead of using the original boxes from the store I use the smaller Tupperware.  Stacks together so much nicer than all the different shaped boxes.  On the right of that shelf I have all the big extras, like extra ketchup bottles, juice, mayo, jelly, oatmeal.

Then recently I had to make room in here for a new item...so I switched the bottom to shelf heights.  So now on the second to bottom shelf I have my big roasting pan in back, potatoes, napkins, and the bottom shelf is higher so I can fit the air popper and coffee maker in there standing up.  Plus big bowls that I hardly ever use are in the back, along with the indoor grill.

Well, there you have it.  Now you know what's in my pantry, and how I organize it.

How do you organize yours?