If you’re anything like me, a clean and organized refrigerator makes you feel like you have your life together. My fridge doesn’t get too messy very often since it is only my fiancé and I who live in our apartment. But when it does get messy, I feel like it needs to be cleaned right away. I like to reorganize my fridge when it comes time to go grocery shopping. Grocery shopping for us is about once every three weeks.
Clean Out
The first thing I do when it comes to organizing the refrigerator is clean it out. I start by throwing out any leftovers that I know we won’t eat or any food that has gone bad. Once the bad food has been tossed out, I take everything out so that I can wipe down the shelves and drawers.
Once the fridge has been wiped clean, I start putting the items back into the fridge. Our top shelf is quite short, so we keep our eggs and small grab and go snack and breakfast items like yogurts, fruits, string cheese, etc. on this shelf. We keep our string cheese and yogurts in these bins. I found that when items are right there and easy to grab, they are more likely to get eaten quicker and not forgotten about because it was shoved in the back of a drawer.
Underneath the top shelf, we have a small drawer on the left side. In this drawer is where we keep the cold meat and other meats like brats and hot dogs. On the second shelf underneath the cold meat drawer, we keep the other meat that we are going to use that week (ground beef, chicken, sausage, etc.) On the right side of this shelf is where we keep our Brita pitcher since our fridge does not have a water filter in it. We have this Brita pitcher, and it is perfect for the two of us!
On our third shelf is where we keep our leftovers and drinks. Since it is only the two of us, we usually have leftovers with every meal we make. It’s nice for us though because whatever leftovers we have from dinner, we can pack up for our lunches the next day. This really helps us save money on needing to buy extra food for lunches or throwing away too much food. We also keep a few drinks on this shelf like Gatorade, flavored waters, or alcohol. Underneath our third shelf, we have two drawers. We use one drawer for cheeses (we like our cheese). The other drawer we use for vegetables.
Meal Plan/Grocery Shop
I plan our meals for roughly three weeks at a time. During that third week is when I plan out our next three weeks of meals and write up a grocery list. We have this nice magnetic list on our fridge that remind us of what meal we are having that night. The other side of this list allows us to write any item we run out of, so we know to pick it up next time we go to the store. My fiancé is an Assistant Athletic Director, so his schedule is crazy with sporting events in the evenings. Because of this, I try to plan easier meals on the nights he is working late so that he can easily heat them up when he comes home.
Restock
Once we get groceries, we restock our fridge. We restock the easy, grab and go snacks on the top shelf. We refill our Brita pitcher (make sure to replace the filter every month!). If we need to, we will add more drinks to our bottom shelf so that we always have some cold on hand. We also make sure to wash and cut our fresh fruits so that they are ready to eat when we want them. I found that by washing and cut the fruit right away, it helps us eat them quicker. We’re more likely to grab a couple of berries than chips or other unhealthy snack if the berries are already ready to be eaten. We also make sure to move anything that was already in our fridge to the front and put the new stuff towards the back to make sure we eat the older stuff first.
I love being able to clean out, organize, and restock our refrigerator. I always feel like my entire life is organized whenever my fridge is. Let me know how you organize your refrigerator and what items you use to help keeps yours nice and clean!
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