Storing Food in General

Why do I store food?
Honestly, I just can’t STAND to be out of stuff.  It’s more of an OCD thing, then a Mormon thing — although it may just come with the territory.  We haven’t even talked about the refrigerated/frozen things I store (but I am willing to if you want).

How do I store food?
As you can see, I have a large (although not very deep) pantry here in Arizona, but I only had 1200 square feet in California and I still made do, with the help of our garage — we can’t store ANY food in our garage here.  I also tend to tuck #10 cans of my long term storage (think more emergency then anything else) under our guest bed, and in some cabinets that are almost impossible to get to.

Tips for storage

• Make it like a grocery store.  You’ll see cans stored in rows, and when I get new cans I pull all the old ones out.
• I go through my pantry once a year (it is part of my Monday kitchen organizing routine), I clean off the shelves, and I make sure the oldest stuff is in the back and the items that should be used first are at the front.  I do throw things away, and make mental notes of things I don’t need to be buying as much of.
• I don’t label.  I really want to, but it’s pretty obvious where stuff goes, and it does fluctuate.
• I prefer to buy a bunch of one item (like chili, for instance) then just 2 or 3 at a time, just because it’s hard to rotate the stock.  I know those can organizers look like they’d be great, and I think they would be if you had an unfinished basement, but we don’t.  This way works for me, and it’s a LOT cheaper
• I put some shelf paper up, I’m not sure I am glad I did.  As a friend told me, she’d rather re-paint then put up shelf paper again.  I think she’s right (we have painted shelves, I think that might be different if you had wood shelves, or something like that).
• DO NOT GO INTO DEBT FOR FOOD STORAGE.  That’s just ludicrous.
• Don’t do what I do.  My system works for me, because it’s what we eat, you need to figure out what works for you.  My OCD comes in handy to save us money on this and I am somehow able to remember prices of stuff pretty easily, but that may not be you, so give yourself a break!