National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day
November 15th is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day, which means that one of the hardest working household appliances can finally get the love it deserves. Food items always seem to find their way to the bottom shelves where no light shines, and that’s a culinary shame.
Spills are only half cleaned, and take out boxes and half-eaten pizzas bully other food items on some rows. The National clean out your refrigerator day was started by the home economists at Whirlpool Home Appliances, and we’re sure glad they did.
While observing the national clean out your refrigerator day, you have to remember that it’s not just about moving out old food items and giving the fridge a good cleaning. It’s also about optimizing your space and the food you have. National refrigerator day is a great opportunity to organize your fridge and find new ways to save money. These tips can show you how.
Organize Your Shelves
While cleaning out and organizing the fridge, many people find that they have to throw out a lot of expired food because they forgot about them until they went bad. That’s an uncomfortable and expensive thing to do.
This day is a great opportunity for you to ensure that waste like that never happens again. You should organize your shelves so that the foods closest to expiration are at the top and the freshest are at the bottom. That way, you’ll see the newest first.
When you get new groceries from the store, don’t just throw them in the fridge – spend some time “fronting” the groceries like they do at the grocery store. That means putting the older things at the top and in the front where they catch your eye and are easier to access. If you make this a habit, you’ll never find fruit wearing a green beard at the back of your crisper drawer again.
Chuck Unused Condiments
As human beings, we tend to hoard things we know we don’t need. It’s just stronger in some people than it is in others. Old CDs, shoes, and of course, condiments. Most people like to keep these around, “just in case.” But how many varieties of mustard do you really need?
Let National Clean Your Fridge Day be an opportunity to finally come to terms with reality: You’ll probably never use these again. And besides, by the time you finally use the condiment, it’ll be past its use date and probably tastes less than great. It’s much better to throw it out and clear up space in your fridge.
If you need it later, you can simply buy a new one, and keep it on the top shelf, so you don’t forget. Since mayonnaise is statistically the most popular condiment, you may want to keep it closer to the top since you’re always going to reach for it.
Keep Track of the Food You Buy But Don’t Eat (And Don’t Buy It)
Cleaning out your refrigerator can be very revealing. You may even discover a couple of things you didn’t know about yourself. It shouldn’t surprise you to find different foods that you never got around to eating in your refrigerator. As a rule of thumb, if it’s older than a week and you haven’t eaten it, you’re probably not going to.
Finding food this way is also a sign that you need to stop buying food you don’t plan on eating. They could be costing you a lot of money in the long run. Make a “food budget” that is more than a line item in your overall budget spreadsheet and fill it with a weekly accounting of the things you actually purchase and the things you always throw out.
It will seem like a chore at first, but after a few weeks you’ll hardly notice the time it takes, and you will also start saving big money on food you don’t consume.
Clean All the Way
While you’re cleaning out your fridge, you have to resist the temptation to simply clean the top shelf. The whole idea of the day is to give your refrigerator the attention it deserves. This includes taking out all the food and getting a bucket filled with warm water. It may take you an hour to do it, but you’ll be glad you did.
