Faye's pantry organization project is complete!

After multiple Super Doubles promotions in the last month, my pantry was out of control! I started organizing it last night and just finished up. Here are the BEFORE and AFTER photos. How did I do?

What does your pantry look like after all these crazy deals?

Feel free to send me any pantry photos you want to share and I will add them to the photos above!

I will say that I packed up a number of bags to bring to the food bank which helped to clean things up quite a bit.

Plus, I took out all the cooking pots and pans from the bottom of the pantry and moved them to the garage since I was only using those items about once per year. I also removed all the lunchboxes and canvas grocery bags to the coat closet so I had more room for groceries.

There are additional groceries on the far sides of the pantry that you can't see in the picture because they are hidden by the doors including rice and baking items like flour and some baking mixes.  I keep spices in a cabinet in the kitchen.

I do not have another overstock area for groceries as the more extreme couponers usually have. There is no food hidden under the bed or crammed in various closets next to clothes and towels. I have not turned my garage into a mini-mart. 

I do have an extra upright freezer for our frozen overstock and the kitchen fridge and freezer are also full. And that's all we need. I don't want to have so much food on hand that it is not manageable.  Once you get too much food, it starts to expire before you can use it and that is not at all frugal.

Here's a pantry tip I have used for years: FIFO. This means First In First Out. The items you bought a long time ago that expire sooner need to be used before the newer items you are buying now that have a later expiration date. Make sure the items that expire sooner are moved to the front of the pantry and those that expire at a later date are moved to the back. This also helps reduce waste due to expired products.

If you have any pantry organization tips or stories, please share them!

FYI - I have just loaded pictures from Carla's pantry as well. Thanks for sharing them! Yours does not look half as bad as mine did when I started out. :-)