Keeping Organized: Cleaning out the kitchen pantry

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – It’s like your refrigerator without the cold.  It’s where you duck your head into for a quick snack. And it’s also a part of the house that can become overrun with packages of instant rice and cereal boxes adorned with colorful mascots… your kitchen pantry.  Organizing expert Andi Willis returns with ways to keep your pantry from turning into a wasteland of expired goods.

First thing’s first: remove everything from the pantry and take inventory of what you actually have. Anything expired goes into the trash.  A box of cookies with one cookie in it? Throw it away. A bag of lima beans you’ve been meaning to boil for the past 2 years?  Gone.  Continue that process until you’ve thinned out your stockpile to an acceptable amount.

Once you’ve gotten rid of anything unwanted, it’s time to put everything else back in.  Andi suggests you keep things that are similar in nature next to each other, like a single shelf dedicated to pastas, or one for brownie and cake mixes.  A plastic bin inserted onto the shelf can be a good place to store loose packages of rice or noodles.

However, Andi suggests there’s a moral to the this particular story: the pantry doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be good enough.

For more tips and tricks to keep your busy life organized, visit Andi’s website at www.goodlifeorganizing.net.