Free Go Organize: Conquer Clutter in 3 Simple Steps by Marilyn Bohn

hand-in-hand organizing your canned food, boxes of prepared food, and other food items that are in your cupboards along with your pantry. In the pantry, you can keep more food items, and if it is a walk-in pantry, bulky appliances can be kept in it. Keep your most-often-used foods in your cupboards and use your pantry to store more of the same items and food that comes in larger sizes.
    Pantry
    Take everything out shelf by shelf and put likes together on the table or counter. Wash the shelves and, as you put items back, check the expiration dates on all canned goods and packages or anything else that has expiration dates. Contain items like pasta, mixes, seasonings pouches, and chips in baskets or plastic containers and label these containers. Have a place for everything and label those places on the shelf. When you are out of an item, there is still a space for it when you purchase more. This works for other items as well.
     
Tip: If you buy food items in bulk, separate the packages into smaller sizes and only keep a month's supply in the pantry or cupboard. The rest can be stored elsewhere in containers with tight-fitting lids to keep out humidity and bugs if these are a problem where you live. They could be stored in an armoire or on a closet shelf. If heat and humidity isn't a concern, they could be stored on a shelf in the garage.
     
    Keep all like items together: Pasta (contain in a container) and boxed items such as cake mixes and pancake mixes, crackers, cereals all go together. Canned goods can be placed together by type in rows on another shelf. Vegetables can be together in one area, soup in another, and canned fruit in another. Put the newer cans or boxes in back and rotate the older items to the front.
    Keep the things you use most often in the easiest to reach and to see places — in the premium space (see to page 24). Place large items like olive oil, vinegar, and bottled sauces on a turntable or lazy Susan. They will be easier for you to reach and to see what you have. If these are extra items, store them in secondary spaces, easy to get to but not some place you need to access daily.
    Place miscellaneous products together. Things like wax paper, foil, and plastic wraps. Plastic storage bags of all sizes can be placed in containers to keep them all together. This also makes it easier to put them back. For some reason, it is easier to get things out than it is to put them back, so you want to make it as convenient as possible to return things to the designated area. If you have room in a kitchen drawer or cupboard, paper products can be placed there and the extras kept in the pantry.
     
Tip: Label the shelves in the pantry so everyone will know where the designated place is for each item. They can put things on the shelves after a trip to the store because they know where they belong. It saves time and space, and the pantry stays organized.
     
    Spices could be stored in the pantry on your new turntable or lazy Susan, or on a wall-mounted rack on the inside of the pantry door. Canisters of flour, sugar, and other dry goods can also be kept in the pantry. What you keep in your pantry depends on the size of your kitchen and pantry. If you kitchen is small and your pantry is just a small closet and is a part of your cupboards, then what you put here will be what you frequently use. If you have a walk-in pantry, this will be the place you will store more paper products, food items, and extra things that you use in the kitchen.
     
Tip: When you are checking the expiration dates on your cans of food and boxed items, or you if are just looking to see what you have, and you find an item you have had for a long time but it hasn't expired, make a menu to use that specific food that week. If you don't plan on using it, donate it to your local food bank.
     
    Junk Drawer
    When you're through with this drawer, you'll be calling it a resource drawer. Take everything out and wipe it clean. Junk drawers,