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Think how much time you waste in your kitchen because you have no idea where things are. How much food do you throw away because it’s been overlooked or you can’t even tell what’s in them? Well, it’s time to clean up your routine and your kitchen. Here are 4 tips on reorganizing your kitchen and foods for faster cooking. Grab the kids and make it a fun family project.

List Your Items

The most important thing of this exercise is to create a list of all your items in your refrigerator and freezer. So, as you clean each out and place foods inside, create a list. Include a section for quantity. As you place your items inside, write it down. If you run across the item again, place a hash mark. Itemize your items. Your categories may be as follows:

• Frozen Vegetables
• Sweets / Deserts
• Pork
• Beef
• Chicken
• Fish

Empty the Contents of the Refrigerator

Empty everything from your refrigerator. If necessary, clean it down with a mixture of vinegar and water in a spray bottle. Next, combine any duplicate containers like relishes and dressings. If you have more jars that can’t fit into your refrigerator door, create a dedicated space for all of these items on a shelf. Place everything else back in, nice and neat. Leave a section open for leftover foods.

Empty the Contents of the Freezer

The freezer is more difficult to tackle. You don’t want to have foods defrosting. If you feel this will be a long process, place some of the items into your refrigerator. Clean out any excess ice that may have built up in your freezer. Toss any freezer burned foods. Dedicate a section to frozen vegetables, convenient foods such as frozen sandwiches, mini-pizzas, and ice cream. Next, arrange your meats and make sure they are easily identifiable.

Label Your Freezer Items

One thing we find throwing away the most is frozen meats. One sure way of saving money is by going to a meat market instead of your major grocery store. You have to package most of your meat yourself, but you are saving a ton of money.

Once you get home, wash your meats off if necessary. Next, season the meats, and pack them away in zip lock freezer bag. This is timely but cuts the meal preparation time. Get the bag sealed as flat as possible with the least amount of air in them. Now, you will want to label the bags. If you happen to have address labels at home, this will do nicely. If not, grab a piece of paper and write the meat’s name on there. Cover it with regular tape.

Place the bags on the shelves according to the meat type. All of your beef items would go on one shelf and all of your pork items will go on another shelf, and so on. If you can place another meat on one shelf, try to add chicken, so you can easily identify the different meats.

Now you have an organized refrigerator and freezer. Place your itemized list on your refrigerator door. Each time you deplete the item, cross it off your list. Have a grocery list next to that list and add the item so you know what needs to be restocked on your next trip.

By Taya; Free Stuff Finder Contributor