Organizing the Fridge

This week we are in full force and almost through our January 4 in 4 challenge... I cannot believe it! I have been so overjoyed with starting this year by getting my life together and organized. Trust me, there are many aspects that have needed it. This week's featured space is none other than my cozy little kitchen, and it definitely needs some organizational help. We're going to start this week's space challenge with organizing the place I visit the most often... my refrigerator and freezer!

I am a fatty. No, I am not obese in nature, but I am quite the heffer in figurative terms rather than literal. When people ask me who my best friend is, my typical answer is it is a tie between my two favorites.... sleep and food. Quite the makings of someone trying to live a proactive lifestyle, right?! What can I say... I am a foodie. The problem is, if you looked in my fridge a week ago you would never have known. Instead, you would think that I am a poor college girl that's living off of Taco Bell and Snack Packs.

And I bet you thought I was over exaggerating before you saw that picture. I'm dead serious. Now this isn't to say that this is an accurate depiction of how my daily meals go. Most often things come out of my freezer meals for dinner and the leftovers are placed in a small container to take to work the next day. Everything else is supplemented through my pantry with granola bars, oatmeal, and pretzels and peanut butter. Ugh.... this isn't making it sound any better, is it? Let's just get straight to the organizing then, shall we? I started with giving it a good ol' cleaning and wipe down.

I like to plan ahead to save myself time and aggravation in the mornings and throughout the week. While my 30 freezer meals did come in quite handy, I am taking a break these few weeks and cutting it down to a grocery shopping trip on Sundays. I've determined that I'd rather go once a week to get the best and freshest produce and start my week off right. So with that in mind, I strategically labeled and placed my containers accordingly.

I added labels to my bins using my lovely Epson label maker. It added the perfect touch to keep things properly sorted and where they belong.

Because I wanted the uniform look to transfer over to every aspect of this organized project, I went to my local Container Store and bought 2 half gallon glass pitchers to house my beverages. I also took everything out of the door and threw out my old items, put my condiments in their new bin, and transferred the alcoholic beverages to the bottom row.

Next to the medium bins that are labeled to hold my everyday items, I put 3 sets of 4 mason jars. These sets are for my Monday-Thursday grab and go food for work. One set is my overnight oats which I have for breakfast. Another set is for my fruit jars which I have for a late morning snack. And the final set is for my salad jars for my lunch/afternoon snacks. I love that I can grab these babies and throw them in my lunch bag on the way out the door!

Ta-Da! That was pretty much it! The most painful part of this process had to have been just deciding what I wanted the labels to say on each of the bins, so overall it wasn't that bad! And the before and after effect makes my heart melt!

What do you think? Are any of you up for the challenge of tackling that black hole of a fridge we like to rummage through every day? I'd love to see your fridge organization and layout! Happy eating, friends!