Have you ever felt overwhelmed during the month of December with all the stuff that enters your home? The trick I've found helps me is to declutter throughout the month. Will you join me in the Net Zero Decluttering Challenge?
Each day this month I'll share some decluttering tips and ideas so you can end the month with the same number of items in your home (or maybe even less!) than what you started the month with.
Today I'm sharing tips on decluttering your fridge.
Today's Suggested Decluttering Task
Your refrigerator is a busy appliance during the holidays! You might make some meals ahead for busy nights with kids' concerts and holiday parties. You may be storing holiday baking or supplies for holiday baking in yoru fridge. And if you're entertaining during the holidays or hosting Christmas dinner, you'll need space for all the different parts of the meal... not to mention leftovers afterwards!
Make your food preparation and clean-up less stressful by decluttering your fridge and making room for all the food you'll be storing in it this month!
And while you're decluttering your fridge, take a few minutes to make note of anything you need for your holiday baking and cooking holiday meals.
Here are a few tips to help you declutter your fridge:
- Toss anything that has expired or has gone bad
- Purge items that you haven't used in quite awhile
- Give away things that are still good but that you won't use again (e.g. ingredients you purchased for a recipe that didn't go over well so you won't use up the rest of that ingredient)
- If you have too much of anything and won't likely use it in the next few weeks, find someone else who can use it, to make space for your holiday meals and ingredients.
One strategy for decluttering your fridge is to use up foods that are still good over the next week, so they are out of your fridge before Christmas.
Note: Use your judgement with respect to expiry dates... not all foods actually go bad after that date and sometimes it's a best before date (double check which it says). I often use salad dressings and yogurt after the dates, but I'm much more careful with meat and most dairy.
If you'd like to organize your fridge to make it easier to find everything during the holidays, here are a few posts to help you:
Decluttering My Refrigerator
12 items on my first pass through including a dish with canned pineapple pieces that had turned a funny shade of pink... yikes! The maple syrup container was nearly empty so I poured it into the smaller container we use at the table.
The oldest date I found in these items was the juice box... from 2012! We lost the straw at one point and kept the box in the fridge to be able to cut it open and pour it into a cup but we never think to do that at home since we have large juice bottles that we use at home. Somehow it just kept hanging around in our fridge... but it's gone now.
After I took the previous picture, I realized I forgot one section of the fridge so I decluttered 19 more items from it. And then I also realized the 2 potatoes were past their prime and we have too much going on this week to be making anything that can salvage them. Before they go completely bad I tossed them.
I don't know why we keep so many condiments from fast food places. I still have a few in our fridge, but we don't even use soy sauce and we have our own larger containers of ketchup, plum sauce, and margarine. Glad to get rid of all of these!
My Progress in the #NetZeroClutter challenge
My daughter had a party from her dance program yesterday and came home with 3 holiday crafts that she is keeping (we recycled a few others that she didn't care about). So that puts me at -30 items today in the #NetZeroClutter challenge and -280 overall.
What's Next For You?
Take some time today to declutter your refrigerator. Or anything you'd like to declutter! Take some pictures and share your progress on social media using the hashtag #NetZeroClutter. Let me know how you're doing in the challenge so I can cheer you on!
Sign up to receive my blog posts by email so you get each day's post in your email inbox every morning. You can unsubscribe after the challenge is over if you don't want to continue receiving my blog posts by email.
I'd also love for you to join our 365 Items in 365 Days Facebook group as you do this challenge! You'll be able to share with others what you're decluttering and feel encouraged and inspired by everyone else who is also decluttering!
If you'd like more decluttering ideas, you can check out my Decluttering/Purging Tips & Ideas board on Pinterest.
So that's today's post in the Net Zero Decluttering Challenge! I'm enjoying doing this challenge and I'm excited to have you join me. I love hearing all the stories of how much more you're enjoying your holidays because you're not overwhelmed by all the stuff in your home!
What was the oldest food item you found in your fridge? How can you keep your refrigerator from getting cluttered?
Happy
I link up at these great parties - Check them out!
Here are all the posts in this challenge in case you missed any or want to share some with your friends or family!
