Kitchen Organization: The Inventory of your Pantry

Organizing your kitchen can be a daunting assignment when you're working all week, making dinner for the family, plus everything else you have to do.  One must have an incentive to tackle the big jobs in your life in order to get the job done quickly and efficiently. Saving money on your grocery bill is incentive enough isn't it?   So, take an hour or two out of your busy schedule, grab a notebook and pen, and let's get started.  By the way you don't have to do it all at one time, you can spread it over a few nights, but I'd suggest you do it all at once so you can go to the next step faster.

At the top of each page, list what cabinets, closet, shelf, fridge or freezer the list pertains too. Start by going through your kitchen cabinets, listing everything you have that is food, herbs, spices, can goods, etc.  Once that is done, go to your other closet where you store the remainder of your food. If you have a shelf in the basement where food is stored, inventory that too. Be sure to reorganize as you list each item. Do the same thing with your freezer and fridge. Be sure to inventory your cleaning supplies, paper products, laundry soap, light bulbs, and even your batteries too. This will help you once you get ready to create your household inventory list in excel, which you can then maintain on your computer for convenience.

Once you're done with the inventory, sit down at your computer with a cup of coffee and open up an Excel spreadsheet. If you set up the spreadsheet correctly, you should have one worksheet per sheet of paper you've inventoried. Dry goods, Freezer, Fridge goes on the Kitchen/Herbs/Spices spreadsheet, maybe even a spreadsheet for menu/meal ideas.

Here is an example of my household inventory list. As you can see I have one column for quantity, the item itself, I've designated the category as Baking, (easier to put everything into order if you use this idea) then one for buy. As I go through my inventory each month, I adjust the quantity number, then note what I need to buy the next month. I try to keep a well stocked pantry so I can plan out my meals for at least a month.

Household Inventory
FOOD	Dry
Quant	Item		buy
0	Baking - Angel Food Cake Mix	Baking	1
	Baking - Brown Sugar	Baking	1
1	Baking - Brownies	Baking
1	Baking - Crisco (3 sleeves)	Baking

(By the way, I never venture to the store before I go shopping in my own pantry first. This saves a lot of money)

As you input your lists, determine if anything needs to be replenished and note it in the buy column. When you go shopping, be sure to have a copy of this printed out, or available on your tablet for easy viewing. You never know when you might come upon a good sale, and you'll want to know what you have at home.  If you can save money by buying one or two things on sale, do it.

This system will not only give you a better idea as to what you have in the house, but you'll be building a list to work from when you make your grocery list. The one thing we all do is shop for ingredients for that special recipe, only to find when we get home, we had half the ingredients in the house already. We've just spent money we didn't need to spend.

When I did this task, it took me three hours in total. Once I had it done, it has been very easy to maintain. 

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