Does your fridge always look like an explosion aftermath? Do you always struggle fitting something else in there? Do you need to pull out a ton of stuff to get out just one particular thing every single time? Does your refrigerator seem like it is pretty full, but, in fact, you have nothing to eat? Have you accepted the fact that your fridge is not going to look like one of those Pintrest refrigerators, which seem too good and too organized to be real? Well, you shouldn’t.
Obviously, your fridge isn’t going to organize and maintain itself magically. But, keeping your refrigerator in order is not only quite convenient. It also ensures that your food is stored properly, which means that it’s safe to eat. So, let’s roll our sleeves up and conquer that refrigerator chaos!
15 refrigerator organization tips
- The first rule is to turn fridge decluttering into a regular routine. Let’s face it, we all have quite a lot of stuff we’re not going to eat and food that’s gone out of date or is close enough to that point. You need to throw that away without any hesitations. Basically, keeping only the food that’s in date is a key to refrigerator maintenance.
Go to HireRush.com to post a task for appliance cleaning services to get your fridge cleaned and disinfected professionally every once in a while. This will help you prolong the life of your fridge, as well as keep food safe in it.
Post a task here - Have you always thought that plastic bins and containers belong to pantries and closets? But why should you limit yourself by that minimal storage possibilities refrigerator manufacturers provide you with. Measure the height and length of the shelves in your refrigerator and purchase transparent frefrigerator organizing containers. The ones with dividers will come in handy too.
Have a place for everything. Label separate cheese, meats, sauces, condiments, snacks, yogurts, salads, berries and other containers to put those foods away in place after you come from the shop.
- Make a sandwich station. Get a bin to keep everything you need to make your favorite sandwiches in. This way you won’t have to gather sandwich ingredients from all over the fridge when you need to prepare one. And, they won’t be scattered on different shelves creating a huge mess.
Then, once you’ll want to make a sandwich, you’ll just have to grab a ‘Sandwich’ bin from your refrigerator and put them together. So convenient, isn’t it? - Don’t throw all your fruits or vegetables into according refrigerator drawers. It makes it difficult to grab something you need without digging through other stuff. And, a lot of fruits and vegetables ‘get lost’ in this chaos and go bad.
Find suitable drawer dividers or solo fridge storage baskets to separate oranges, apples, berries, avocados, salad leaves and vegetables, carrots and beets, etc. This should prevent the unwanted smells’ mixing.
- Avoid those nasty raw meat leaks that contaminate other products. Put raw meat in a couple of bags and store on a platter on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator. As it’s the coolest place in your fridge, raw meat will last much longer there. Keeping a separate plastic container to put your meats in also prevents meat juice leaks and protects other foods from the undeserved banishment.
- Keep your containers with leftovers in front part of the fridge not to forget to finish them. (No food wasting, right?) At the same time, avoid eating something that’s been sitting in your fridge for too long.
Stickers (especially chalk board ones)with the dates this or that container was put into the fridge will help you do that.
- The ‘Eat me first’ bin with foods that have to be consumed before they go out of date will decrease your food wasting guilt drastically.
- Do you hate cleaning and wiping those transparent glass shelves in your refrigerator, but also can’t stand their messy and streaky look? Well, the fact that they aren’t too easy to clean doesn’t help the situation, does it? But, covering them with plastic wrap with fun designs or laying place mats on them seems like a perfect solution to me
- Are you confused which refrigerator shelf this or that product should be stored on? The manufacturers have already given you a hint. All products have the required storing temperature mentioned on their labels. The lower the temperature – the lower the food should go. The door is probably the warmest spot of the fridge’s ‘ever-frost’.
This is a basic scheme of how to store and organize different stuff in your refrigerator.
- Are you a fan of canned drinks? Do you like to be able to grab a cooled one whenever you want? Don’t blank out the food in your fridge with them. Purchase a special plastic holder for canned drinks that’s designed to keep them in place in your refrigerator horizontally.
This way you’ll save a ton of storage space in your fridge, as well as have all your drinks well-organized. A multi-leveled rack for wine bottles is a handy fridge accessory as well. - Ketchups, salad dressing, spices, jams and other similar foods belong to the fridge door. Another convenient way to store such items in refrigerator is to have them placed onto a turntable. It makes it much easier to find a certain dressing, jam, syrup or oil within a blink of an eye.
- Do you hate that distinctive refrigerator odor? Everybody can relate. The most annoying thing that even frequent refrigerator cleanups won’t help you get rid of it for good. But having a jar (or container) of activated carbon in your fridge will help for sure, as this substance absorbs different odors that mix up in your fridge. It’s completely safe for people too.
- Do you have a lot of different leftovers? Than this cake-looking set of containers for leftovers is something you need to keep them organized. It’s a perfect storage solution for snacks and fruit slices as well. Storing chopped up ingredients for a dish you’re planning to make for dinner in them is a clever idea as well.
- A lot of meds have to be stored in a fridge. But some of them are supposed to be kept at a room temperature. So be careful while placing your tablets or other meds into the fridge not to store them improperly. Read the instructions first.
Keep the meds in a container with dividers. Have separate sections for headache, upset stomach and other pills to be able to find the one thing you need much faster. The container that’s difficult for children to open and get into should be used for this matter. - Use six-pack beer holders to keep you refrigerator door organized. If you’re lucky enough to have a door with divided shelves, label them so that everybody in your household knows where to put a certain dairy or snack item.
