Skeletons in My Refrigerator- Organizing Time!!

I'm sure you have heard the expression, Skeletons in the Closet, but to day I must admit I have had skeletons in my refrigerator. No not literal skeletons! I mean that there was something in there I wanted to hide! Do you see it?

It looks like I have not cleaned it out in MONTHS! But the truth is most of the time I do it every Wednesday. There are occasional times that we have something going on and I do not get it done smack dab on Wednesday. If I do not get it done on Wednesday I do clean it out either that next day or Friday at the latest.

This was not working! We crammed and crammed all week long and if someone came over I dreaded them opening the refrigerator come Tuesday!

I have learned about myself I do so much better with cleaning and house keeping if I do things everyday. So how can I incorporate that into this situation?

First, assess my current situation. I clean out the fridge weekly, but that is not often enough. By time I get all the food containers cleaned out I am pooped and do not want to wipe the whole fridge down or go through the items on the door.

Second, how can I fix the problem? I know I like to do a very small amount of things every day so that is never builds up.IDEA!!

I head out to the store to find some items I will need. First I need some shelf liner. I found this for like $5 at Walmart. It is machine washable and does not harbor bacteria. I bought two. One to cut for the shelves and place in there now. And another to cut and have ready to change out next month. (Stick with me, this will all make sense, promise!)

Next to find some food storage containers. My old sour cream, deli meat and cream cheese containers were not cutting the job! Hahaha. Yes! I do it too! Well I did, not anymore. Here is the deal. I have tried "labeling" my food with the date when I put it in the fridge but the problem is, I am the only one in the family that did it. That being said, not all of my food was getting labeled. So I decided to get a different color/type of food storage container for each day of the week.

I found these containers. There are seven different ones, one for each day of the week. In case you can not tell from the picture, there are blue ones (top left), red ones (left second down) green ones (bottom left), green decorative ones (middle top), dark green decorative-different pattern (middle bottom), purple decorative( top right) and light blue decorative (right bottom). I purchased these because of cost issues but there are some nice glass multicolored containers out there as well. Now here is where the beauty of the system comes in!

I assigned a "day" to each container. Blue-Monday, Red- Tuesday, Green plain- Wednesday, Green decorative- Thursday, purple- Friday, dark green- Saturday and light blue- Sunday. I ALWAYS put any leftovers for that day in that SAME container. Never do I use a blue one for Wednesday's leftovers- Wednesdays is always in a plain green container! Now EVERY MORNING when I get up, as a part of my morning routine, I pull out last weeks container that coordinates with the current day, dump it and wash it.

For example, the day of this post is Saturday. When I got up this morning I would go to fridge, take out the dark green containers, dump them, wash them and put them in the cabinet. Now tonight when I fix supper, if there are any leftovers, I take those SAME dark green containers I just washed and put away back out and put my left overs in them!! (Dark green because that is my assigned Saturday container)

This way is SO easy! My hubby knows all food in the fridge is good- all the time! And it NEVER gets behind! (Note- some people may want to only let their leftovers stay in their refrigerator for 2-3 days at a time. If that is the case, I would have got up this morning and dumped out the Wednesday containers then washed and put them away. I personally keep my refrigerator so cold that food will last from Saturday to Saturday. Put it this way, most of the time there is ice in my milk! I checked with the food board that is over our public school's meal regulations and they said that it would still be safe to consume, just no later! :)

Once a month, I take the liners off the shelves, wipe the shelf down and put the "spare" liners back in. (Remember I cut two of every shelf liner so that I would have a back up set.) Now I wash those liners I just took out and put them up to use in the refrigerator when I wipe it down next month. Once a month I also double check expiration dates of items in jars and bottles on the door to make sure nothing has expired.

The whole purpose of saving leftovers is so that they can be ate later and no food is wasted. This way we always know the food in the fridge is always good. Because it is a smaller, daily job it never has a reason to fall behind. AND because I need those containers for that day to put left overs in, I have to get them out and wash them! (Smiley face here!) Want to see the finished product?

No containers in here as of now but you can see how clean it is. The shelves are all lined, even on the door and the food in the take out containers is for tonight. The over abundance of eggs is because we have 12 chickens that lay eggs and we sell the eggs. I have them dated so I know which ones to use first! I am so happy! Now my refrigerator will ALWAYS be clean! No more skeletons in MY refrigerator!!!

How do you do your refrigerator cleaning? Is yours a mess or all neat and organized? Share with me below!

**I did not get paid to use these products nor to recommend them to you. I did not receive any of these products for free for a review. I purchased these items of my own accord and I am just passing my information along to you.**