Thrifty Thursday - Overflowing Shelves

This week's Thrifty Thursday post is a quick tip to help not only stop wasting food, but keep your sanity in the kitchen!

I've totally HAD it with my cabinets and pantry shelves. Try as I might, things either end up falling out when I open doors, or due to my funky V shaped cabinets, get shoved and forgotten about until after the expiration date. Gah!

So in my quest to fix this problem, I'm coming up with a few ideas.

One of my real problems is the tuna fish packets and side dish packets. I love them, they are supposed to take up less room than cans and boxes, but they are a thorn in my side.

So I'm taking a cue from the grocery store, and you're welcome to follow in my footsteps. The store leaves them in the cardboard box, so I asked for some of the empty ones. Since the dates are often hidden on the side of the side dish packets in tiny type that you can barely see, I took a sharpie and wrote the expiration date across the top where I can easily see it. I also have them in the box via the date.


If you have a lot of a certain type of packet, I suggest you try to get a box that matches the packet - such as a tuna fish box for all of the tuna. I don't have a lot of side dishes (I guess it's been a long time since Albertsons did a good deal lol) so I have all of my packets in the same box for now.

It was a little annoying to see the store cardboard in my cabinets at first today, but since I can open the cabinet, and it's not as cluttered or falling out, I like it! An idea if you'd rather not see the brand is to buy contact paper at the dollar store, and cover the cardboard up with it so it looks prettier - that's my next project next time I go to the Dollar Tree.