It's that time of year again, right after Christmas and almost New Year's which means everyone is talking about their New Year's resolutions. I tend to not really make resolutions, I just make a list of goals and things that I would like to work on. Nothing crazy or unrealistic, just little things like drink more water everyday or take some time away from all screens for a bit each day.

I know a lot of people make a resolution dealing with getting more organized in their lives, this is an area that I happen to excel in! I'm somewhat of an organizational freak. If my house is a mess and crazy, then my life is a mess and crazy. So I am often cleaning out, purging, throwing away and redoing. A few weeks ago I did just that with my pantry and thought you might like to follow along.

Okay, so my process of cleaning out and organizing my pantry takes just a bit of time. I did this in about an hour and a half on a lazy Saturday afternoon. It almost never takes me that long but I had this little one that was feeling especially needy that day...

I mean, come one, who can resist those eyes! We went to the dog park for about an hour after I was done. So to get started with my pantry organization, the first thing I do is take everything out. Yep, everything! Don't leave anything left. I put everything on my kitchen table or counters and try to keep the like things together (canned goods, pastas, etc.). I do this because while I'm organizing, I'm also making up my pantry inventory. Pantry inventory, what's this? Well this mine...
Why in the world would you want a pantry inventory? I make an inventory of my pantry and freezer so that I know exactly what foods I have available when I'm making up my meal plan for the week. I list how many full jars, boxes and cans I have and then estimate the amount in opened things. As I'm planning our weeks meals I'll put a number next to the item to mark how many of those I need for the week. When I'm done planning, using this inventory to make my grocery list is so simple. Then at the end of the week I'll update the inventory to show what I actually have. Trust me it helps! You'll save time and, more importantly, money!

Okay so after I've gotten everything out of my pantry, I go through it all and toss anything that's expired or any cracker sleeves/bags that had been left slightly open and gone stale, just anything that you'll no longer use. Then I add all the foods that I'm putting back in the pantry to my inventory list. Before I put everything back into my pantry, I'll go through all the shelves with my vacuum's handheld attachment to pick up any crumbs left behind and then I'll even wipe the shelves and doors down with all-purpose spray (I like Mrs. Meyer's basil scented spray but that's just me!).

Now it's time to put it all back! My pantry is tall and skinny. We completely remodeled our kitchen when we moved into our little old house and we added this pantry... (on the left)

So it's not the sprawling shelved closet that the lovely people on Pinterest seem to have...I'm jealous. My kitchen (and whole house actually) is pretty small so staying really organized and reducing clutter makes it feel not as small. Not everything on my pantry inventory actually lives in the pantry. I have a metal shelving unit thingy in the basement where I put duplicates of things so that I have more room upstairs. It really helps! Down there I have extra dry goods, condiments, toilet paper, paper towels and some cleaning products. Back to the pantry!

The bottom portion of the pantry is devoted to mostly food but I also put my Cuisinart blender/food processor on the bottom shelf (I'll show you in a minute). The top portion is mainly for small kitchen appliances and things I don't need often so it's okay if they're out of reach. The top shelf of the bottom part is devoted mostly to canned goods. I line them up according to type of food, so beans then tomatoes then vegetables and so on.

The main goal of an organized pantry is to be able to see what you have so that you'll use it! This works for me. The second shelf has most dried goods like pasta, beans, and noodles. The very back looks like this...
I try to arrange all the boxes so that I can see the labels easily. I would love to put it all in those beautiful clear containers with labels (yep I'm a label girl) but those containers aren't cheap, so that's for another day. In front of the boxed goods I have a basket full of packages of dry beans and other pastas and also containers of bread crumbs. I use the basket because I can move it easily and look through it, and it contains the clutter that all of those bags can create.

The bottom shelf of the pantry has a basket of veggies that need to be kept in dark cool spaces like potatoes and onions. The basket I use is from one of the cabinets that was originally in our house that we tore out. I love this basket! Next to it in the back is our food processor/blender and then in front is our big container of quick oats. We eat oatmeal every single day and I cook with these oats a lot so it has to be within reach.

Here's everything in the cabinet. We very rarely eat cereal but I do have a couple boxes that I put on the top shelf next to the biggest crock pot (smaller one in the back) and then we keep boxes or bags of crackers next to the toaster.

So that's it, my pantry! Even though it's small, it holds pretty much everything. We do have some open shelving in our kitchen where I keep mason jars of things we use a lot. Right now there are jars of brown rice (I don't buy instant rice, so I like to empty the bags into the jars), orzo, almonds and pecans. I keep nuts right out where we can see them so we make better snack choices. Also, you might be wondering where all of my baking things are, well they have their own cabinet. I'll show you that later. I hope this helps you to get moving on any resolutions for organization that you might have. Hopefully you have a bigger pantry than me! Just remember to clean out, throw away and put back everything in a way that is easily accessible and visible to you. Jars, baskets and labels are your friends!! Happy organizing!

(Oh and I'm planning to make these organizing posts a series if you like them, so let me know what you think and what you'd like to hear!)