It's summer, you're cooking up all the home-grown goodies, and your kitchen isn't functioning to it's highest organizational capacity? Take the time to clean things out, get organized, and set little projects for yourself while you have the energy, daylight, and motivation!!
Here are just a few of our ideas around the kitchen that have made our life a little easier and our budget a lot smaller.
1. Spice drawer. Spices take up room, it's as simple as that. And we didn't' have a lot of drawer space, but we had a low shelf and packed all the spices in a large, short-walled box when we moved into this house. I hate to say it, but they're still in that box. Ideally, I'll build a drawer for that cabinet, but for now, the box slides in and out nicely and all our spices fit in neatly, standing up. However, standing up, I couldn't' see what spices we had, nor did we have a system of where they were. In some cases I thought we'd been out of, say, Cumin, and I'd bought another! An organizer's nightmare!
So one day we slid the box out onto the table and spent 20 short minutes labeling the lids of them all (1 of 2 and 2 of 2 if applicable), and put them back in according to usage. Baking spices, left side. Meat spices, front and center. While a drawer with dividing shelves on a lazy susan or roller would make this idea even better, right now simply labeling them in this box works great for us!
2. Meat day. That sounds funny just writing it, but one thing that really cuts down our budget is shopping on the right day. Wednesday is THE day at Safeway for meat; it's discounted 20-40%, and it moves quick. So we get there early, buy up about $50 worth of meat, break it down into 2-serving portions, wrap it up, and freeze. We do this about once a month, and it works great for us. When the freezer starts looking slim, we go. I know many of you frugal Fannies do stuff like this, and while many of you know you should, you still don't... we've even got Craig's dad's help- he's famous for calling Craig to say, "OMG, Brisket's 60% off, get down here!")
3. Frozen goodness. Another thing we put in our freezer is old fruit for smoothies. Brown bananas, mushy berries, or bruised and mushy apples- I cut up the apples and bag them with the berries, bananas go in whole in their skin. Pull them out when you're looking for a quick snack, put in some ice, (soy)milk or ice cream, honey, and maybe some flax or protein powder, and yum, breaky on the go.
4. Design accents. Last post I discussed renovation ideas and the backsplash accent tiles and cabinet handles we're adding to our kitchen to freshen it up. If you can't afford to replace the cabinets or counter, you can do something small to create a little change. Our two rows of red tile on the wall against the counter cost only $100 or so, and add some excellent color to your kitchen. Along with the fauxwood floors we're putting in, the new cabinet handles and new "sandstone" paint, our kitchen looks like we spent $5000 on it when in reality it was close to $500, Pergo and all.
5. Veg organizer. I don't know about you but when I pull out that veg drawer and there are 6 plastic bags, loose onions and garlic, and all their skin floating around, my hand recoils with an "ew." I don't know why I never thought of this before last year, but we joined a veggie co-op and were getting veg by the boxload every week, so my veg drawer got out of control. Instead of putting everything in it's own bag that I couldn't find quickly if my life depended on it, I put in a couple of old bowls for the onion and garlic for starters. Their skin drives me insane, it reminds me of an old man's exfoliation or scabs. Sorry, but it does. So putting them in a bowl at least kept the old man containted. Then I took everything out of the bags and separated them, the root veggies that could go in our veg storage box did, the fruit-like items went in the bottom drawer, and the top drawer was suddenly organized!
Here are just a few of our ideas around the kitchen that have made our life a little easier and our budget a lot smaller.
1. Spice drawer. Spices take up room, it's as simple as that. And we didn't' have a lot of drawer space, but we had a low shelf and packed all the spices in a large, short-walled box when we moved into this house. I hate to say it, but they're still in that box. Ideally, I'll build a drawer for that cabinet, but for now, the box slides in and out nicely and all our spices fit in neatly, standing up. However, standing up, I couldn't' see what spices we had, nor did we have a system of where they were. In some cases I thought we'd been out of, say, Cumin, and I'd bought another! An organizer's nightmare!
So one day we slid the box out onto the table and spent 20 short minutes labeling the lids of them all (1 of 2 and 2 of 2 if applicable), and put them back in according to usage. Baking spices, left side. Meat spices, front and center. While a drawer with dividing shelves on a lazy susan or roller would make this idea even better, right now simply labeling them in this box works great for us!
2. Meat day. That sounds funny just writing it, but one thing that really cuts down our budget is shopping on the right day. Wednesday is THE day at Safeway for meat; it's discounted 20-40%, and it moves quick. So we get there early, buy up about $50 worth of meat, break it down into 2-serving portions, wrap it up, and freeze. We do this about once a month, and it works great for us. When the freezer starts looking slim, we go. I know many of you frugal Fannies do stuff like this, and while many of you know you should, you still don't... we've even got Craig's dad's help- he's famous for calling Craig to say, "OMG, Brisket's 60% off, get down here!")
3. Frozen goodness. Another thing we put in our freezer is old fruit for smoothies. Brown bananas, mushy berries, or bruised and mushy apples- I cut up the apples and bag them with the berries, bananas go in whole in their skin. Pull them out when you're looking for a quick snack, put in some ice, (soy)milk or ice cream, honey, and maybe some flax or protein powder, and yum, breaky on the go.
4. Design accents. Last post I discussed renovation ideas and the backsplash accent tiles and cabinet handles we're adding to our kitchen to freshen it up. If you can't afford to replace the cabinets or counter, you can do something small to create a little change. Our two rows of red tile on the wall against the counter cost only $100 or so, and add some excellent color to your kitchen. Along with the fauxwood floors we're putting in, the new cabinet handles and new "sandstone" paint, our kitchen looks like we spent $5000 on it when in reality it was close to $500, Pergo and all.
5. Veg organizer. I don't know about you but when I pull out that veg drawer and there are 6 plastic bags, loose onions and garlic, and all their skin floating around, my hand recoils with an "ew." I don't know why I never thought of this before last year, but we joined a veggie co-op and were getting veg by the boxload every week, so my veg drawer got out of control. Instead of putting everything in it's own bag that I couldn't find quickly if my life depended on it, I put in a couple of old bowls for the onion and garlic for starters. Their skin drives me insane, it reminds me of an old man's exfoliation or scabs. Sorry, but it does. So putting them in a bowl at least kept the old man containted. Then I took everything out of the bags and separated them, the root veggies that could go in our veg storage box did, the fruit-like items went in the bottom drawer, and the top drawer was suddenly organized!
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