Friday, February 8, 2013

How I Organized my Pantry for FREE

There is organizing Pinterest style (my dream), Organizing on a small budget (still a dream) then there is organizing on a $0 budget. This is where I'm at. Medically and personally the last year has taken quite a toll on my bottom line. That doesn't mean that I should give up and live in unorganized chaos, it just means I have to be a lot more creative about my choices.

Our eat in kitchen is super small and the pantry is as well. Over a year ago I picked up a couple sets of these red Rubermaid containers on clearance at Kroger for next to nothing. At that time I just dumped random stuff in each and called it a day. Sometimes you have to live with your "organized" space for a while to see the flaws. Last week I decided to pull everything out and tweek my system to make it a lot more user friendly for us.

The labels are chalkboard contact paper that I had from a while ago. I cut them out with paper punches and used Bistro markers to write on them so I can change them around if need be.

Now I'll show you how I did it shelf by shelf.

Starting at the top I have all my breakfast related items together. My girls go through so much of hte squeezable applesauce (me too!) that I order it by the case on Amazon for way less than I can find it in store for.
On the second shelf I keep all the snacks. This shelf is just out of my girls' reach so they can't take these little extras without asking. The basket holds gum and candy ~mostly for taking to work~.  I gound the basket in the garage not being used.
The third shelf is for baking mixes, sandwich toppings and drink mixes. Peanut butter has to be the easiest thing to grab right?


The fourth shelf houses all my sides like rice and noodles as well as quick dinners. I tried to find a basket for the randomness in the middle but I failed so a neat stack had to do.

The final shelf hold my extra flour/sugar and my canned goods. These items are stored at the bottom because they are used the least and don't need to be easily accessed.

On the floor of the pantry I keep all my dog's items. The dog bone holds his toys/leash/ wet dog food and the white container with the dogs all over it holds his dry dog food. He's just a little 12lb Chihuahua mix so he doesn't really have anything that takes up too much room.


I also made use of all the vertical storage space that the pantry has. The previous owner left the broom holder on the door so that's where mine goes as well. The girls have their own hand broom set for little messes they make as well as play doh clean up.


I put a plastic bag holder up when we first moved in a couple of years ago and recently stuck the command hooks on the wall to hang our lunch bags. This makes it super convenient to get lunches ready for school and on the days that Maddie eats lunch at school it keeps the lunch bags off my counter which I LOVE.

I just wanted to show you that you don't have to have a huge budget or any budget at all to get your house organized. More than likely you have old tupperware containers, shoe boxes or something similar to get you started. Organizing doesn't have to always be about how pretty it looks. Sometimes it more about the impact that a good system has on your entire household.

I would love to hear about your organizing on a budget projects.

Linking up at:

10 comments:

  1. Great post, Erin! I always procrastinate on organizing because I think it is going to be way too expensive, but I have a bunch of un-used containers laying around the house. Just need to get my butt in gear and do it!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by! :) I love to "pretty" organize so the budget thing got me pretty down until I got creative.

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  2. Looks terrific. Mine is a wreck, you just inspired to me to get it mine in gear. My pantry is the exact same size to its nice to see one I can relate to.

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    1. Thanks! I would love for you to stop by and leave a link once you're done. :)

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  3. Great tips and reminder that you don't always need fancy bins, totes or baskets. Your pantry looks clean and organized. I am sure it makes you happy every time you look in there.

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    1. Thanks! My girls keep opening the door to look at it too! :)

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  4. My husband has been cleaning our garage. He has been finding all sorts of treasures like baskets and clear bins with lids for storage. In this past week I have been cleaning all the bins out with soap and water. They had all levels of dirt on them. Yuck! The one that has paint stains I'm going to use for paints. Other than that...I still have to chose what goes where. It's too easy to just throw stuff here and there, like I've done in the past. Now I want my storage to make sense. Thanks for sharing your pantry.

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    1. I've been tackling the garage little by little but it is a tedious process. Congrats on tackling yours. Thanks for stopping by. :)

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  5. great job, I need to organize pretty much everything, although my craft room is probably the most organised

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    1. I'll just call my craft space a work in progress and leave it at that. lol

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