Organizing Your Home: the pantry

I am a very organized person by nature - there's no doubt about that! I find that when my home is organized, it is so much easier to be intentional in my homemaking.

This "Organizing Your Home" series will show you how I choose to organize my home. I hope it is a source of inspiration for you in your homemaking endeavors. This first week, we will focus on organizing your pantry.

As I've said before, we don't have a pantry - and we don't mind that! I find that this actually helps me stay more organized and keep a better handle on my pantry items. Even if you do have a pantry, these same ideas will still apply - just on a larger scale.

A majority of our pantry "staples" are kept in one set of cabinets. I keep certain staples on hand at all times and generally "buy ahead" on these kinds of items. I do sort through my cabinet regularly to make sure I am using items.

I store larger pantry items on top of our cabinets. This usually includes bags of chips, stock up canned goods noodles, juice, etc. I will admit that this can be slightly annoying because I have to get my stepladder out every time I need something, but that's only a minor inconvenience.

We also keep some boxed items on top of the fridge...cereal, crackers, open bags of chips, etc. We've always done this (in every house we've lived in) and it's always made things easy.

And finally, I have a drawer full of spices! I have a spice rack on the counter in addition to this. I cook from scratch nearly all the time, so I use a lot of spices. I purchase most of my spices at Aldi, and we have a parsley plant.

Now that you've had a look at how I organize my "pantry," I have two additional tips for you to keep in mind:

1. Don't buy too much. It can be easy to let your stockpile get out of control (especially if you have a full-size pantry). Pay attention to what you have on hand before you shop!
2. Clean out your pantry regularly. This will help you keep your stockpile under control! Find creative ways to use up the ingredients in your pantry if you need to.

When you have an organized pantry, menu planning will be much easier - and more fun! There are so many reasons to menu plan and it's easy to do!

Take just 15 minutes today to look through your pantry. How can you organize it to help you be more intentional in your homemaking?