Organizing a pantry takes just as much time, if not more, than organizing anything else. A pantry is simply a closet that holds food and things used in the kitchen. People eat every day. They get dressed every day to. You will be in this type of closet as much or more than the other spaces where things are stored. Taking ideas for organizing your clothes closets and using them for a pantry is a good idea. When people get in the mood to dive into and organize their regular closets, they throw out what they do not need, want or where. The remainder is then organized in this closet.
If you have unused space after this clean out, putting in shelves or other things to get even more organized is a good thing. You can do the same thing with a pantry. The first thing to do is go through all the food. Check to see what has an expiration date on it that has already passed and chuck it. Next look for things that are about to expire. Use these, do not waste them. Anything that is open like cereal will not last to long. Eat it. Put the new stuff in front of the old stuff. keep rotating them so you are not throwing away things you spent your hard earned money on.
After you have cleaned out, only buy what you are going to use. Getting 10 of something because it is on sale and you have the room to store it is not a good idea. Unless you are actually going to use the stuff. How many times have you bought a few of the same thing only to throw most of it out a year or two later. That is money down the drain. Rotating canned stuff is a must. Cans keep longer than other stuff. You just have to use them before the expiration date.
Things that you use most often should be kept at the front of the shelves in your food closet. This will save you from digging around and going crazy not being able to get to what you need quickly.
The food you have that is not going to be used since it will expire soon can be given to a local food bank or a church food drive. Among all those other things stored in your food closet are probably paper towels, paper plates, napkins, plastic silverware and more. By putting this stuff in its own little place in the closet you can see how many are left and when a trip to the store is needed. If you keep onions and things like this in there, you will want to make sure they can get air and are not stored in a closed container. You can see if for example the onions are turning black and starting to rot.
