Woman comes up with 20+ genius ways to organize a fridge because she’s tired of it being messy

Keeping your fridge organized and clean is pretty essential. Not only does a messy, cluttered fridge present hygiene and sanitation issues, but you might also end up with much more food waste than normal, simply because you forgot about some of the items stashed out of sight.

There’s something undeniably satisfying about emptying out your fridge, giving it a good clean on the inside, then replacing your items with as much neatness and organization as you can manage. If you’re looking for genius organization hacks that you’ll want to try out in your fridge straight away, read on…

1. Store items based on fridge temperature

Different parts of your fridge have slightly different temperatures. That’s why it’s worth knowing where to store your food – it’ll extend its longevity and help you get the most out of your items. For example, did you know that storing your milk in the fridge door, where temperatures fluctuate, is a bad idea? It’s better to store it on a middle shelf in the fridge, which is considered a “safe zone”.

2. Turn your fridge into a chalkboard

If you want an easy way to plan meals, write notes, and keep track of your stored items, simply paint a chalkboard onto the front of your fridge. If you’re the artistic type, you can make your fridge look much more interesting than its original self, and you’ll be providing your whole family with useful info about your stored foods.

3. Store snacks in magnetic plastic containers

Rather than pile your small single-serve containers on top of one another, a good space-saving trick is to attach a magnet to the bottom of your containers and stick them to the insides of your fridge. Snacks like nuts, seeds and chopped food can be easily stored and accessed this way.

4. Write down everything in your freezer

If your fridge has a tiny freezer at the bottom that’s often crammed full, you can easily keep track of what you have by writing a list of your items in dry erase marker pens inside the freezer. When you’ve used an item up, you can simply scrub it off your freezer. Whenever you buy something new, add it to the bottom of your list, so you know what needs to be used up first.

5. Write “opened on” dates

If you’ve ever worked in the food industry, you’ll be familiar with “opened on” dates, or date labels. It’s mandatory to label a food as soon as you’ve opened it, dating when you opened it and when it needs to be used by. You can do the same with items in your fridge, particularly the perishables like mayonnaise, hummus and cheese spreads. Having a clear date you can see will encourage you to use the product rather than forget about it.

6. Clear shelf space and store your bottles up high

You don’t only need to reserve your magnets for your single-serve storage tubs – they’re also great for your bottles, too. Rather than have them rolling around on your shelves and taking up storage space, simply take a super strong magnet and stick it to your bottle’s lid. Then attach the other side of the magnet to the magnetic underside of your fridge.

Stong Like Bull Magnets
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Stong Like Bull Magnets

7. Make your own egg basket

Not all fridges come with egg slots nowadays, and if you’d rather avoid storing your eggs in their bulky carton, you can simply make your own egg basket to place in the inside door of your fridge. If you get through at least a couple of eggs a day for breakfast, you’ll appreciate being able to grab them quickly when you need them.

8. Create a pull-out shelf for zipper bags

Knowing what to do with your bags of cheese, meats and leftover foods isn’t always obvious. If you often struggle to find what you need when you pile bags on top of each other, you’ll massively benefit from this pull-out hanging shelf for zipper bags. Simply attach the shelf to the underside of one of the shelves in your fridge. Then clip the bags in place and pull the shelf out to access what you need.

Zip n Store/ Kickstarter
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Zip n Store/ Kickstarter

9. One for chest freezers…

There are plenty of organization hacks for your freezer as well as your fridge. If you have a chest freezer, you’ll know the nightmare of trying to find your items at the very bottom. To make better use of your storage, organize your products based on when you bought them and store them in their own separate freezer bags. That way, you can get through your foods without waste.

10. Use under-shelf drawers

Piling your products high to fill a whole shelf isn’t very hygienic, and you’ll find it difficult to access what you need. A simple solution is to purchase a couple of small under-shelf drawers, which you can fill with your smaller items like fruit, veggies and snacks. If you bring home a selection of tall items that take up a lot of space, you can simply remove your drawers and replace them when the fridge is emptier again.

11. Use a lazy Susan

A lazy Susan, or a rotating plate, is ideal if you hate reaching to the very back of your fridge to find what you need. You can simply spin the plate, and voila! The items that were at the back are now at the front. No more bad surprises when you discover something well past its best-by date hiding in the back corner, either.

12. Put your produce in wooden crates

While locking your veggies away in a crisper drawer might help to keep them fresh for longer, there’s no point doing it if you forget to eat them. Displaying them in an attractive wooden crate, however, will make you much more likely to remember they exist. Plus, they’re giving off enviable farmhouse vibes, so you can play out your country living dreams to your heart’s content.

13. Use plastic place mats on your shelves

Cleaning the shelves in your fridge is a tedious job. If you want to cut the task in half, stick a few plastic place mats to your shelves. When it’s time for a clean, simply pop the place mats in your sink for a wash and pick up any surrounding mess with a damp cloth. You’ll have a much simpler job, and any spills and stains on the place mats can simply be scrubbed off at your sink.

14. Label your doors

The more sections of your fridge you can label, the better. It means that when you return home from your shopping trip, you can mindlessly stock your items up in their designated sections without having to consider how best to store them. It’s easy for fridge doors to get cluttered with anything that won’t fit in your fridge, but you can prevent that by labelling exactly what should go where.

15. Binder clip freezer trick

Here’s another storage hack for your freezer: use binder clips to make use of the space below your shelves as well as on them. This will work particularly well for you if you have huge spaces between your shelves that you never seem to fill. Simply attach your bags of veg and nibbles to the clips and hang them from the bars on your shelves.

16. Or use them to stack your bottles

Don’t you love it when something has more than one unconventional use? You can also use binder clips to keep your bottles in a stacked tower on one portion of your shelf, freeing up storage space. Just attach the clips to the wire on your shelving, with the bulk of the clip pointing up this time. They’ll form a barrier that prevents your bottles from sliding across the shelf once you’ve piled them.

17. Compartmentalize your crisper drawers

Piling foods on top of one another in your crisper drawer isn’t the best use of space. Instead, buy yourself a couple of baskets and split your foods into different sections; one for leafy greens, one for fruit, one for potatoes, and so on. You could even have a “grab and go” basket for fruits that you want easy access to.

18. Store your salads in mason jars

Salad is notorious for going off quickly, and no one likes a wilted lettuce leaf. Storing your salads in mason jars, however, will keep them fresh for much longer than just a couple of days. You can keep a salad for between 1 and 2 weeks when it’s stored properly in an air-tight mason jar.

Hurry The Food Up
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Hurry The Food Up

19. Buy condiment bottles

There’s something very satisfying about replacing your mismatched condiment bottles with squeeze bottles of the same size. When you’ve used up the sauce, you can simply wash out the inside of the bottle and reuse it. It’s a good idea to store your condiments all together on a dedicated shelf to keep your fridge looking organized.

20. Use fridge bins

There’s no better storage item for a fridge than a fridge bin. These nifty little baskets can be used to separate your foods however you want: by use-by date, by category, by member of your household, and so on. When you need an item, you can simply pull the whole basket out of the fridge rather than having to feel around and take out the contents of a shelf to get to what you need.

21. Label everything

Speaking of fridge bins, if you choose to use them, label everything clearly so you know exactly what’s what. This will also help you to see what you need to use up and what you need more of when you’re running low. Just be sure to laminate your labels to prevent them from getting damp or dirty in the fridge environment.

22. Store your bacon in a box

Once you’ve opened your ham or bacon, keeping it in the bag it came in is a recipe for disaster. Think grease and slime everywhere – and your whole fridge will reek of bacon. Delicious as that smell may be, you probably don’t want it permeating your apples and chocolate bars. If that’s the case, get yourself a small plastic tub and store your open ham or bacon in it. No more mess or overbearing smells.

23. Magazine holder = freezer shelf

Unfortunately, the days of magazine holders actually being used are almost well and truly behind us. But that doesn’t mean they’re not still worth buying for other purposes. If you have small packages that easily get lost in your freezer, you can turn a magazine holder on its side and use it as a shelf for your items. You’ll never lose anything again; and you’ll prevent those more delicate items from crushing.

24. Or use them in your chest freezer

Magazine files can also be incredibly useful in your chest freezer. If you want to section your foods into groups without piling boxes on top of each other, simply store them side-by-side in a row of magazine holders. They cost less than $3 each, making them an affordable and long-lasting investment.

Simply Organized
Source:

Simply Organized

25. Create a snack zone

If you have kids, you’ll know all too well how annoying it is when they pester for treats at every hour of the day. A good idea is to dedicate a section of your fridge for healthy snacks, like fruits, yogurt and granola, and tell your little ones to help themselves whenever they feel hungry. You can change your stock every now and then to keep things interesting.

26. Keep an inventory spreadsheet

If you’d rather not write your inventory onto the front of your fridge, you could go all-out and create your own spreadsheet. You can include all the info you need to know, like the quantity of your food, when you purchased it, and its shelf life. If you’re particularly clever with Excel and Spreadsheets, you can automate the spreadsheet to calculate how many days your food has left.

27. Separate your perishables

Some foods, delicious as they may be, often don’t last long enough for you to enjoy them in time. If you’re constantly forgetting to use your perishables before their best-by date passes, put them one of your crisper drawers and label it to remind yourself that the items need eating. Now you can minimize food waste and get to enjoy the good stuff you paid for.

28. Upcycle crystal light containers

Stop before you throw out your crystal light containers! There are a whole host of uses for them, including using them to store foods in your fridge doors. They’re long and thin, so while they won’t take up too much shelf space, they’ll provide plenty of room for storing high quantities of smaller items.

The Social Home
Source:

The Social Home

29. Use a dry erase marker

We showed you an example of a fridge chalkboard way back at the beginning, but if you’d rather not go to such extreme efforts, this is a simpler solution. Just buy a dry erase pen (and something to erase it with) and write straight onto your fridge. You can easily wipe away your notes at the end of the week and start afresh. You could meal plan or simply document how much of everything you had in storage.

30. Use six-pack containers for door shelves

Another simple use for door shelves is to use six-pack containers to separate your items. This is a great option if you have enough depth for two layers of items and you want a way to keep everything in two separate lines. You can also recycle the containers when they start to get a bit mangy.

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Source: Home Hacks, Apartment Therapy, Buzzfeed