Food Inventory

EnterNihil

Hi, can anyone recommend anyways to keep track of food inventory? I'd like an easy way to remember what perishable foods will expire soonest in my home.

Thanks!

Athijade

Excel spreadsheet. That is what I do (after I do a general stock list in a notebook).

EnterNihil

That sounds like a patronizing rhetorical question. "What does perishable mean to you?", no one said I was stocked up on any food. Just foods with an early expiration date. I tried to explain myself clearly, I think perishable foods are likely to decay or go bad quickly. In my case, the celery I don't want to forget about, the kale, snap peas, and the cottage cheese and oh yeah, the eggs all might expire if I don't remember I need to eat them to not waste.

Using a whiteboard or excel sheet are great ideas, thanks.

harper16

EnterNihil wrote: »

That sounds like a patronizing rhetorical question. "What does perishable mean to you?", no one said I was stocked up on any food. Just foods with an early expiration date. I tried to explain myself clearly, I think perishable foods are likely to decay or go bad quickly. In my case, the celery I don't want to forget about, the kale, snap peas, and the cottage cheese and oh yeah, the eggs all might expire if I don't remember I need to eat them to not waste.

Using a whiteboard or excel sheet are great ideas, thanks.

A small magnetic white board on the fridge might help, and will keep the info right there instead of on a computer.

Katmary71

I misunderstood at first too. I keep a list on my phone with everything in order of when it expires (mostly produce) so I use up those items first. There's also the app Out Of Milk but you can only list things as being "low" or "high", I've started to do that with items. It's a grocery shopping app so that's why the low and high is helpful. I'm sure there's some app out there but I'm not familiar with it.

BarbaraHelen2013

I’m very low tech, I just open the fridge and look!

I’ve tried various methods over the years to keep track of what’s in the freezer and fridge, including the whiteboard idea, pinning the most recent grocery receipt up and crossing off stuff as I use it, all with limited success. Which is purely down to my inconsistency of actually using the method de jour, of course!

These days I empty out the fridge completely once a week (wiping the shelves while I’m at it). This way I can see immediately what I have on hand and when I reload the fridge I put anything that needs to be used first at the front in a prominent spot. Takes about 15 mins and works better than any other method I’ve used previously. 🤷‍♀️

acpgee

I'm even more low tech. Not only do I open up the fridge, but I open up the freezer every couple of days to have a rummage around.

BarbaraHelen2013

Yep, I do the same to my freezer roughly once a month - anything that’s closest to needing used is put back on the top shelf, everything else is replaced on the other shelves and in the baskets in categories so I can quickly see what’s low before I shop.

ReenieHJ

Life is too short to be that organized. Lol JK I'm sure it'd work for some but not for me. I'm of the 'open the fridge and take a look' camp.
I've been keeping a running list of stuff we get low on, then make 1 trip, as opposed to 3-4 a week. All foods get rotated. And I always buy the freshest dated stuff at the store. Last time I bought milk, though, what I could see was dated for today(and this was the 29th?). I wasn't going to touch all of it to get to the back ones.

weatherking2019

I'm also the Open the fridge" type.
I don't have the time to make a spreadsheet and keep updating. The only list I make is the Grocery shopping list.
This lock down has made me creative. I know what I have and I try making something new or different. It's working out nicely. I think I'm spending less too. The only additional shopping is the produce. We go through veggies a lot.
No wasting here! And if it ever looks like it needs to be used quick, I make soup or freeze for veggie stock.
Trying not to waste.

lynn_glenmont

EnterNihil wrote: »

Hi, can anyone recommend anyways to keep track of food inventory? I'd like an easy way to remember what perishable foods will expire soonest in my home.

Thanks!

I let MFP remind me. When I get home from the grocery store (back in the pre-COVID days when I went to the grocery store ) , I "prelog" in the next day's diary all the foods I consider perishable that I don't want to forget about (if I consider something a "breakfast" food, I log it under breakfast, etc.). If I make something from scratch that is more food than I'll eat in one meal, I prelog that to the next day as well. Ditto if I open a can of something that I don't finish, cook something from the freezer I don't finish, order carryout and have extra, etc.

Each evening I copy all those perishable foods that are prelogged in tomorrow's diary to the meals for the day after tomorrow. When tomorrow becomes today, I have all those potentially perishable foods staring me in the face when I look in my diary, and deleting these I don't eat that day or adjusting the quantity for whatever portion I actually eat is really quick.

If I use up all the strawberries, for example, I delete them from the next day's pre-logged meals when I adjust the quantity in the current day's diary, so that when I copy the prelogged meals in the evening to the day after tomorrow, I'm not copying any foods I've already finished.

That probably sounds really complicated, but it doesn't feel complicated to me.

EnterNihil

awesome, thanks!

Hobartlemagne

I made a blank spreadsheet (with lines) that I fill out by hand as I cook. I keep it on the fridge.
We're a family of 3, but my wife and I both bring our lunch to work so we cook many portions of each meal.
I write the meal name and date made. I have 8 checkmark boxes to represent how many servings remain. If I start with fewer than 8, I scratch through the extra ones.