The Incredible Shrinking Refrigerator

Good advice above, to start with! Impulse buying is probably my biggest problem. 😳 I’m a keen cook and love to experiment!

I often find myself with far more food than I could eat in a month. No room in the fridge, or the cupboards, for that matter...but then nothing to eat either!

Some of it is not about ‘nothing to eat’ but ‘nothing I want to eat/can be bothered to prepare and cook’. When it’s that I just make myself do it, or decide I wasn’t hungry anyway!

I also empty my fridge once a week, give it all a wipe down whilst I can, then rearrange stuff so the items that need using up first are at the front. This helps a lot with food waste because not only can I see immediately what I should use I’ve also spent all day knowing what was in there so have already subconsciously formulated a vague plan on how to use it.

Same with the cupboards, but that’s more like once every two weeks that I go through and mentally inventory/tidy them.

A lot of space is taken up by jars and jars of condiments. Sometimes people have multiple bottles of the same exact ones and more than one open. Check the expiration dates on all of them. Make sure all similar items are grouped together

I try and eat down the contents of my fridge/ freezer and pantry 1-3x a year. Check the expiration dates of the food in your pantry too and if bought something "aspirational" that you won't make donate/ give it away before it goes bad.

I keep most of my seafood frozen and only put in fridge the day before I eat it.

Most veggies and fruit don't need refrigeration so that saves tons of space.

I don't drink anything other than water and the very occasional glass of wine, so there are no huge bottles taking up valuable space.

I sort my fridge according to temperature, the top shelf being warmest, the bottom coolest. The top shelf is used for leftovers, mushrooms and defrosting fish.

Middle shelf is eggs and berries.

Bottom shelf is Ezekial and lavash breads and wraps, along with carrots and celery.

Door is bottled ingredients like salad dressings, fish oil, mustards, pestos, one bottle of wine, 1 bag of Hershey dark chocolate kisses and the butter container.

Cheese drawer has cheeses and sugar snap peas.

Crisper drawers have veggies that need refrigeration like lettuce, spinach and brocolli.

Meal plan, eat leftovers until gone before putting together something new, stick to a grocery list more often than not, only shop for 7-10-14 days max at a time if planning to eat things that can last a week before being used. Condiments get checked and ruthlessly culled 1-2X/year. I eat down pantry, cabinets, and both freezers at least once a year as well since I will stockpile when raving deals on things I routinely use are present.

The only times I have a fridge space logistics problem is when I impulse buy BOGO free chicken breast family packs or pork shoulders are under $1.49/lbs. when I look. But the problem only lasts until the chicken is poached and the shoulders turned into carnitas/caramel pork/etc. and all frozen.