*The tip below was sent out last week in the weekly Rosy Blu Hints & Tips email. But unfortunately, since it appeared to contain a too-good-to-be-true offer (take a look at the intro and you’ll see what I mean! But read on, it’s all true), it got caught up in a bunch of spam filters and almost no one saw it. The tip is so good though, that I can’t bear to know it was only seen by a few people…so I’m reprinting it today on the blog! If you like what you read below, be sure to sign up for the email newsletter, because I send out these nuggets every week.*
You’re going to love this tip, and I’ll tell you why:
- It requires NO immediate action. (High five for laziness! Ahem, I mean, efficiency.)
- It will save you time later.
- Oh, and it’s going to save you money, too.
It sort of feels like cheating…but I promise, it’s not.
One of the spring cleaning tasks I do annually is clear my pantry and freezer of all the food we’ve stocked and stored since bountiful summer–canned goods, frozen fruit, soup mixes, rice, meat, freezer meals…you name it, I hoard it like nobody’s business. Spring cleaning is when I take everything out, ditch the past-its-prime stuff, clean cupboards, defrost the freezer and put everything back in preparation for a new season. (I’m also hoping to organize it better this year, but that’s a whole other story.)
Spring cleaning is just a few short months away, so NOW is the time to implement this week’s tip:
In preparation for cleaning your pantry (or fridge or freezer)…start buying FEWER groceries right now.
This week, I’m shifting gears in my meal planning to focus heavily on eating food we already have, rather than adding more to our stockpile. It’s my goal to only buy the ingredients we need to complete a meal using mostly things we already have.
After a month or two, our cupboards and freezer will be mostly bare, which means that spring cleaning is going to be a BREEZE—because we’ve already done half the work by lightening the pile of food. In the process, I’ll be saving money by purchasing less food in the coming weeks, and I’ll also end up wasting less food when I get around to the actual purge.
Just this afternoon, I took stock of our freezer and found ingredients to make a one rhubarb pie, lots of peach and banana smoothies, and at least two dinner’s worth of chicken pot pie. And that’s just this week…I’m so stoked.
If you happen to come across any extra jam or jelly in your pantry, check out my blog for 3 delicious recipes to use up extra jam.
