10 Tips to Organize Your Fridge for Back to School!

10 Tips to Organize Your Fridge for Back to School, or any time of year!  Practical and easy to implement ideas.

I actually can’t believe that I’m doing a back to school post! But the start of school is really not that far away (I mean, who’s counting…)!  And I figured I better get organized during this week while I actually have some down time before we go away again.  So this week I’ve been cleaning, organizing and getting school supplies for the kids all ready.  I’m finding if I don’t do it now, the stores are darn near cleared right out by the end of August!  So the kids now have their new clothes, shoes, backpacks and supplies!  Don’t you just love new school supplies?!

So after all that shopping was done, I turned my sights to my home.  You may have seen my confession on Facebook about my home being a D.I.S.A.S.T.E.R.  I’m talking like a bomb went off kind of mess.  Stuff everywhere.  Floors that desperately needed steam cleaned.  Laundry that needed put away.  An overflowing pantry.  And a very disorganized fridge.  I may have mentioned before that I’m kind of a neat freak…having things organized and clean just makes me feel good.  For me house chaos = mind chaos!  And I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I took advantage of a few rainy days and got my life organized!

Starting with my fridge.

Organizing my fridge was not such a hard task, considering I was lucky enough to have been given a Frigidaire Gallery® French Door Refrigerator at the beginning of this summer!  Now that my fridge has been here for a while it was time to really make it my own.  So I got busy with some ideas that I used in my previous fridge, and put them to work in my new fridge…

Tip #1:  Fridge Mats

I like to use mats on the shelves inside my fridge so that if you have a spill, or your fridge needs a good cleaning, all you have to do is remove the mats and give them a quick wash in your sink.  I just bought some cute placemats from our local grocery store, and cut them to fit the tops of my shelves.  So now, clean ups are super easy!  And how cute do they look?!  Even your fridge can be pretty!  😉

Tip #2:  Organize your Fruit & Veggie drawers:
Make a drawer of washed, prepped and ready-to-eat fruit & veggies.

We eat a lot of fresh fruit and veggies in our home, so the crispers are always full.  Like really full, and a bit overwhelming for the kids.  So why not make one crisper just for ready to eat fruit & veggies?  This makes packing lunches and snacks super easy!

Tip #3:  Organize your Fruit & Veggie drawers:
Or make one drawer just for fruit and one drawer just for vegetables.

That way, everyone knows where things are when they need something to snack on.

Tip #4:  Storage bins are your friend.

For me, packing lunches is one of my least favourite things to do.  I really, really don’t like this task for some reason.  But it’s not so bad if I can at least find things properly (for some reason yogurt containers flee to every corner of the fridge…no longer…we keep ’em contained).  I like to use labelled containers in the fridge to hold juice boxes, snacks and yogurts.  That way things are easy to find, and it also helps me keep track of what is getting low on supply.

Tip #5:  Keep lunch meats, cheeses and snacks together and within easy reach.

Now that I have this full width drawer, making lunches will be even easier!  I’m using it to hold all the lunch meats, snacks and cheeses I need for the kids lunches.  Easy to reach and easy to find means it’s easier making lunches!

Tip #6:  Get your kids involved in lunch making too!

Keeping on that same thought…having deli meats and cheese accessible, it also makes it easy for the kids to help make their own lunches!  When kids can visually see what they have to work with, they are often more than willing to pitch in and help make their own sandwiches!

Tip #7:  Have breakfast items within easy reach.

Now that my kids are old enough, they can get up and get their own breakfasts ready.  So I make sure that what they need is easy to find and easy to reach.  I use a container to hold all of our jams so they don’t have to search for them. And we keep the milk and juice accessible too.  I love this because as moms/dads we feel like we have to do everything but we don’t.  Having the kids make their own breakfasts is good for them and good for us because it helps to make our school mornings run so much smoother for everyone.

Tip #8:  Keep ice packs handy for lunch kits.

I always put ice packs into my kids lunch kits, and I cannot stand it when I have to dig around in the freezer trying to find one.  So now I keep a bin full of them in the freezer.

Tip #9:  Make your kids empty out their own lunch kits and put away their ice packs when they get home from school.

Get your kids involved in keeping things organized.  The first thing my kids do when they get home is empty and clean out their lunch kits.  They know where the ice packs go, so I don’t have to tell them.

Tip #10:  Organize your freezer into zones for lunches and weeknight dinners. 

When the kids are in school, our meal patterns change too.  Weeknight dinners need to be more thought out and organized, so one way to do this is to keep my freezer organized too.  I have my freezer separated into different zones, so that I always know how much of something I have.  Things are easy to find.  Just the way I like it.

Here is how I organize things:

• 1 bin for ice packs
• 1 bin for raw meat
• 1 bin for cooked, leftover meat
• 1 bin for bread products
• 1 bin for frozen juices
• 1 bin for frozen fruits & veggies

I hope that you were able to get some organizing inspiration here for your own home!  Do you have any fridge tips to share?  Leave a comment if you do!

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Have an organized and lovely day!

Disclosure: I am part of the Frigidaire Canada Ambassador program with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.