Organizing a Small Refrigerator

It’s not easy to organize a small fridge when you’re trying to feed a family of four, especially if you’re trying to eat healthy. An organized fridge will make it easier to store awkward items and also gives you a visual indicator when something’s missing so that you know what needs to be added to the next shopping list. I keep a master shopping list on a magnetic dry-erase board that I’ve attached to the outside of the fridge door. I can write items on the board and double-check the master list before going to the grocery store.

The door of the fridge has shelves attached. Just move those up or down to the size you need. The door is the best place to store condiments, butter, canned goods, and if space allows, bigger items such as milk cartons or kool-aid pitchers. In the main fridge compartment, we store sodas on the shortened top shelf. On the next shelf, we keep sandwich meat tucked away in the back underneath the drip tray. This is where I also like to store prepackaged veggie snacks. The rest of this shelf is for storing leftovers. The next shelf is the organized shelf. This is where everything has a place and if something’s missing, I’ll know immediately what it is. I store fresh, raw eggs in their carton and I have a plastic egg container sitting on top that stores boiled eggs. The rest of this shelf holds three plastic storage containers I bought at Wal-Mart. One contains my snack items such as hummas, yogurt, and cheese. The second one holds the kids’ danimals yogurt drinks. The third one hold applesauce and the kids’ yogurt. On the bottom shelf is where I keep a gallon of milk, a pitcher of tea, a filtered pitcher of water, and a plastic container that holds tortillas. The two small drawers on the bottom can be replaced with clear drawers if you’d like. One drawer contains veggies and the other contains shredded cheese, cheese slices, cream cheese, and pepperoni.

Organizing the fridge may be intimidating, but once it’s done, you’ll be able to find everything inside and know when you need to go grocery shopping. Even a small fridge will operate more efficiently and be easier to maintain.