Inventory: Pantry

Even though I stayed up late last night and didn’t fall asleep until about 12:30am, I still woke up at 9am this morning! While I’m kinda bummed that I didn’t get to sleep in, I’m really happy that my new sleeping schedule seems to be sticking. I inherited insomnia from my dad so I know what it’s like to not have any sort of sleep pattern at all. This is definitely preferable.

Because I didn’t really get to celebrate my birthday with Brent yesterday because he had to work, today he took me out to Roger Williams Park Zoo because that’s my FAVORITE place to go! We’ve been meaning to go for a while, but it kept being bad weather on the days we wanted to go. I had SO much fun! It was really hard work with my feet being the way that they are, but I trucked through it and now I’m resting in bed. After the zoo we went out to Panera for lunch.

Brent and I spent a good 15 minutes watching this scene transpire between the Snow Leopard and the squirrel. The squirrel was taunting the leopard by standing on the top of this tree stump and the leopard was intensely watching it the whole time. Brent and I were debating about whether or not the leopard could even jump that far, but then our argument was settled when we saw a sign that said Snow Leopards can jump 50 feet!

Brent thinks it’s kind of funny, but my FAVORITE animals are goat. Goats and buffalo. And kitties. And guinea pigs. But goats are definitely my favorite. I love Roger Williams Zoo because they actually have this little area where they let you pet the goats! As you can see, I spend lots of time with them whenever I go.

Greek salad and Grilled Cheese at Panera.

This morning before we went to the zoo, I decided to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a really long time. Take inventory of my pantry! A problem that I have when I go grocery shopping is that often I buy stuff for recipes that I already have in my pantry because I can’t remember if I have something or not and don’t want to be wrong and then not have the ingredient.

As you know, because I’m a coupon-er, I have TONS of stuff in my pantry. I’m really happy that I finally wrote it all down so I can reference it whenever I want to. Another perk of doing inventory was that I was also able to organize everything, because I took everything out and put it all back in. I ended up gaining a lot of extra room for more stuff because before I was just shoving things in anywhere and not maximizing the space of the cabinets.

Making an Inventory for your Pantry:

1. Make sure to set aside about an hour for this task. I was definitely surprised by how long it took me to do this.
2. Grab a chair and your laptop and set up shop at the nearest counter area.
3. Take “before” pictures of your pantry (comparing them after will make you realize how much you accomplished!).
4. If you have enough room, take everything out of the pantry. If you are stuck with limited space like I was, take on this task one shelf at a time.
5. Separate your list (I used Google Docs to create mine) into categories. My categories ended up being: Beverages, Cereal, Salad Dressing, Condiments/Pasta Sauce, Baking, Canned Goods, Soup, Pasta, Cleaning, and Other. But of course you can make your categories whatever you want to. I only made a separate category for salad dressings because I have SO much of it.
6. List each item under the proper category. For each item, make sure to include: How many of the item you have, What the size of the item is, What the brand of the item is.
7. Place everything neatly back in the pantry optimizing the space as much as possible. I didn’t do this, but I know some people like to prioritize their items with the newest stuff in the back and the oldest items in the front.
8. Make sure to check your list before going shopping each week so that you don’t buy what you already have. You could even plan recipes specifically around what you know you already have!
   

I only included non-perishable items in my inventory. Each week I buy all the perishable items I will need for snacking and specific recipes and then usually don’t have anything left over. Including those items in my list would be a waste of time because I usually know off the top of my head what ingredients I bought that week. But feel free to add whatever you want to your list! This list also doesn’t include any of the items I have stored in my freezer. I’ll be writing another post next week about doing inventory on your freezer!