At first glance, my pantry seems a little over the top. Most people see all the bins and the labels and assume I’m some sort of neat freak. Trust me, I’m not…you should see my bedroom right now .  If fact if those same people would look closer, they’d realize that these bins aren’t designed to maintain perfection but rather used to help me save money, time, and endless “Mom, where’s the peanut butter?” type questions.

I used to have a normal pantry, but it caused all kinds of problems. First off, I found myself buying extra stuff all the time because I could never remember what I had. Now I can do a quick scan of the bins and make my grocery list. I also hated that my family couldn’t seem to grasp my invisible system. Most items had a basic location in my mind (you know, bread here, cereal there, etc.) but no one else seemed to be able to keep it up.

Now, my 6-year old can unload all the groceries and put stuff in the right bins. Another annoyance with the old system was that I found myself making several trips to the pantry to get various ingredients for whatever I was making. Now if I’m making cookies, I grab the whole Baking Supplies bin and bring it to the counter. Before the bins, I used to find M&Ms and chocolate chips spilling all over the shelves. Now if something spills, it’s contained so it’s tons easier to clean.

I started with just two bins, but found them so handy that I quickly filled up my shelves with a dozen or so. I’ll list them here:

Treats: Candy, popcorn, marshmallows, etc.

Beverages: Hot chocolate mix, Crystal Light, Kool-Aid etc.

Dessert Supplies (I have two of these): Chocolate chips, pudding mix, frosting, sprinkles, cupcake liners, nuts, birthday candles etc.

Baking Supplies: Baking soda, vanilla extract, baking powder, Crisco, cocoa, etc.

Pasta: Boxed pasta, soup noodles, etc.

Lunch Supplies: Mac & Cheese, Ramen noodles, peanut butter, etc.

Dinner Supplies: Rice, bread mixes, seasoning packets, bottled marinades, etc.

Canned Soups: Soups

Canned Produce: Canned fruits and veggies

Snacks: Chips, raisins, fruit snacks, sack lunch fillers

Baking Products: Bags of flour, sugar, salt, yeast etc. (whatever’s left in the bag after I fill the containers in the spice cupboard)

These cheap bins have lasted 6 years now. I change the labels every few years, but the bins have never needed replacing. I have a pretty large pantry now, but in our smaller apartments I used the lids and stacked the less used items under the more common ones to conserve space.

As an added bonus, they also made moving from one place to another a breeze. I just put the lids on, stacked them up and taped them all together with packing tape. Simple, cheap and easy to maintain! Just thought I’d pass it on.  You can find the free file download for the labels below.