Tips like these helped us pay off $127K in debt. You can read our story in Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After.
Welcome to 31 Debt Free Missions! A new feature this year on Queen of Free, during each day in January, I will provide 31 concrete missions or challenges for you to take on to #SlayDebt and take charge of your finances this year. Each mission will take you less than an hour (some will only require 15 minutes). Whereas, 31 Days to Kick Debt in the Teeth (which I’m reworking this year and reposting in January, too) focused on some of the philosophical changes you need to make in order to be successful with money, 31 Debt Free Missions are action steps to put into place after you have your thinking straight. Even better, during the month of January, I’m revisiting each of these challenges in order to sharpen my money saving and debt slaying skills.
Are you ready? Your mission is as follows:
Day 7: Reorganize Your Pantry
Ok friends, full disclosure just so you can walk around inside of my house for a few minutes. I am a messy messerson. There is almost always a pile of laundry on the couch in my living room. Sometimes it’s folded, sometimes it’s not. And it’s staring at me right now. I typically have a sink full of dishes. And it may or may not be the 7th day of January currently and in my living room remains a fully decorated Christmas tree. I don’t want you to have an unrealistic view of my life. I’d fail any Suzy Homemaker quiz you might post on Facebook. The struggle is real.
I feel like I just had a serious therapy session. Confession is good for the soul.
What I do know is that when I’m more organized I am more productive and when one is more productive in one area of life, it bubbles over to others. So your debt free mission today is one in organizational nature. You need to clean out and/or re-organize your fridge, freezer, pantry – wherever you store food.
Primarily this will help your family effectively plan meals and use the food you’ve already purchased. But it will also help you sleep better at night.
What You See First, You Eat First
I’m guessing some of you are also aiming to be healthier in the new year. This mission could have double the impact for you. You need to put healthier, more filling foods in the front and at eye level. This will help you make better choices so you can stay full for longer and avoid traps of high calorie, low satisfaction foods – which you eat more of and then spend more money to buy and the vicious circle goes on and on and on forever and ever amen.
This principle is also useful for using up items that will expire soon. There is nothing quite so frustrating to me as throwing away food. Yes, I can compost some of it but not all of it. Americans waste around 35 million tons of food totaling close to $165 billion. I’m sad to say I contribute to that some times.
Organizing your foods will help you save money and rescue food. Yay!
You Need a Pantry Top Ten
Everyone needs 3-4 go to meals that they could fix with little effort and maybe even have all of the ingredients on hand to prepare them. The best way to go about this is to have a Pantry Top Ten. I share mine in Slaying the Debt Dragon but yours might look slightly different or even evolve over time depending on allergies or changes in taste. Cleaning out your pantry could help you build that list so that when things get crazy (because you know they will), you easily have a fall back plan that doesn’t involve the drive thru.
So you’ll use what you’ve already bought, avoid blowing your restaurant budget, and sleep better. Seriously, why aren’t you doing this yet?
Keep a Running List
While you clean out your food sources, it’s important to keep a running list of what you might need to purchase. I highly recommend my free printable meal planner for both jotting down what you’ll eat this week and tracking your grocery list.
Rinse. Repeat.
Unfortunately, this is not a one time only debt free mission. You’ll need to return to the practice at least once a month (if not once a week) to effectively use the foods you have. But again, the benefits involve healthier foods, a robust dining out budget, and better sleep. Who wouldn’t want in on that.
How do you keep your food organized? What tips would you offer?
My book is now available: Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After. You can also check out Inspiration to Pay Off Debt: 30 Days of Encouragement from the Queen of Free
This post contains an affiliate link. That means when you get a great deal or maybe even something for free, you also help our family pay off our mortgage early. And for that, we royally thank you!
I created an entire shelf in my refrigerator just for leftovers, and put a magnetic note on the door that says “please eat leftovers”. I also wrote family favorite recipe titles on color-coded notecards (red = beef, orange = pork, yellow = chicken and turkey, green = meatless, blue = fish, pink = other or mixed meats). This helps when I’m menu planning, I don’t like eating the same meat two days in a row so I can use the cards to quickly see the month and shuffle things around before I commit it to paper. I also leave three or four days a month labeled for “Leftover night” and we make sure to finish up anything and everything in the fridge and cupboard that might go bad soon. I even freeze one or two servings of leftovers if I made a huge soup or stew, and that gets heated up on leftover night. Lastly, every four months, I inventory everything, and write a menu based around what is currently in the house. I only spend about 30% of my food budget that month for fresh veggies and milk. So basically I’m only spending 11 months’ food budget every year, and I never have anything expire!
WOW! You are on it. I’m so impressed with your careful planning. To keep things on track you need systems like these. Get after it girl!