10 Tips For Organizing Your Fridge For a Healthy Lifestyle

Is your fridge organized? Are you tired of wasting food because it goes bad because it was hidden in the back? Are you trying to make healthier choices?

Time to organize the fridge. It’s easy for it to get messy and overstuffed so even after my organizing project, it’s important to do a weekly refresh to make sure it stays organized.

The last few years I’ve been making lifestyle changes for better living for my family. An organized and stocked fridge full of healthy and fresh food is key to living better through simple solutions. An extra bonus – an organized fridge also helps you to save money by not wasting food and encouraging you to eat at home instead of grabbing more expensive prepared foods.

I made a trip to the store to pick up some fresh food, drinks and a few containers for organizing. Once home I emptied everything out of my fridge, tossed everything that had expired and wiped down the fridge. A sparkly clean fridge just makes me smile.

1. Keep it stocked: Cooking meals from scratch is often healthier (and more budget-friendly) than eating out. To make it easier, I make sure to keep a well-stocked fridge and freezer. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, lunch meats, healthy drinks. bread and tortillas. I always keep an updated grocery list so I never run out of key ingredients – I use Wunderlist app (which unfortunately is going away so I need to find a new one) on my iPhone so I always have my list with me when shopping.

2. Keep it visually appealing: Sparkly clean fridge. Cute bowls. Clear glass containers full of colorful fruits and vegetables prepped to eat. Containers. Fun labels. Patterned shelf liner. Sparkly clean. When your fridge sparkles and makes you smile, your fridge will provide you with inspiration to cook a healthy meal or reach for a healthy snack.

I found this great shelf liner at Walmart – its both visually appealing and makes for easy cleanups. It has a grip bottom to keep in place but it also easily removed.

3. Storage bins: I love to organize with containers. I’ve found they are so useful for organizing things – everything is grouped together so it’s easy to find. Everything is also neater because it’s nicely contained to a specific spot.  I use a mixture of ceramic bowls and plastic baskets in my fridge.

The bottom drawer of my fridge is huge taking up the entire width of my fridge. Food was sliding all over the place. I added three plastic paper trays to divide the drawer into sections – lunch meats/bacon, cheese, and tortillas.

4. Make it simple: Have fruits and vegetables washed and cut so it’s easy to grab a quick snack.

5. Keep drinks chilled and easy to grab:

I also picked up these great baskets which store drinks perfectly and make it easy to grab a drink and go.

5. Water bottles: I regularly use reusable water bottles but always keep a stock of bottled waters to easily grab for outings to the water park or baseball game – these venues allow sealed water bottles to be brought in which then makes it easy to stay hydrated with healthy water instead of consuming less healthy drinks.

6. Turntables: Turntables are a great organizing tool for small items so nothing gets lost in the back. I have one in my fridge along with several in my cabinets.

7. Labels: I love to create labels and have an obsession with my label maker. Not only do I love the look, but I’ve found them to be so helpful for family and guests – everyone knows where to find things and more importantly, return them back to their correct home.

I printed my labels on clear label maker tape and applied them over a bright green polka dot washi tape.

9. Leftovers Shelf: It’s great to put all the leftovers in one place so that these get used up before they start growing mold and become unidentifiable. I also keep a Sharpie near the fridge to date bottles when I open them and use freezer tape on containers of leftovers so I can mark them with contents and date.

10. Meal Prep Shelf: I have a shelf to organize all the ingredients together for dinner so its to know that I have all the key ingredients and don’t risk having a family member snack on an ingredient that was being saved for my dinner recipe. I like to keep a glass baking dish on the shelf for meat in case of drips. Much easier clean up than having to wash the refrigerator fridge shelves.

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