31 Days to a Minimalist Lifestyle Day 10

I am writing every day in October--taking on the challenge set forth by The Nester for bloggers to write a "31 Days to..." blog series. I'm tackling Minimalist Living and you can click here to read Day 8's post.

I know, I know, I missed a post yesterday. I have no good excuse other than I was busy with day to day stuff plus, my kids wanted dinner. They want dinner every day! You'd think they could skip a day or 2 once in a while.  hee hee

Back to it-minimizing what we own to work on having a more minimalist lifestyle.

Spices! Everyone has them-but do you USE them? Do you use them ALL??  Are you keeping paprika from 2008 because you "might need it again?"  Spices, when opened, do have a shelf life of a year or less. They lose their flavor & potency the longer they are opened and that's no good for cooking.

If you aren't using all the spices in your cabinet, consider getting rid of them. Toss 'em in the compost (not salt, don't toss salt in your compost.) Keeping spices in your cabinet will not translate into making you a better cook in the same way that keeping books on a shelf does not make you smarter. You have to use the spices or read the books to gain anything.

Here's my spice collection. It's a small collection, directly linked to dealing with food allergies. I honestly don't want to find out if Bryce is allergist to thyme the hard way (by feeding it to him) so we stick to spices that I know he is fine having. I also use a lot of fresh herbs from my garden (basil, rosemary, parsley).

I have an awesome pantry and I store the spices (mostly) in the door. But they get shoved around and put back in strange places, so they get a bit out of order.

I pulled everything out, wiped down the shelves, and removed the spices that I know are old or that we don't use. I also re-homed the zip-top bags.

 

I then put everything back in and added a few items that I originally believed didn't fit in the door. 

Amazing! It all fits--and in much less space than I was previously using.

Day 1 email

Day 2 magazines

Day 3 kitchen tools 

Day 4 junk drawer

Day 5 bathroom counter

Day 6 first aid & medicines

Day 7 kitchen sink

Day 8 plastic containers