31 Days to a Minimalist Lifestyle Day 17

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 16's post.

After chatting with some of the parents at Bryce's Montessori school, I realized that there is a need to continue work  in the kitchen for another day or so. The parents I was talking with were discussing how they never seem to know what is in their pantry either because it's too full or because it's too messy. If you are lucky enough to have a pantry, that's what we're tackling today! If you don't have a full-on pantry, you can go through wherever you keep your dry goods, canned goods, etc. For some, that might be a cupboard, for others, that could be in a hall closet or down in the basement.

The goal here is to organize everything, pull out what is expired, find a few things to donate, and then plan meals around using what is in your pantry! Making do with what you have versus running out to the store for a few ingredients is part of adopting a minimalist lifestyle.

These are not the best photos around. I used my son's iPod to take them (because my camera is in his Boy Scout backpack which is currently located in my husband's trunk...LIFE WITH BOYS!).

 My pantry opens up and there are shelves on both doors (see my spices here). When you open it up, you see a set of hinged doors. It's not looking too bad, considering I haven't done a major overhaul of this pantry in almost two years! (view that post here.) I'm not slovenly, I promise. But who has time to regularly clean out a pantry? I know I don't. I mean, I know I don't make time.  Right. I don't "make time."

Behind that set of doors are long shelves that run across the back. This is the left side (mostly baking things and our bread machine):

This is the right side which is a bunch of odds & ends, including my son's SodaStream machine. He likes bubbly water.

I pulled everything out, wiped down the shelves and figured out what needed to go. I combined half empty bottles of olive oil, tossed old baking powder, and organized what was left so it made more sense (to me, anyway.)

This is a picture of a few things that I removed-empty glass jars for recycling, glass canisters to be donated (they are just too heavy to be practical!), some expired food and a few items for the food pantry at the kids' Scout church.

Here's the front of the pantry when you open up the doors. I put the frequently used oils, vinegars, etc on two shelves on the left side. Then I organized the remaining canned goods so they fit the shelf space and made sense (garbanzo beans with garbanzo beans, for example.)

The back left side of the pantry is still baking goods, but they are corralled better.

The back right side of my pantry now holds all the dry goods (which I like to put into glass jars) potatoes, Bryce's safe dry goods, etc. My son's SodaStream is on the bottom.

And the best part is that I went shopping in my pantry and have figured out 2 or 3 meals I can make with things I found. YAY!!!

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

Day 10 spices

Day 11 mail

Day 12 linen closet part 1

Day 13 linen closet part 2

Day 14 donate!!!

Day 15 outdoor spaces

Day 16 bakeware

linked to A Bowl Full of Lemons