31 Days to a Minimalist Lifestyle Day 8

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 7's post.

Time to tackle that ever-growing plastic container collection! It really feels like those plastic containers multiply while we're not looking and they are such a pain to keep sorted and neat. Lids go everywhere, you can't find the matching bottom to the top, or you can never find the right size container for your leftovers. I think most of us just have too many containers. Have you EVER used ALL of them at ONE TIME? If not, you definitely don't need as many as you have.

In our home, we are working on switching over to glass containers or plastic ones that are BPA free. Due to cost, this is not happening very quickly, but we're making progress. I (shamefully) have all of the plastic containers and lids stored in 3 different places in the kitchen-above my fridge, in a corner cabinet that does NOT have a lazy susan, and in a cabinet near the sink. Here's a before shot of the main plastic container storage area:

It's not too bad, I know, but there's a lot of extras in there that we just don't use. FYI, all of our glass containers/lids are in another location. Now you can sleep tonight. ;) 

I then pulled my pots & pans and other big items out of the corner cabinet:

Not shown is my large 10qt stock pot. It's stored in the hall closet because it's used 2x/month or so when I make bone broth. These pots plus my cast iron skillets get quite a workout in my kitchen!

Check out this pile of stuff I pulled out! It filled an 18gal trash bag!!!

Here's the "after" shot of the cabinet. Not exactly as minimal as I would like to go, but there will be outrage if I got rid of too much too soon. I managed to put more stuff in it, consolidating my storage containers to this one location (yay, me!):

 Here are the few oddball containers that just don't fit in here-our ice tea jug, giant ceramic popcorn bowl, salad spinner, and a few large plastic bowls/lids. Oh, and tools for the grill, too.

Here's a peek inside my lazy susan-fee corner cabinet. You can find everything easily-whoo hoo!!!

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