Pantries and Preparedness. Making most of space... an issue for all of us!

I have been busy on my preparedness the last couple of weeks with organising my bathroom related products and also over the counter tablets and medicines.  Having a nice set of shelves has given me somewhere to keep everything together.

I found some baskets that sit just right on top of my shelves. They are pretty big so will hold lots!

Also now I have a decent sized wall cabinet which can hold (out of harms way) tablets and medicines.  The thought of not having pain killers after a life time of migraines is too much for me!  I buy things like this on big specials.   Apart from safer storage I can see what I have (which is a lot).  I found some just right containers that fit perfectly inside this cabinet.
At one time I didn't even know that over the counter medications came on special.  They sure do!  I often see big packs too so much cheaper than regular prices.

This is it so far. Still a little way to go!

As I was doing this Rosanne said to me to get rid of packaging and I would fit in much more i.e. toothpaste boxes.  As soon as I did this I had so much more room!

All of this has meant going through all my supplies and re organising basically everything. Now I have made space where I had none!  But I have better track of things!

Vicky was talking about this subject with me too.   She spoke about it in terms of downsizing.  This can be applied when literally downsizing your home,  trying to make the most of the space you have, wanting to store more when you are thinking your shelves are already full!
She wrote this for us:

Today I would like to talk about downsizing. I think everyone has either been in a situation where we have to downsize or possibly will be at some point in our lives. 

The decisions can be so hard as to what to keep and what to get rid of?  Smaller spaces can be so challenging and using a space to it's fullest potential difficult. You can look back to some of the examples that were shared in previous posts for ideas, just don't forget to look up and down, under and over to maximise space. 

The downsizing I want to discuss today is pantry downsizing. What? We're trying to build pantries and I am talking about downsizing? 

I am by no means talking about getting rid of everything in the pantry at all, but having been doing this for so long I wanted to share some examples of downsizing so we all know that actually getting rid of things in the pantry is ok and why. 

Over the years I have over couponed and gave boxes and boxes of those coupon deals away to others, they made great gifts, but 400 bottles of laundry soap take up a lot of space. So I have one set of shelves in my gross old laundry room that holds enough supplies to last me a long time and plus I have the stuff to take up making my own again should I not get anymore free or really cheap. So I downsized and gave the rest away. 

From experience deodorant also can be had cheaply, but it was a good thing I did gift the most of it and only kept a year's supply because deodorant may not technically expire, but if it gets old it stinks. Like an old bottle of perfume. 

Our tastes have changed some over the years and of course the people who live here have changed too. So with 40 boxes of cereal sitting on a shelf and it not getting eaten it finally dawned on me that my youngest is not a cereal eater. So those were given away. 

Other things that we didn't eat, but they had useable ingredients like pasta, beans or dried veggies I kept the ingredients we do use and the rest went to the chickens or dog food. 

And most recently since I don't seem to need as many I am downsizing the feminine hygiene products. I will gift the bulk of them to my DIL and keep a few packs for emergencies and some of the tampons for part of emergency lighting or medical supplies. 

Since I paid pennies on the dollar or nothing for any of these things it isn't costing me much to gift any of it to others and it gives me room in the pantry to stock what we eat now. I still have plenty of pouches and boxes of instant foods for emergencies like power outages and I have either a year's supply or close too it of most of the things we do eat since my plan should we need to implement it is simple foods that are hearty and filling. 

So do you need to revisit the pantry and evaluate what you have? Have your tastes and eating habits changed? Are you stocking for someone else as well and have their tastes changed? If so it is ok to downsize and make some room and fill the shelves with the bargains that you now eat and use. 

I have gotten some flack for giving so much away, but I am quite confident with what I have, can grow and the wild edibles we have that we will not go hungry. The skills that we acquire and the pantry knowledge we learn guarantees success in building the pantry! 

XOXO

Vicky

Thank you Vicky! She is busy as she has been totally re doing two whole rooms of her house. One room will be her new pantry! So we are all working away on our pantry projects!  I can't wait to see the finished result.  It is Vicky's Victory Pantry! 

Recently I pulled out everything from the kitchen cupboards, washed them out and put it all back in again in a better order... and of course as you go you find things that need to be tossed out, you know NO ONE is ever going to eat and things that don't even belong in your  pantry!    After all of this I was surprised how much spare room I had!  And now I can find everything and know exactly how much I have of any given category!

This week Rosanne was doing the same.  It was good as all week we encouraged each other to keep going!  At one stage she was telling me so much was out on the bench she doubted she would ever get it all back in again! (above)

But she did and you can see the boxes she covered in contact to form organisation trays. 

What an impressive pantry!  

Reducing packaging certainly creates space. Many boxed items are half air! When you open them they are half empty!  

The other thing is there is often a choice on how you store things. There can be several versions of the same thing. Take stock... you can buy stock as a ready to go liquid in cartons.  It also comes in tubs in a concentrated form. You could use a canned soup. You could use stock powder or stock cubes....  

The amount of space this all takes up o your shelves will vary enormously!  If space is an issue then this is a subject worth thinking about.

The ultimate space saver would be to make your own stock and save your money and pantry shelves! I do this but I would also  keep some alternatives i.e. I keep stock powder for just in case.  But that is a small tin that goes a long long way!  

And this leads us to next weeks subject.  Things that you can make yourself from very basic ingredients.  This will save you an enormous amount of money and a huge amount of storage space!  It will likely save you a lot of chemicals as well.    Knowing how to make these basics from scratch is a very good skill as well.  Most are super fast and easy!  Each time you adopt one your grocery expenditure shrinks!  Or look at it this way... as you spend less you can build up your pantry more with those savings!  It is all a win/win! 

I can finally move on from sorting out bathroom supplies but it was really good and now I know exactly what I have.  Big improvement! 

How did you improve your preparedness or build up your pantry last week?

We have pouring rain here.  I hope to get everything back in place around the whole house and gets lots done.  Have a very good week! xxx