Having a refrigerator inventory is important when you are starting to meal plan. Having the knowledge of what you already have on hand and what needs to be used first makes a lot of sense. Keeping your inventory updated and cleaning out the fridge helps to minimize food waste, saves money and reduces your stress levels.

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5 Reasons For a Refrigerator Inventory 

#1 Stress Reduction

Who doesn’t love reducing their stress levels when it comes to Meal Planning?

I know that it makes things so much easier for me to follow my Trim Healthy Mama meal plans. Following those plans saves us time, money and stress. I have to admit that when I put off doing our fridge inventory it causes me a lot anxiety when I’m trying to find everything to make one of the meals on my menu. In fact, it has been an excuse in the past for me to look at my husband and say “just order out”.

# 2 Organization

When our refrigerator is organized without those weird science experiments in the back on the bottom shelf that everyone forgot about, I can see and find what I need easily for whatever I am making or if we need to finish up leftovers.

I love these bins to Organize things where we can find them easily.

Investing in organization has been a huge hurdle that I had to overcome, the nicest part of it is that once you make the initial investment it pays off over time.

# 3 Reduces Food Waste

Reducing food waste is something that I really focus on, especially since our children are all grown and we are a family of two. I was so used to feeding hungry teenage boys who were very active and big eaters. My husband was used to eating a bowl of minute rice pr something equally unhealthy for dinner when I met him.

I do a lot of what I call “component cooking” to keep our food waste down. Component Cooking is similar to “Batch Cooking” where you cook 1 ingredient or part of a recipe and then store it so that you can dump and go. This works really well for us as I have started an outside the home job and getting dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less has become necessary.

One of my favorite “Component” foods is Turnips — you can see How to Prepare Instant Pot Turnips 

# 4 Saves Time

Having a refrigerator inventory saves me time when I am writing my grocery list, shopping at the store and preparing meals. I don’t have to search for something only to find that I don’t have enough. Or scramble to see what I can substitute for a needed ingredient such as cottage cheese for my Peach Berry Whip or beets to make the Beautiful Beet Kavvas from the Trim Healthy Table Cookbook.

# 5 Increases Your Cold Storage

Purging old condiments frees up space. Organizing and storing your ingredients properly gives you more space and let’s face it refrigerator space is at a premium when you follow a healthy lifestyle like Trim Healthy Mama.

These are My Top 5 Reasons For Needing a Refrigerator Inventory. What are yours?

 

This is one of the posts that supports The Healthy Meal Planning Workshop.

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