When stockpiling groceries and other items, to save from making unnecessary trips out shopping, whether it's by using coupons, sales, or just your savvy shopping sense and skills. Be sure to rotate the items in your stockpile, like the grocers do, by putting the oldest items in front to use first. Check product expiration dates. The longer you have a food item, it'll eventually lose it's original taste. Aerosol cans tend to lose their spraying ability (ex: deodorant, shaving cream, etc.)
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The easiest way to do this is by quickly taking a marker and dating the tops of cans, or packages with the day you bought them. I do this with frozen foods too. When buying bulk hamburger, I seperate it into smaller packages, label and date them. Dating encourages rotating.
Tressa
When rotating stockpiled goods, I always put the newer items at the back of the shelves and the older items at the front. In addition, I put the newer items upside down until I have used the old ones first; then I turn the new ones right-side-up.
My husband and I started the New Year by organising our pantry and freezer. We inventoried everything we have onto an Excel spreadsheet. We made sure to include the expiration dates and location of what we have on hand, but from now on we're going to use a permanent marker to write the purchase date on new stock, too-what a good idea that is!
We're on a fixed income and find that buying in bulk when we find things on offer makes our pence and pounds go a lot further, but we really needed to organise everything so we wouldn't go to the cupboard or pantry and find (as we did on New Years, lol) that the pasta expired last century!
We printed out the spreadsheet and I have it in the household binder. We'll update it and reprint once or twice a month. Having it printed out has been a great help regaining control of our store cupboards; I can plan meals more efficiently plus make out a sensible grocery and resupply list.
The household binder is a real help organising our life! The first part of the binder is a day planner/diary with the first page being a 2012 calendar, and the next pages are the individual months with each month followed by four-five pages of a weekly do-list and the printout of the inventory spreadsheet. The last pages of the planner section are for addresses and phone numbers, including websites. The last section of the binder organises my owner manuals for washer, cooker, sewing machines, etc.
Because I have the spreadsheet in the current month/week list area, I can easily plan a weekly menu and grocery list without having to go back and forth. It really helps me stay organised. I can rotate the groceries and other stocked supplies much more efficiently now!
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