A head start on “spring cleaning”

Posted on Mar 04 in personal stories, pictures say 1000 wordsby TalinaPrint

I am happy to report that almost a year after moving in to our home I’ve finally started to get that “excited to get things decorated and in order stage”… Just had to get past the pregnancy and parent with a newborn stages of life.

I spent today and much of the weekend straightening, ordering and unpacking stuff. Remarkably the house is taking on more and more of a homey feeling as we get things in order. Amazing concept huh?

I’ve shared with you the war zone that was the garage before, basically we just piled boxes that we hadn’t gotten to unpacking and dealing with in there, and they’ve been there for about a year or so now.

As N has been building his planting boxes these last two weekends I’ve been tackling the garage madness. I am pretty much OCD when it comes to things being organized and orderly. I aim for efficiency but am also super anal about having like items together and easy to find, etc.

Getting our “grocery store” in order has been a touch overwhelming for me since we lack shelving for organizing and ordering. You see we don’t have a pantry in our kitchen so all our bulk foods and pantry items that don’t fit in the few cabinets we have end up out in the “grocery store”. It is a mess out there.

I don’t often talk about the “grocery store” because many have criticized and mocked it but in reality it is how we like to do things and it is what works for us. We have about a month or more of food stocked up at any time. Here is what I am talking about:

Allow me to explain, we are not hoarders or doomsday preparedness nuts (though we like the idea of being prepared for an emergency, it is not what drives us) nor are we Mormon or driven by our religion to be stocked up. I am simply a money saving freak and avid couponer. When stuff is on sale for super cheap I totally stock up. This is commonly referred to as a stockpile in the coupon community.

Most all of the stuff you see on those shelves we got for less than a dollar each… For example I got those Campbells Soups for about $0.12 each. How can you pass up $0.12 for a can of soup?

Anyway, I tackled getting the stocked food in somewhat of a logical order and I even rigged up a makeshift root cellaring bin for our bulk potatoes and onions that we also store in the garage.

Root cellaring is another thing we are going to really test out this growing season because we’d like to be able to save and use up as much of the garden harvest throughout the year. Sure canning and dehydrating preserves produce but we’d like to have some fresh produce stocked up and on hand for use too.

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3 Comments

• Donna B. says:

  March 5, 2010 at 3:08 am

  You can save a tremendous amount of money by simply having enough on hand to make a meal. I see nothing wrong with your stockpiling method!

  Though I no longer do it (mostly because I don’t have to) when times were tougher for us and when I lived 20 miles from a grocery store, I made menus, grocery lists, and kept an inventory list of infrequently purchased items such as spices. One of the first things you learn owning a restaurant is that running out of something costs a LOT.

  I’m very pleased to see that if I should ever have the opportunity to visit, you will have coffee
  Donna B.´s last blog ..But At Least It Doesn’t Sound Like It Looks
• Michelle in AZ says:

  March 5, 2010 at 11:13 am

  Love the idea of having a “grocery store”! You shouldn’t be criticized for it, there’s a big difference between stocking up and hoarding. I’m envious and wish I had the forethought to buy items ahead of time instead of just what we need for the next week or 2. Good luck with the organizing, planning, etc.
• Talina says:

  March 5, 2010 at 10:26 pm

  We should visit you! We are so excited to explore this part of the country. Your state especially!

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