Rubbermaid - Adventures in Organization

Being Organized to be a Grocery Deal Hunter

I recently found out that September is National Coupon Month.   What a reason to celebrate!  Those who know me realize I LOVE coupons and deals. So, in honor of this holiday, I dedicate today's post.

My love for grocery coupons started about 5 years ago when I started working on advertising for Rubbermaid and was learning how to plan and drop coupons in the Sunday newspaper for our food storage [Fun Fact - Officially, those are called FSIs - Free Standing Inserts].   So, I started to get the paper and look at it on Sunday to learn more about it, and soon became addicted to looking for myself!  It is now something I look forward to on Sundays - a good cup of coffee and my newspaper!

Just last night, I went to my local Harris Teeter and saved $27 on a $47 purchase.  So, I only paid $20 for my groceries.

I know there are a lot of experts out there (check out Jill Cataldo, she is my new favorite), but wanted to share my personal tips and tricks for how I stay organized to be a grocery deal hunter. 

1) ORGANIZE WHEN YOU CLIP

I have found this helps me to refrain from buying items I don't need.  For instance, I recently had to throw out 3 cartons of broth I had bought with coupons.  However, in the summer, not making soups, they expired and I ended up losing money by being overly coupon zealous.

Above is a photo of my organizer which is sorted:

a) By store. 

The front is for grocery. 

The back is for Target items like toiletries and cleaning supplies that are most efficiently bought at Target.   Even with tripling, Harris Teeter can be more expensive than the every day Target price on these items.  Every time I am going to Target, I take a look to see if I need anything that is in that section soon.

b) By Type of Purchase

Triple Coupons - Within grocery, there is a section for items to only buy when there are triple coupons at Harris Teeter.  For instance, I do not use mayonaise daily. But I sometimes use it for recipes. If there is a $.75 coupon (worth $2.25 on triple coupon times) and mayonaise costs $1.89, I will save it to get it for free in case I need it.

Everyday Shopping - There is also a section by area of the store - so when I plan my shopping list, I can quickly see if I have coupons

2) UTILIZE ONLINE SITES

A few of my favorites are SmartSource and Coupons.com for which you can sign up for weekly emails.  I like it being delivered to me because then I don't have to plan to take time to look for the savings.

3) ALIGN YOUR MEALS WITH STORE SPECIALS

I am so impressed with Harris Teeter.  They have an eVic program that you can sign up for weekly.  Every Wednesday, I receive an email with the items I frequently buy that are on sale and also what is on sale in the entire store.  It also alerts you if it is Triple Coupon Week.  I spend 5 minutes to plan my shopping and meals for the week.  I look for:

a) Things I already buy and have no preference on switching.  For instance, I eat fruit daily and yogurt for breakfast every morning.  When shopping, I switch between blueberries / strawberries / grapes as well as yogurt brands depending on the deal that week.

b) BOGOs.  For instance, this week, London Broil and Turkey Burgers are Buy One Get One Free.  So, I plan to incorporate those into my meals this weekend.

I hope you find my tips beneficial.  Please leave comments with any additional tips you may have for Organizing Coupons and Savings.

Solving Space issues with Slide Out Baskets

 

About two weeks ago, I did a blog post about Slide & Stack baskets and how many versatile ways they could be used to help organize throughout the house.  Similarly, I thought I would share how the Under Shelf Basket works in many areas in my house.

 

 

The Under Shelf Basket clamps down to wooden or solid surface shelves and allows you to take advantage of “dead space”.

Here are four ways I have used them:

 

 

 

 

Please post any creative ideas you can think of beyond what I have listed by Tuesday, May 26th at 1pm EST for the Under Shelf Baskets.  Shannon who works on the Kitchen Products team will judge the best creative idea and we'll send the winner a case of Slide Out Baskets to get organized! 

Spring Cleaning with Slide & Stack

We have an item in our kitchen product portfolio called Slide & Stack.  Every time we switch our color offering, they do a giveaway of the outdated colors in our office.  Over the years, I have collected a ton of these, and I was joking with our product manager, Alissa, that I had one in every room in the house!  

I would say the most unusual use would be in the freezer.  To save money, I buy chicken in bulk and put them in individual freezer baggies so I can save them for later use. I was frustrated with them always tumbling out of the freezer, so the Slide & Stack has helped keep them in order!

Just wanted to share the ways I have used it in my house case it can help with your Spring Cleaning challenges. 

I'd love to help one of you out - leave a post below about why you need a few of these Slide & Stacks.  Alissa, our product manager, will guest judge these on Monday 4/27 @ 1pm and we'll select a winner to win a case for their Spring Cleaning!

Pantry Organization - Label It & Stay Organized

A while back I decided to organize my pantry. One of the things I didn't do when I originally completed the project was to label my containers. Just last weekend I finished labeling all of the containers in my pantry.

It only took five minutes but it will save me a ton of grief. Look at the photo above. If those canisters weren't labeled how would I know what was in them? White flour doesn't really look different from bread flour.

Anyway, label, label, label. You'll be glad you did.

Small Kitchen, Big Storage

My kitchen is very small. I'd say about 2 people at a time can be in there. Space is very limited and I have to make every square inch work for me. Fortunately, my cabinets reach all the way up to the ceiling, giving me lots of room to play with.

The storage space (that is too high for me to reach without a step stool) ends up getting filled with large serving bowls, small coolers, light bulbs & utility items, vases, etc. This works out very well for me since the rest of the house has virtually NO storage space. So, I guess the smallest room in the house ends up being the most space efficient!

Since I don't spend a lot of time in the kitchen (I'm getting better though), my food and cooking utensils don't take up that much space. Since my roommate moved out, I really only take up two shelves with dry food. Don't be alarmed - it takes time to build back your pantry after a huge "clean out".

If I'm going to only allow for 2 shelves of food I must keep this valuable real estate organized. Armed with Dymo label maker and a plethora of food storage containers, I went to work. First step was to take everything out and put it under "review". Can I throw it away? If it's a keeper, does it need to be in a better looking or better sealed container?

I decided the flour needed to be transfered. But it ended up on the floor. Did you know that when you have a flour accident, everything within 5 feet gets blanketed?

After I dug myself out of that small detour, I managed to get everything transfered and labeled correctly. I filled things such as flour and pasta in Double Airtight Sealed Canisters. I put other items such as packets of tea and hot chocolate inside Premier containers.

I know the labeling will help me out a TON with remembering how old my food is. I'm the queen of letting things sit until they go bad! Plus, I really like how it looks in my pantry. There's something about a well organized pantry that makes me want to use my kitchen more! I know exactly what I have, I know that's fresh and I know where it is!

Now that makes me want to cook! I'll let you know how my next dish turns out. Grilled cheese anyone?

Labels are your best friend when organizing

A few weekends ago I completed my pantry organization project. If you read the post you'll see I was very satisfied with the results. My pantry was 300% better than it was before.

However I made a mistake. I forgot to label some of my canisters. Specifically the large canister where I store flour. You ask, how could that be a mistake. Well... I know the canister has flour but I don't know what type. Is it white flour, wheat flour, bread flour...  I just don't know (Actually I know it's not white flour but I'm not sure if it's wheat or bread flour).  Nor do I know how old it is.  I also don't know what type of beans are in the other canisters although I bet my wife knows.

Many of the canister I used I kept the original label inside of the canister. This way I know exactly what is in it.  I should have done this with the flour.

So, learn from my mistake. Be sure to either label your canisters or tear off the original label and store it inside the canister.

An Organized Pantry – It wasn’t so hard

I don’t know if you remember but back on September 24 I wrote a post about how I needed to organize my pantry.  Well... time flies. It took nearly 2 months to get around to starting the project but I finally found some time and it’s now complete.  Honestly, I wasn’t putting it off. Between swim meets, soccer games, family visiting, etc. I just didn’t have the time or energy.  But anyway, it’s done now and I’m very happy with the results.

Let me recap some of the issues I had with my pantry. I had plenty of space and lots of shelf space.  There was just no rhyme or reason to how stuff was arranged and (this is a big one) I had a bunch of stuff I didn’t need cluttering everything up.  Clutter… my arch enemy.

The first step I took in my Saturday pantry organizing project was to assess the situation. For me I walked into the pantry, took a good look at everything in there, made mental notes about what we used frequently, what we never used, what worked, what didn’t work and how I might be able to improve the usability of the space.

Step two, which was probably the most important step, was to take a deep breath, walk away, and make myself a cappuccino (I’m a vanilla soy milk fan).

With a double shot cappuccino in hand I then began pulling everything out of the pantry and placed it in related piles.  Pulling everything out and sorting allowed me to see exactly what I had.  This was a very eye opening step. Why exactly did I need seven lunch boxes?  Was it really important to keep all of the kindergarten and 1st grade art projects in the pantry?  The answer is… I don’t need seven lunch boxes and there is no reason to keep art projects in the pantry.

The sorting and purging process is an extremely important step. This is where you need to really dig down deep and determine if you really need to keep all the ‘stuff’.   During my purging process and got rid of nearly 50% of the stuff in my pantry.  Some of it I put away elsewhere and some of it got tossed.  For example all of the kid’s art projects got stored away in a single Rubbermaid tote in my attic. That’s where all the kids school memories stuff go.  Numerous half used candles got tossed.  Appliance instruction manuals got stored in a small tote with all the other home warranty information.  Old magazine, recycled. Some of the lunch boxes went to Goodwill.  Fortunately for me my wife was out of the house when I did this. Otherwise I may not have been able to be so generous with the purging.

A key takeaway from this process is… “The pantry is not a storage area”.  It’s a working area of the home that should be used for as intended. I have plenty of other areas for ‘storage’.

Moving into the final step of the project was to take note of what was left and determine the best way to organize the pantry.  A couple things I took into consideration were: how my children utilize the space, the most frequently used/accessed items, the least frequently used items, and the groups of items that needed to be put back away.

I started with the stuff the kids needed to access. I decided to use three large Rubbermaid dishpans to hold the random snacks (granola bars, pudding, chips, etc) they kids grab.  I knew they would help in keeping the pantry organized so this method will allow them to be disorganized within a confined, organized space.  I also placed the dishpans on a low shelf so they had no problem reaching them.

Then I moved onto the pasta and rice items. To store these items I transferred all of the pasta and rice into nice storage canisters. This allows for easy organization. I decided to keep part of the label in the canister so the cooking directions were always at hand (in case I actually needed to cook it myself).

The canned goods went on two lazy susan turntables in the corner of the pantry. Now we can spin the turntables for easy access to all items.  Cereals also went down low for the kids to have easy access.

In general most of the food items where placed on the wall you immediately see when you open the pantry.  The non-food items such as batteries, light bulbs, wraps & bags, etc. were placed on the left side of the pantry.  The small appliances such as crock pots, bread makers and waffle makers were placed on below the shelving.

All-in-all I consider this to be a very successful project.  For me, a successful organizing project comes down to a few important steps.  The first is to assess the space, then sort & purge, and finally organize in a way that makes sense for how you live.  Oh… I can’t forget the maintenance part of the puzzle.  Staying organized is an ongoing process. You can’t just organize and forget about it. You need to stay on top of it. Five minutes here and there will ensure your space stays clutter-free and organized.

- View the complete photo gallery on Flickr
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Organizing the Pantry

How many of you want to get your pantry organized? So do I. My pantry IS NOT a disaster like my garage was, but it could use a refresh.

I have plenty of space but it's not being utilized very well.  The reality is we let our 11 year old daughter 'reorganize' it to earn a few dollars.  She did a nice job of getting everything neat and orderly but it wasn't really efficient or usable. It's hard to find things, items we use frequently are hard to get to, etc.  It's now time to tackle this project and put things in order.

As always I have a few ideas about how I should tackle this project but I'm completely open to your input and suggestions. I look forward to hearing your comments and am excited to share the results in the future.