A lot of people who own a free-standing freezer pretty much ignore that freezer until the time is approaching for Pesach and they may need to use up any chometz in it. I'd like to recommend a different approach.
Before and during the chagim of Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot a lot of freezer inventory may have gotten used up. Now is a good time to clean the freezer and reorganize the contents, making a list of what is in there. Come the end of this month and the beginning of November a lot of people will start stockpiling freezer items. Colder weather brings with it less of a desire to be constantly out there and shopping. Inclement weather may make shopping difficult or impossible for some. Hearty soups, not all that much in demand during hot weather, are appearing back on menus. Most of those soups are excellent candidates for freezer storage--make the kitchen messy once and have the benefit of soup for 4-6 weeks.
But it's not only freezer inventory that you should be taking--it's a good time to get into your pantry/food storage areas and see what you have. If there are staples that you use on a consistent basis, check out the sales, clip those coupons and stock up now. Do the same for other types of goods such as cleansers and paper goods. And as with the items in a freezer, make a list of what you have on hand, and check items off that list as you use them.
A friend admitted that she had had to ditch a whole bunch of grocery type items she had in her pantry because she didn't know how many she had, bought too many replacements and ran up against a lot of products way past their expiration and/or use by date. And a little note about those expiration dates on products: while you're doing your inventory move those products that will expire soonest to the front of the shelf so they get used.
There's no chag coming up until Chanukah so we're not busy now with the extra preparing for a yom tov. Use this "free" time to save yourself aggravation and loss of money, not to mention avoiding running out of things you use regularly. Make up an inventory of what you have, and then actually use it to control what goes out of and into your house.
3 comments:
You mentioned the dreaded P word and in October no less!
My mother's answer to the freezer inventory was a different one. She left that inventory for the first snow storm of the season that cancelled work and school. Since we were all home because it was too freezing to go outside, we all helped her shlep things out of the freezer and make up the lists. If it never snowed the freezer got left until before the P word. Never knew whether to pray for snow or not.
Deceptively simple, yet a great idea.
I too, had decided to take freezer inventory at this "natural low point".
Have I gotten around to it?
Oh, look! Is that a bluejay I see out the window?
Lol G6, it was a cardinal that sidetracked me. So could we sort of say that taking inventory is "for the birds"?
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