User Friendly Fridge and Freezer Tips

You never want to play Jenga with your food. Some refrigerators are stacked up so high, if you try to pull something from the bottom the whole pile comes crashing down on you. This can be dangerous if this happens in front of the freezer! Nobody wants to come home and find you knocked out cold by a frozen leg of lamb.

 

All kidding aside, refrigerators should be organized on a regular basis for several reasons. The first is that you want to be able to open the door and see just about everything that is inside without digging around. The second is your health. Old foods can make you sick, even if they look and smell okay. They might even taste fine, and still if they are too old, you may be exposing yourself to dangerous bacteria. When in doubt – toss it out! Lastly, when you hold the refrigerator door open and start rooting around, you are wasting energy (which equals wasting money). No one wants to do that!

If you shop at a warehouse store, keep in mind that you have a finite amount of space in the refrigerator and freezer. Try not to buy so much food that you are forced to stack things. The food doesn’t last forever and it hurts to throw away food that has spoiled.

Start with the fridge door. Condiments and items in glass jars are generally located on the door for easy access. Check their expiration dates and toss anything too old. Avoid putting milk on the door as it might spill when the door swings open. Some refrigerators have built-in egg holders where you can take the eggs out of the carton and put them individually into a holder. Eggs stay fresher in their original carton, but many people use the egg holders anyway. Your fridge, your choice.

Now it’s time to tackle the rest of the inside of the refrigerator. Drinks take up a lot of space, sodas especially. Ideally, keep a few of each type of drink in the fridge and the rest can be nearby in storage. No need to fill the fridge with boxes and cans that may take weeks to use. If the excess is in storage, you can quickly see when you’re running low.

You can purchase stackable shelves if you feel like you need more surface area. They can be used in the freezer as well. Some people use Lazy Susans to have easier access to foods. When buying containers for leftovers, try to purchase clear containers. You will be able to see what is inside without having to take the container out and open it. Shelf liners can keep items from rolling around or falling out. 

Put taller items in the back so they do not block the view. Milk or juice may be the tallest items. Check the milk’s expiration date. The old smell test works well on milk! If it stinks or is lumpy, well, you know what to do.

Vegetables go in the crisper. Deli meats (last about 3-5 days after opened) and cheeses go in the deli drawer. You can buy “grocery green bags” that will keep produce fresh longer than the clear plastic bags or leaving vegetables loose. Check the cheese for mold. Harder cheeses tend to last longer. Wrapping cheese in tin foil is magical – it delays mold from forming. Raw meat, like a package of hamburger, should go on the bottom shelf. Generally speaking, the lowest shelf stays cooler than the upper shelves. The more perishable the food, the lower it should be. Speaking of temperatures, the refrigerator should be set for about 33-38° F. If food is above 40° for two hours or longer, it should be tossed.

Leftovers are a wonderful thing. Sometimes you just don’t feel like cooking, and having a meal of leftovers works fine. Most leftovers will be okay for 3-4 days. It is recommended that you reheat them at 325° F or higher to kill any bacteria. Maybe you can’t remember if the food is from Monday or Tuesday. Put dates on leftovers to help you. If there is no place to write the date, just write it on masking tape and stick the tape on the container.

After you finish with the refrigerator, it is on to the freezer. The temperature of the freezer should be no higher than 0° F to keep food as fresh as possible.

If you have a chest freezer, they are a bit of a pain to organize. You are forced to stack things on top of each other, and can end up digging around. Try to rotate the food and put the oldest things on top so you use everything before it goes bad.

Always freeze foods before the “sell by” date to ensure it will be okay to eat later. Raw meat will last 3-4 months, cooked meat 2-3 months. Raw chicken is good for about 9 months, cooked chicken about 4 months. Mark these items with dates too, this is especially important if you repackage the meat. Sometimes chicken will be on sale and you want to buy a big package of it. When you freeze it, you can divide it into amounts you will need for one meal. Put the chicken or meat in a freezer bag and mark the date on it. Soups and casseroles can be frozen and will last 2-3 months. They can be placed in clear containers or freezer bags. Frozen dinners can stay in the freezer 3-4 months. When putting anything in freezer bags, try to squeeze out as much air as possible to avoid freezer burn. Containers stack a lot better than freezer bags, but there will be more air in them. If freezer bags are made as flat as possible before they are frozen, they can be stacked too.

Frozen cakes, cookies, brownies, and other desserts can be frozen. It is much easier to individually wrap one portion of each and store them in labeled gallon freezer bags. They will thaw quicker that way. And, you are only thawing what you need.

Organizing the refrigerator regularly is ideal. Clearing out food that is past its prime is best done the night before trash day so it doesn’t sit outside in the garbage inviting wildlife to come for a snack.

Inbox Intervention

The great thing about email is that it is instant. If you wait days and days before you answer the mail, it removes the best thing about email. By keeping your inbox free of clutter, you will quickly discover that it is easier to get to the important messages and answer them on a timely basis while weeding out the unnecessary junk.

The first step is to set up some folders. If you do not know how to set up folders, there is a “help” menu with instructions in whatever email system you use. These folders will be in your inbox and will act just like paper folders in a file cabinet. You can sort and file away messages and reduce your inbox clutter.

If you set aside a few minutes each day to clear out your inbox, checking your email will be a lot less stressful. Set up an appointment on your calendar to do this each day. Try doing this towards the beginning of each day.

Set up a file for each child, your mom, newsletters, school, online purchases, work items, etc. as you need them. Avoid printing out a lot of emails. It is a waste of paper, especially when you can either save the photos, other attachments or text elsewhere on the computer for future reference.

If you have copied multiple people on your outgoing message, every time someone responds and hits “reply all” you will see all of the incoming messages. You do not need to keep all of those. If there is a long conversation going back and forth between you and one person, only keep the most recent as it generally has the entire conversation within the email.

Spam and junk mail... Just saying it, can anger people. Most people get boatloads of junk email every single day. Go through and delete those right away. Legally, the companies spamming you must have an “unsubscribe” statement at the end of the email. You can unsubscribe to these companies individually, or give unsubscribe.com a try. They are dedicated to help eradicate unwanted junk email. Unfortunately, some spam is impossible to stop. If that happens, you can set up your email to either block that particular sender, or put their messages immediately into the trash folder.

If you make purchases online, and most of us do, you will get emails from those companies. Put all receipts, confirmations and shipping emails in a folder you set up for online purchases. As you check out when making your purchase, there is generally a box (they automatically check “yes” for you) asking if you want to receive offers, ads and even newsletters from them. This is a way to get you to keep coming back to buy things. By un-checking the box when you make your purchase, you will cut down on mailings from them.

All of your emails can be divided by the 4 Ds of decision making: DELETE IT, DO IT, DELEGATE IT, DEFER IT.

Loads of emails can be discarded once they have been read. These include the amusing jokes, stories and funny pictures that constantly circulate. Does the message relate to something current? No? DELETE it! Why keep information that doesn’t relate to your main focus? Does the message have information you can find elsewhere? Yes? Delete it. Does the message have information you may refer to in the next six months? No? Delete it. You can always save the information into a file on your computer if you think you will need it later.

Next, does the email require a task or response that can be done quickly? If so, DO it. If not, place the email in the appropriate folder for later.

If you can’t do the job quickly, is there someone else who can? This can be a tough one for some people, but DELEGATE if you can.

If all else fails, DEFER any action until later.

Everyone’s email has a limit to how much data can be stored. Depending on the mail server or system you use, the amount of space varies. If you have too many messages in your inbox, especially if they contain attachments like photos or other files, your inbox may quickly fill to capacity. Any emails you get at that point will be returned to the sender. You do not want to miss important messages.

Once your email is sorted, deleted or tasks completed, you can go on about your day without that cluttered inbox haunting you all afternoon. You have the sense of accomplishment and a manageable inbox.