No one method will work for everyone, so keep looking for the method that works for you, and if you have any methods, ideas or tips, please share with us via email or comment so we can share with all our readers.
This was one of my favorite methods that came in.
Buy colored circle stickers for a couple of bucks at the grocery store/office supply store.
Assign a color to each year (make a chart for easy comparison) and label your food according to its expiration date. Then when you are looking in your closet/under your bed/on top of....whatever, all you have to do is look for the sticker to tell you the current year, or earliest expiration, you don't have to keep peering at the tiny date on the boxes/jars.
After I go through all my current storage, I am going to keep my stickers in a kitchen drawer, so as soon as my groceries come home they get a sticker before being put away.
When you label, think about where the food will be stored, and which part of the food item will be visible, and attach the sticker to that side. You want to be able to look in your "food storage area" and see at a glance when your food expires.
You would only have to do this for the 3-Month supply, because longer-term storage should last more than 10 years. When 2008 is over, the green sticker will then be for 2012.
As I was typing this up I had an idea. (I love it when that happens.) The circle stickers come in two color schemes, so you could buy both and then have two stickers for every year. One denoting the first six month, and the second the last six. That would be an even more accurate system. Well, I'm off to the store for more stickers!
Other Rotation Methods
2 comments:
I like that sticker idea! You can just see everything at a glance. Great tip. I always just stick the cans in the back when I buy them, and use the ones in the front when I use them. But as my storage is growing this is not as easy to manage any more (less space in between items, double-stacked cans, etc.)
This is a great idea. To simplify even more, just grab a sharpie and write "9" (for 2009) on everything. It is the same idea only you don't have to worry about running out of stickers or the cost of stickers. You could even get a colored sharpie if you like the color.
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