At last count, our pantry contained three open packets of rice, two jars of cumin and a tin of something with no label, which we have agreed never to discuss.
If that sounds familiar, you don’t need to become a spreadsheet person. (I’m the spreadsheet person in our house. It’s a lot of pressure.) Here are the simplest ways to keep track of what you’ve got.
Why it’s worth doing
- You stop buying doubles. Hello, fourth jar of cumin.
- You waste less. Food you can’t see is food you forget.
- Meal planning gets easier. It’s much easier to plan dinner when you know what’s in the cupboard.
Method 1: The whiteboard (easiest)
Stick a small whiteboard inside the pantry door with two columns: “Running low” and “Use soon”. When something gets low, write it down. When you write the shopping list, check the board first.
Good for: households that want the simplest possible thing.
Method 2: The zone system (tidiest)
Give every kind of food a zone, and keep it there:
- Breakfast shelf: cereals, oats, spreads
- Baking: flour, sugar, vanilla and chocolate (in our house, the biggest shelf)
- Dinner basics: pasta, rice, tins, sauces
- Snacks: at kid height, in a clear tub
- The “use first” basket: anything open, or close to its best-before date
When everything lives in the same place, one glance tells you what you’ve got. Our free checklist has a box for every shelf.
Pantry staples checklist
the basics shelf by shelf, with boxes for “have” and “buy”
Download the pantry staples checklist (PDF, A4)Method 3: First in, first out
When you unpack the shopping, put new items at the back and older items at the front. It’s how supermarkets do it, and it means the oldest packet gets used first. Simple, and surprisingly effective.
Don’t forget the freezer
The freezer is where good intentions go to hibernate. Keep a list on the freezer door (or on your phone) of what’s in there, with dates. Once a week, plan one freezer meal into dinner.
Method 4: Snap your receipts (no typing)
The problem with every inventory is keeping it up to date. The easiest way is to not type anything at all.
In My Tomte, you snap your supermarket receipt and the shopping unpacks itself into your fridge, freezer and pantry (on screen, sadly; you still have to carry the bags). When you cook a meal, the ingredients come off the shelves. So the inventory stays up to date on its own, and the shopping list only includes what you actually need.