Consider keeping a running inventory of dinner items in your freezer, fridge, and pantry. I keep a running list of the contents of my freezer to make meal planning easier (especially since my mother in law cooks most of our meals and she has limited freezer space). It’s not that difficult after you make the initial list. Plus you will always know when you need to replace something and if you have room to store a large purchase.
Here’s my freezer list. I made a video of myself dictating the contents of the freezer on my phone and then typed it up.
Meat
- Family size assorted chops
- 2 packages of ground turkey
- Eye of Roun Steaks
- 3 rolls of ground beef
- 2 4 count packages of hamburger patties
- 2 whole chickens
- 2 pork tenderloins
- 2 packages of hotdogs
- 1 pound of ground turkey
- 4 Beef Tenderloin strips
- 6 Vidalia Onion Hamburger Patties
- 8 individual steaks
- 2 large packages of ground turkey
- 4 3ct packages of chicken breasts
Frozen Veggies
- 3 Healthy Colors
- 7 Broccoli Cuts
- 4 Broccoli, Cauliflower, and carrots
- 4 Asparagus
- 5 Asparagus Stir Fry
- 2 Green Beans
- Sugar Snap Peas
- 5 Seasoning Blend
- 2 Squash
- Normandy Blend
- Oriental Stir-fry
If you are new to Couponing, you might want to take a moment to read more in my Getting Started Couponing series. It will teach you how to coupon like I do!
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
So jealous that all that fits in your freezer! I think I could store about half that in mine (a side by side with my fridge). I am grateful I have a freezer with any storage though!
I do love having my list of what’s in the freezer. I tend to only update it every few months instead of as I pull it out, but it still helps to look at it and see what I’ve got for dinners or what nuts/berries I have for baking.
What is a beef tenderloin strip? Do you mean 4 whole tendtenderloin? Wow
I do the same thing, only I don’t need as many items since we’re only 2. I love your blog, thank you so much for sharing this info with us. I started couponing about 1 month a go. I discovered your blog only a few days ago and I have learn a lot.
I’m really thankfull I found your blog. I really needed a teacher.
I use the same idea, too! I have a list and have it organized by shelf. So on my list, I have “Shelf 1″ and then under it I list items. I even keep boxes of cake mixes, brownie mixes, flour, bags of rice, dry pasta, etc…. It is do nice to just look at my list and send either my hubby or my child to that shelf to find it right away. As I use items, I cross them off my inventory. Every month or so, I revise the list and print it out. Of course, when we come home from the store and add items to the freezer, I just handwrite those in. It’s been such a blessing and we really use items up before just making nonsense spending trips for food that we don’t even need. I am thankful for our extra freezer in the garage……the one in the kitchen is a side/by/side and I agree, it is hard to stock pile a lot of food in those. We just keep the common items inside there that we get to often.
I haven’t created a list like this, but have been wanting to for some time. What I have is a list of cake and cookie mixes in order of expiration so when i decide to bake I’m going in order. I learned from a personal experience.
I did try to do a menu thing. I made a list for lunch and listed everything we could have for lunch and also dinner, but that got too complicated. I will try this though.
I have tried to keep an ‘inventory’ list of everything we have, but after every grocery trip and another week’s worth of meals, it’s nowhere near accurate anymore. Do you have a spreadsheet format or something that you would advise using in the future?