The Weekly Organization Tip For A Tidy, Odor-Free Fridge

We have a helpful tip for your weekly kitchen cleaning that will keep your refrigerator from getting smelly and the food inside from going bad. Each week, take a look through what you have chilling in the fridge and rotate the items that are closer to expiration to the front. It's similar to a grocery store's first-in, first-out system.

This tip will help keep those often forgotten foods front of mind. A quick glance at the fridge and you'll know right away what you need to use up. And the process of rotating helps you take stock of your ingredients and leftovers (check our guide on how long those leftovers will last). It helps to choose a day, like Sunday evenings, and stick with it. Then, once everything is rotated, put the most recent purchases further into the refrigerator. Use up the older cheddar before you break open that new block. This is more of a preventative measure to help you keep bad smells away. If it's too late, no shame, we have a guide to getting rid of bad odors in the fridge right here.

Using this first-in, first-out method is a great way to keep track of your food without letting it go to waste, but while you're organizing, there are a few other tips to keep in mind. One helpful hint is to make sure your fridge isn't cramped. Keeping space between food and leaving space in the back of the fridge along the wall will create better airflow. When you have spots in your refrigerator where some things freeze while things in other places stay warmer than they should, this could be due to the cool air not having space to spread throughout.

There is one spot in the fridge that, no matter the spacing for cool air to flow, will be warmer than the rest — the door. Every time you open the refrigerator, the items stored there will fluctuate in temperature. This is why we recommend you stop storing your eggs in the fridge door. So, while it can be tempting to place your close-to-expiring items there, it's best to keep them on the shelves.