10 Things In Your Home That You Should Get Rid Of: Kitchen Edition
Consuming new products is something we all do, whether it was a gift from someone or on clearance and you figured “why not, its on sale!”. Things keep piling up until you get to the point where your cabinets are hard to close and your drawers are hard to open because a spatula is being forced to stick up in a weird position. This is an obvious sign, it’s time to do a clean-out. Even if you aren’t running into these exact problems, I know there’s at least something on the following list you haven’t gotten the chance to go through in a while. Here’s a list of 10 things that you should just get rid of!
1.Water Bottles
Is there a reason we all own so many water bottles? I know that I, myself have way too many, some don’t even have lids at this point. The thing is, we probably don’t even use them all! Ones with dents and that don’t have lids anymore, toss! A good rule of thumb is 2 water bottles per person in your home. This way, if one is dirty you still have another to use.
2.Old Pots and Pans
Pots and pans are expensive, this may be why we hold onto them for so long. At some point it’s time to bite the bullet and replace the ones that are no longer in good shape. Whether they have a loose handle or the non-stick coating is coming off (probably into your food by the way). Another thing to go along to your pots and pans, make sure your lids actually match!
3.Expired Food
It’s nice to know you have backup food in the pantry in case you don’t get a chance to run to the grocery store and get yourself into a pickle. These days, I’m sure we all are stocking up on food just incase we have a repeat of the grocery stores looking like a zombie apocalypse is about to happen, like we did last year. Keeping this in mind, it’s so wasteful to hang onto food and have it go bad. Not to mention, it is taking up precious space in your pantry. If it is going to go bad and you know you won’t use it, donate it! If it has already gone bad, obviously time to toss it.
4.Coffee Mugs
This is my personal weakness, especially being from Seattle- coffee pretty much runs in our blood! Buying people coffee mugs as a gift seems to always be a go-to for a lot of people. I have received numerous coffee mugs for the holidays and just hang onto them. There’s no reason to hang onto more than 4 or 5 coffee mugs as a single coffee drinker in a household. No matter how tempting the mug section is at TJ Maxx or Target, stay strong!
5.Kitchen Towels
We use kitchen towels every day to dry dishes, our hands or to clean up messes. Especially if you are a little bit more on the environmentally friendly side and no longer use paper towels. After all the work we put our kitchen towels through, washing, etc., they stain and fray and get worn down. Picking up a fresh set of towels for the kitchen is one of those adult satisfactions (almost as good as opening a new sponge)!
6.Tupperware
The dreaded Tupperware drawer! There’s nothing worse then trying to pack your lunch early in the morning, trying to rush and you can’t find a matching Tupperware set for the life of you! Then probably accusing your spouse or roommates of putting it somewhere! Take the time to go through all of your Tupperware and make sure everything has a matching lid. Whatever random pieces you are left with, let go.
7.Expired Cleaning Products
Normally we are only thinking about food expiring, but cleaning products also go bad! Once they do go bad, they are no long affective or safe to use. I’m sure in the cabinet under the sink, pushed all the way to the back there will be some products you didn’t even know you still had. It’s time to check the dates!
8.Cookbooks You No Longer Use
Everything is on your phone or tablet these days, but nothing beats a good physical cookbook to lay out and follow your favorite recipes or just to flip through and get some inspiration. With that being said, the ones you are no longer interested in, I’m sure if you donate them, someone else would love to take on your once loved recipes. At the end of the day, Pinterest always has your back if you run out of ideas!
9.Expired Spices
Here’s another cupboard that could use some refreshing! It takes such a long time to go through an entire bottle of spices, especially the more seasonal ones like nutmeg and pumpkin spice. Make sure you take a second every so often to make sure everything is still good to go and you aren’t going to end up with some funky tasting foods.
10.Small Kitchen Appliances
There are so many different kinds of kitchen appliances! From donut makers, panini makers and the beloved air fryer. Let’s be honest, how often do we actually use these appliances? Taking that into consideration, are they really worth taking up the space that they do? They are fun to use but not worth the bulkiness. Keep a couple that you find yourself using more often, but the others are just collecting dust and taking up space.
This past year I recently went from living in a townhome to a small apartment in the city. My kitchen went from a decent size with a lot of storage space to a kitchen made for an RV it seems like. I love to cook, but it was time to downsize. No matter what size kitchen you have, it is always nice to refresh your space and have some half empty cabinets instead of being stuffed to the brim. Things will be easier to find and you know that everything is up to date!