As I unloaded groceries on Monday, I kept repeating to myself: One for One.
This concept used to boggle my mind. I had no idea what it meant or why Organized People all nodded knowingly when it was mentioned.
I now understand. I’ve grasped the concept.
And yet I still have to chant it in my head because it’s just sooo unnatural to me.
I passed by the olives at Aldi yesterday and recalled Hubby saying, “I think these olives are old” the last time he wanted olives. I passed by, I remembered . . . AND I bought them.
(No small feat there, people.)
As I put the new jar into the fridge, I continued my chant. Because I knew that even though Hubby didn’t eat those olives . . . they were still in there. (And if he won’t eat it, NObody will eat it.)
We do that. We put things back in the fridge that we’ll never eat.
And I have no idea why.
And then when we get a new one, and DON’T REMOVE THE OLD ONE, they start to look the same once the new one is open. And then I subconsciously avoid BOTH jars because I can’t remember which is which and can’t be bothered to check expiration dates.
And they both go bad.
And so on and so on . . .
So I’m counting this as one small success for me. New olives went in and old olives (that shouldn’t have been in there anyway) came out.
One for one.
One in one out.
Really, it’s a life-changing, clutter-busting concept.
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--Nony
Yay Nony!! We have lots of kids raiding the pantry, so we have found it very helpful to keep only one bag of chips and one of each type of cereal in the pantry – all the duplicates we keep in the garage on a shelf. This keeps us from have 8 opened boxes and bags.
I’m laughing so hard because I do the same thing! I’m trying to be better about it but found three open jars of apple butter in the fridge last night and threw all three out!
HA HA Ha! Nope- that has *never* happened to me.. nope, never, nuh uh… 😉
Now if only I’d remember to do that with old underwear/bras and mismated socks!!
For that sort of stuff at least I have a semi-annual purging. About every 6 months or so I go out and buy two or three packages of socks and underwear for each member of the family. Then when I get home BEFORE the new packages are even open, I hunt out every single sock and underwear in the house and they all go in the garbage.
This keeps me from keeping around the forever multiplying pile of mismatched socks, the socks with holes in them, and the underwear that may be coming apart at the seams or getting holey. (how do guys get holes in their underwear in less than six months?!?)
I love that idea!! We have a laundry basket full of socks to pair with I keep putting off as I hate that job!! I am SO tempted just to chuck the lot and start again ?
when my kids were home (family of five) I used thread (only one stitch) of different color thread in the toe, one color assigned to each member of the family. Sorting socks was a breeze. bought white socks in units of 6 pair or more.
I had three boys and each boy had a different brand of white athletic socks and underwear. This helped so much when laundry day came!
That’s a great concept! I’d actually never heard it before but it does make a lot of sense. We had an unopened package of lunch meat in our fridge and it was in the back and more lunch meat was purchased so that first less desirable lunch meat stayed in the back of the fridge for a very long time. I kept thinking it’s unopened…. it’s probably still good…. Well a did finally through it away because I decided it was just a couple of dollars so out it went.
Good for you! And for future you who can now eat olives.
Meanwhile, I was thinking of you recently when my son scooted across a stone wall, in his uniform shorts….that are now holey…. I guess he’ll have to wear pants one day a week now, regardless of how hot it is. Also thought of you this morning when DH was looking for the dreaded “chapel day” uniform shirt…in the dryer. I asked if he’d looked in the as-yet-unemptied-basket in son’s room….no. Guess where it was? Score one for Mama, it was in the basket. Can you imagine if he’d found it in the dryer?
I soooo do the same thing. Then I feel so guilty when I do a fridge clean out and throw away so much food that’s gone bad!!!!
I’ve started using a Sharpie to write the date on lid that it was opened (sometimes writing it a piece of tape if the lid is a dark color)….works great for salad dressings and all of the other mystery containers of leftovers in the fridge!
As a former restaurant person, we use a grease pencil to write the date (and often what it is) on the top of packages of leftovers too. Because sometimes you get to something and have NO IDEA when you served that last, even when it was just a couple of days prior.
Apparently there are “dry erase crayons” that are easier-wiped off the gladware, but old-fashioned grease pencils/China markers work for me.
Now I know what to do with a grease pen! This is a great idea, thank you for sharing.
Thanks. I always use a Sharpie, thinking “Eh, I’m sure that’ll come off.” Nope.
I use a Sharpie and erase with those little alcohol pads (you can find them near the pharmacy area in stores). Comes off easily!
I keep a dollar store roll of masking tape and a sharpie next to fridge. Freezer items get id’ed and dated and some fridge items. So either the zip lock or the rubbermaid lid get marked!
What a concept! It makes so much sense. 🙂 I once watched an extremely organized friend unload her groceries. As she put new items into the fridge, she threw out the old. I bet she was doing that “one for one” thing. Are they just born knowing all these secrets???
Hahaha!!!
OMG I can’t believe this is a new concept for me. I GET this. Duh. Looking forward to next time I go shopping.
Love this. Thanks Dana. I think i need to 1 in and 2 out………oh Lordy.
Yay for just one jar of olives! What is it about family members and putting bad (or in my house – EMPTY) containers back?
I actually do know about this concept. Practicing it…that’s the problem. I try to do it with clothes, but I guess I need to do the same thing around the rest of the house. Too bad I didn’t apply it before the avalanche waiting to happen took up residence in my refrigerator. I really need to deal with that tomorrow. 🙂
Ugh! I watched my husband the other day pour the last of the koolaid in his glass then look at the container (now empty) and put it back in the fridge anyway.
For this reason, We no longer have Koolaid!!!
Genius! I recently discovered that I have THREE unopened containers of fennel seeds in my spice cabinet. I have no idea how old they are. I also can’t remember ever using fennel seed in anything. Did I throw them out? Of course not! 🙂
ahhhh ha its like a light bulb moment thanks for sharing
I did ‘one for one’ in my closet today! Because I also did laundry, and as I debated needing more hangers & the concept of containing all the clothes -I heard you in my head! 🙂 It took me a while since I was removing what Christmas clothes had replaced. But I did it, and it was hard, but it felt good. Thanks, Dana!
Accounting principles of inventory regulations FIFO first in first out 🙂
The hubs does that with salad dressings. They mutiply and then before you know it, they expire!
I feel so weird… We have one active. Either the spare is ageless, (3-packs of ketchup) the old is almost out or bad, (eggs mainly, milk if we’re lucky,)
I had to put my foot down about getting a new side of cow until the freezer was down to the level of keeping “stabilization bottles” again.
How funny!!!! As I’m reading this…my thought, “I thought everyone did this already?”
Sorry, but it sounds like a huge waste of food.
As I read it, the olives were bad and wouldn’t be eaten either way, so it’s the sunk cost fallacy. (See here for further information if you need it: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/03/25/the-sunk-cost-fallacy/) So those wasted olives, as lamentable as that is, are irrelevant to the decision on the way to proceed. The only relevant question is, how do I proceed knowing that those olives are bad? Throw them out to make room for the fresh olives, or keep them and potentially let the new olives spoil, due to not being able to tell the difference? One jar of bad olives, or two? Once the first jar is already bad, ‘no jars of bad olives’ stops being an option 🙂
Love it! Enjoyed your victory. What a great idea. 🙂
I absolutely LOVE the “one in, one out” phenomenon. It really has become that big of a deal to me recently. Just tonight, I did something that I thought I would NEVER do – I threw every measuring cup that I own (except for the new set my hubby got me for Christmas) into the ‘Donate’ pile. It just never occurred to me. I know you understand – it had really NEVER occurred to me! This might just revolutionize my life.
I TOTALLY understand that. So obvious, so not obvious.
OMG! I thought it was just me!
Thank you for this!!
Amazing concept. I been doing this recently but it’s a struggle. One of my non-slob friends told me she runs her dishwasher every night last night. Proudly I said, me too. It has become one of my habits :D! Thanks so much for taking the time to write this blog, it has helped me (and my family/house) so much!
I have a habit of using a marker and writing the date and month something was opened. Especially if for some reason we have 2. I tend to visit my family for two months every year and this system saves me when I return home.
One word…salsa.
SALSA? – lol “OH YES!!”
Been trying that with books too in the house. We might be only at 2 (in) to 1 (out), but it’s helping keep the sanity.
this is one thing that i’ve never had trouble with… mainly because food in my house doesn’t stick around long enough to go bad. and if it does stick around long enough to go bad, it gets thrown away once it does go bad. and if it gets thrown away because it went bad, then we don’t use it often enough for me to justify buying it again, or else, i learn to buy the smaller package rather than the economy sized one (you’re not saving money if you don’t use it anyway!<< that one took a while to stick)
do you know how long you have to have hot sauce around for it to get mouldy though? because my parents do. this is definitely a problem for them. last week while cooking at their house, i asked my dad where the Louisiana was. He said they were out, but he had some (insert strange off brand name here) in the pantry. I found three UNOPENED bottles there, all of which had expiration dates of JANUARY 2013. I went ahead and used it anyway, bc i know that expiration dates don't mean that much on unopened containers, especially something like hot sauce that's 99% vinegar. As I reached for the worchestershire sauce in another cabinet, i found the opened twin of the hot sauce in the pantry…. it was green. Seriously. there are no words….
It’s all your fault. You (and siblings?) left home. At least that’s my excuse when my family visits.
I keep a sharpie marker in my utensils drawer and write the date on each item that I put in the fridge. Believe it or not this frees me from having to try and remember when a condiment or jar a sauce was last used and makes it easier for cleaning out the fridge.
It is tough to guess how much yogurt our 6 kids will eat. If each child ate 6 oz every morning- I’d need 252 oz of yogurt/week. (nearly 8 (32 oz) containers.!) If one child isn’t “in the mood” for yogurt that week, I’d have 42 oz of yogurt uneaten at the end of the week. IRL, we use 4 – 6 (32 oz) containers each week that all must be kept in the fridge. I constantly preach “Rotate the yogurt!” when we put groceries away, & “Use the oldest date first” when they get out a new one. Still, I occasionally have to pitch a VERY expired quart of yogurt in the back of the fridge. Also, although Dairy is supposed to only go on the bottom shelf, sometimes I find 3 opened containers -all on different shelves of the fridge. If they are all in dates, I just consolidate them all. I can’t afford to pitch it if it is still in dates, but I hate having 3 jars of anything open. I consolidate lots of things including salad dressing, jam, peanut butter, bags of chips, etc.. It’s the best answer I have come up with so far.
But what do you do when it’s ALMOST out? But still good? You just didn’t want to run out. I try to hide it to get my family to use the almost empty one first, but inevitably my kids find the full one and grab it instead. 🙁
And why is it after I read one of your posts I always want to go purge some dark corner of my closet when what I really need to do is put up all the camping crap that we unloaded from the car on Monday, and still haven’t put up.
Dairy can be frozen in scoops & used in smoothies.
My daughter & I don’t wear matching socks…never have to match socks or run out. Holey socks get trashed, my son wears white socks & the husband black….easy.
Keep The Faith ya’ll
Hi there. I still cannot get it right. Being single and a compulsive hoarder my sister moved in and left 11 month later and the “stuff” went from the flat into the garage where it is still. My car has been parked outside the garage for over 1 1/2 years so as to accommodate the hording.
I cannot resist a bargain. So when the 130g bottles of Pesto that sell for R50 each went for R5 each by the Sell By Date, I literally cleared the shelf of over 30 bottles with the intention of freezing the lot which I never did and still have stacks of bottles in the fridge. I gave a lot away but now I wonder if I will poison myself eating Pesto that is 6 months if not longer over the Best By….Sell By Date. It still looks good.
“Major Hoarder from Sunny South Africa”
Oh, wow…I thought I was the only one. Three jars of sweet pickles in the fridge right now. No lie.
my problem is i forget whether or not we have a certain item so ill rebuy it and then see it when i get home, but i mean its nice to have an extda bottle if you have the room. Just remember niw that you have two bottles! And keep check on when they expire. I need to do a fridge cleanout, which i may make time for in the morning before me and my son go shopping. We are riding transit so i only have a few hours before thwy get here. If i can wake up early enough ill do it bc its trash day. The reason why i didnt want to do it tonight is because i cant fit anymore bags outside and do not wanna leave a bag of old fridge food inside. So my plan is to do it in the morning and i think that one extra bag outside will be ok til they the trash people come around 1. I *hope* It will be ok. I domt think i can handle another week of my fridge overflowing!
I have been doing this all my life…my husband, he’s a tosser, but leaves the fridge tossing to me. I had a jar of three bean salad in the fridge, unopened, but for a loooong time. Initially purchased for a get together, so I chilled it, and forgot to take it.
I bought prunes to combat effects of post op pain meds, but was in so much pain, I totally forgot about the Costco size bag of prunes shoved in the back of the fridge. I tossed the prunes and three bean salad, knowing that they will NEVER be consumed in my household and with covid, no telling if I will ever get invited to a large get together in my lifetime. ☹️
With that said, I still have two jars of strawberry preserves…🙄 and can’t remember why we have two half eaten jars. Was one because my husband bought Smuckers? And I bought a gourmet brand? Who knows? I hate strawberries. Wondering if i can scoop remnants of one jar into the other? Oh, how I digress.
hahaha I JUST finished reading this post and overheard the Malcolm in the Middle episode my family is watching…
Dad (chomping away): want an olive?
Mom: THOSE aren’t olives!!! They’re PEACHES!!!
Oh the timing!! LOLOL
Sometimes though, like with the miracle whip, I want to start chilling the new jar before the old one is fished. When that’s the case, I will put a big circle on the old jar label in black sharpie. Everyone knows to finish that first.
I also write the expire date on everything I bring in right on the front label so I can see it really easily. For items I know we use slowly, I’ll right the date we opened it right under the expire date. I never have to try to remover when I opened anything.
I have for the just opened stuff two baskets. One for breakfast, one for dinner. I use leftovers the next day. Mustard, ketchup and other stuff like this is also in a basket. Before I go shopping, I take a good look what I have and write a shopping list. I use a big sharpie to write the date on tinned food and every time I rotate new stuff to the back. Mostly I don‘t need to throw stuff out. My problem is more the freezer. It has 400 liter, so I use washing basket to organize it, but they are heavy when full. Sometimes I have frozen stuff, thats more than three years old. I taste, smell… and mostly eat…
I thought of you this week as I got two new skillets and new kitchen knives for Christmas, I was tempted to hold onto the old ones, my teenagers like to cook and maybe it would be safer for the new ones, some of the old knives handles were dying but was there any worth keeping but I knew I would be happier in the long run, and channeling my inner Elsa I “let it go!”