9 Mini Fridge Dorm Organization Ideas | How to Organize Your Mini Fridge
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It’s dorm room season!
An absolute staple in every dorm room is a mini fridge. How would we survive without it?
The mini fridge in my dorm room was jam packed with food at all times. It drove me absolutely insane that there was never any organization to it.
Don’t make my mistake! Organize your mini fridge. It may seem like an unnecessary task, but you’ll save food – and money – in the long run!
Here’s 9 mini fridge organization ideas.
Mini Fridge Organization Ideas
1. Create a Cleaning Schedule
Having a cleaning schedule for your dorm is a must, and don’t leave your mini fridge out!
Clean your fridge out every week – just move food that needs to be eaten to the front, and make sure there’s nothing rotting.
Deep clean every month – take everything out, wipe down the shelves with a clorox wipe, and reorganize if needed. This is a must! Stuff is always spilling, and a lot of the time you won’t see the little leaks.
These clorox wipes are perfect for fridge messes – they have scrubbers! This makes a huge difference when cleaning sticky messes.
2. Work With What You Have
Before you begin, try an optimize your shelf space. Think of what you’ll have in your fridge on a regular basis, and accommodate for that!
3. Use a Desktop Organizer
These are awesome for keeping things like string cheese, cutie oranges, or anything else that can fit in these drawers.
The desktop organizer simply adds more drawer space to your fridge – perfect for snacking foods!
4. Use Clear Containers
After awhile, you’ll realize you always have the same things in your fridge. Organize according to that! If you keep a lot of fresh vegetables, invest in some large clear containers to store them.
Pro tip – double up your containers as dishware for the future. Buy glass bowls that are perfect for transporting lunches when you move out of the dorms!
5. Create a Food Area
Use the space around your mini fridge for all of your food organization.
There’s a lot of vertical space above a mini fridge, and it usually goes unused!
Stack your microwave and then keurig, add shelving, or even just put a large container on top for dirty dishes or extra storage.
Want to be even more trendy? (I know you do) Create a coffee bar!
RELATED: 12 College Dorm Room Essentials
5. Create a Food Area
One of the biggest problems you’ll have in your dorm is letting food rot because you forgot it was there. This happens all the time!
Color coding your food with colored stickers helps identify foods that need to be eaten right away.
Red – needs to be eaten ASAP (leftovers, dairy, etc.), Yellow – eat within a week or two (fruits, vegetables, lunch meat, eggs) Green – Fine for awhile!
Pro tip – if you share a fridge with more than one person, each person can be assigned a color, and stick their colored sticker on their food items they don’t want anyone to eat. Anything without a sticker is up for grabs!
7. Check Your Top Shelf
This was something I never thought of, and had never seen before.
If your fridge has a freezer built in, the top shelf of the fridge will most likely half freeze things, no matter how warm you turn your fridge temperature.
Do yourself a favor and only keep things that you want especially cold on the top shelf – as long as there’s no liquid component! No yogurt, salsa, or any kind of pre-made smoothie – we learned our lesson freshman year.
8. Line Your Shelves
To be extra proactive against spills and to keep your fridge just a little bit cleaner, get some inexpensive mats designed to line your fridge shelves.
These ones from Amazon are cheap, and can be cut to any size!
9. Organize With Clear Bins
In a fridge, clear bins are your friends! This allows you to see everything you’re organizing.
These ones are great!
