Family-friendly & time-saving tips to make your fridge work for you!

A few months ago, I got to test out the the Frigidaire Gallery Custom-Flex Refrigerator. I was asked to rate it against our family’s lifestyle to see if met our needs and made our life more efficient.  In my previous posts, I wrote about how it can be easily customized, and some of our favourite features. In this post, I’m going to tie it all together to show how this fridge did make things easier for our family. Specifically, it made it easier for us to maintain our healthy lifestyle, how through efficient organization we reduced our food waste, saved money and lastly, how we used our fridge as a means to teach our children independence.

Healthy Life-style

With our previous fridge, we lacked space and it was often hard enough to find space for left-overs. With our new Frigidaire Gallery Custom-Flex Refrigerator, thanks to the ability to fully customize the door and the internal SpaceWise features, we’re able to stock up properly.  There is plenty of room in the crisper for vegetables and tons of space in the fridge to stack up healthy snacks that I can prepare in advance.

I found that one of the key things to stsaying on track for healthy weight-loss in healthy snacking. Without the ability to store my favourite fruits and vegetables easily and within arms reach, I probably would have reached for some of other snacks instead.

Tip: Prepare your favourite vegetables and fruits in advance. Wash and cut and separate them into snack-sized containers for the fridge.

Reduce Food Waste / Save Money

Now that our fridge is organized based on my family’s needs, nothing gets hidden or misplaced in our fridge. Everything has a place now. The condiments that are infrequently used or open jars like jam and salsa are stored in the top shelf, the cheese drawer stacked with cheese (duh!), Greek yogurts and cold cuts is centrally located mid shelf, and our wraps and left-over food is stored on the bottom shelf.  The milk containerS (yes, we have two) along with my kid’s yogurts and cheese, frequently used condiments and our entertainment beverages (i.e. wine and beer) are all stored on the door.  This organization method has enabled us to keep track of what we have available and what my expire soon (i.e. left-over food, yogurts, etc…).  This has greatly enabled us to stay on track of our grocery needs and ensure that we’re not being wasteful with our food and we’re not spending exorbitantly on food even though we’re feeding a family of five.

Teaching independence

My oldest son Kyle is four and a half years old. Earlier in the year we took the time to help him learn to get ready for Junior Kindergarten by himself. This included getting dressed each morning and night and putting on his coat (and zipping it up), shoes, gloves and hat.  He’s pretty much mastered that and now our shift has focused on food. My son enjoys snacking throughout the day and to help him become more independent, I store his sippy cups in a low cupboard drawer, his shelf-stable snacks in a low shelf in the pantry and his yogurts and cheese on the fridge door within arms reach.  Just making these little changes has greatly enabled him to come out of his comfort zone of continuously asking us my husband and I for help and enabled him to become more independent by grabbing water and snacks on his own.

 

I have to admit that I never expected my fridge to make such an impact, but as a parent, it has! Just as the kitchen is often the place where most family gatherings and conversations take place, there’s much to be said about using your fridge to help make your family life more efficient too! Click here to learn more about the innovation story behind the Frigidaire Gallery Custom-Flex Refrigerator.

Disclosure: I am part of the Frigidaire® Canada Ambassador program with Influence Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.