The Can Organizer: A Review

I have a cabinet in my kitchen where I store several different types of canned goods - diced tomatoes, canned soup, chicken broth, etc. It's very handy to have these frequently used items stored near my prep area, but observing the rule of FIFO (first in, first out) is a pain. The cabinet is fairly deep and wide. Things tend to get out of place very easily and before you know it, the newly acquired items are mixed in with the older ones.

Before

After learning about The Can Organizer on the Food Storage Made Easy blog, I decided that this could be the solution to my problem. I bought the "Pantry" sized organizers, which are 22-1/2" deep. According to the company, each one would hold 13 Pie filling, 16 Vegetable,18 Soup, or 39 Tuna-sized cans.

They come as flat pieces of cardboard like this:

And assemble into this.

You load the cans in the top and they roll to the bottom of the organizer. When you need to use your food storage, you simply take a can from the bottom and the remaining stock rolls down, making FIFO a snap.  

Whoever came up with this design is an evil genius. They're a genius in the fact that it is pretty nifty that you can make a can rotation device out of one sheet of cardboard. Why are they evil? Because that sucker is frustrating and difficult to put together. The instructions that came with it aren't terribly helpful. I couldn't make them out at all. Hubby Dear watched this video a couple of times

and was able to figure it out eventually.

There was one big problem, though. On the website, the can organizers are described as 5" across. They are 5" measured from outside to outside, but the inside dimensions are more like 4  1/2". That means that my extensive store of Campbell's Chunky Soups would not fit. I was pretty unhappy about that. I had a few Progresso canned soups that I had bought on sale which fit, but Hubby Dear balks at the idea of changing his favorite soup brand just so I can use the can organizers.

Too big for The Can Organizer.   Sniff.

All of my other canned goods in this area worked, though. Want to see the finished product?

After

I would recommend The Can Organizer if you have the patience to learn how to assemble them and if you store mostly smaller cans. Cans larger than 4 1/2" tall or extra wide cans (such as 29 oz. cans of fruit) will not fit. I should also mention that shipping was expensive but my order was shipped promptly and arrived quickly. I was not displeased with my purchase, but I also wasn't motivated to buy more of them. I think I'll invest in another solution for my can organization needs. But more about that next month.

The Can Organizer is available for purchase at  http://www.thecanorganizer.com/

Month Six in Review and Month Seven Preps

Did you think this past month seemed to fly by? I can't believe November is already drawing to a close. I also am astonished that I've been actively prepping for only seven months. I've learned so much and accomplished quite a bit.

RIP oil lamp chimney

Month Six of my prepping plan was a doozy. I had a humbling experience with primitive technology, bought a bunch of freeze-dried and dehydrated items for my food storage, stocked up on the necessities to have lighting during a power-down scenario, as well as accomplished the other items in my plan for this month.

In the negative column, I'm still not doing very well with adding in exercise, unless you count using my new grain mill. Hey, it does make me break a sweat! Also, the glass globe/chimney on my oil lamp met a premature demise when I was dusting it yesterday. This goes to show that A) I need to have some back-up chimneys on hand with my other supplies and B) My contention that housework is evil does have a basis in fact.   

 
Month Seven:

1. Continue to build food storage basics. Perhaps take advantage of holiday sales and stock up on items like spices, chocolate chips, canned pumpkin, etc.
2. Buy some ground beef and chicken breast and pressure can it. Conduct a taste test and see how my home-canned meat fares vs. store bought canned chicken. 
3. Create a first aid kit for for my purse. I'm thinking of making one in a Altoid tin.
4. Buy an electric grain mill and put it through its paces.
5. Begin the process of organizing some of my canned food storage for easier rotation. I'm going to try out and review one of the can rotation devices on the market.
6. In the category of "Hope Springs Eternal": Exercise 3x per week.

Do you have any prepping plans for December or are you consumed with Christmas purchases and preparations?

Progress Report on our Month Two Preps

1. Get $20 in small bills to add to BOBs. IN PROGRESS Whenever I get some cash, I add a little bit to the stash in our BOBs.
   
2. Continue to build our three month supply of food and other essentials. IN PROGRESS Every time I went to the grocery store during the month of June, I picked up a few additional items for food storage. That would be why our grocery bill was out of control! Since Hubby Dear and I have agreed upon an amount in the budget for food storage, I have promised I will do much better in July! As a result of my over-spending, however, we have a few additional items in our storage like canned fruits and vegetables, paper products, toiletries like toothpaste and bodywash, salad dressing and pasta, to name a few.


3. Reorganize our storage room. Clear out junk, donate unnecessary items and consolidate to make room for food and water storage. COMPLETE We have a storage room in our basement that was very organized but filled to the brim. Hubby Dear and I went through the contents of every storage bin and were able to throw out, recycle, or donate enough items to empty 7 large bins. I will use these for food and supply storage. We also have cleared out enough space for the water containers we're buying. If I can convince Hubby Dear to get a vasectomy, we'll be able to donate all of the bins of outgrown baby clothes we have stored and I'll have even more room. Somehow I don't think that will be a very persuasive argument for him. ;) We cleaned out about half of the items that were underneath these stairs. Our water storage is going here. I've started moving some of the items I had stored in my kitchen to these shelves. I haven't quite figured out what I'll store upstairs and what's going to come downstairs. Right now I have some condiments and peanut butter on these shelves along with about 24 pounds of pasta in that clear plastic bin. 24 pounds down, 87 to go! The top part of the shelf has my canning supplies and last year's canned tomatoes and pickles.

I still have a lot of organizing I could do here, but I'm kind of waiting until this summer's canning is complete.


4. Buy Iosat tablets for the whole family. See #5


5. Buy items necessary to store 2 weeks worth of water for our family - barrels, siphon, water conditioner, etc. INCOMPLETE After Hubby Dear gets paid this week, I will be able to make these purchases.
   
6. Fill water containers. Store appropriately in our cleared out storage room. INCOMPLETE but coming soon!