Budget Friendly Small Pantry Organization

Getting our homes organized during January is an annual task for many of us. One of the spots that can become messy over the holidays is my pantry.

Once the new year rolls around, I’m ready to tackle the mess and come up with budget friendly small pantry organization solutions.

small pantry organized with bins and baskets

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I would love to have a huge walk in pantry, but I don’t see that happening. Last week, I shared my organization ideas for a small laundry room and I mentioned that for a house that’s over 2,600 sq ft, you would think the builder could have put in a larger laundry room. The same goes for the pantry! Both the pantry and the laundry room are located just off of the kitchen and near the entry door to the garage. Good locations, but it doesn’t give either space enough room.

alcove off of the kitchen with pantry and laundry room

It’s time for this month’s Pinterest Challenge hosted by Erlene from My Pinterventures. This is always a fun blog hop with tons of great ideas and loads of creativity shared! It’s great to find a pin and give it your own spin. This year, each month will have a theme and January’s theme is organization. Be sure to check out the links at the bottom of the post for lots more Pinterest inspired organization ideas.

Getting Started on Small Pantry Organization

When I decided to tackle the unorganized mess that had taken hold of my pantry, I first searched Pinterest to find some ideas for small pantry organization. There are tons of pins out there for this and most of them use co-coordinating baskets and bins. They look fabulous and I’m sure they are very functional, but they also come with fairly large price tags for those pretty baskets. I wanted to keep my pantry organization budget friendly. I found this pin for Small Pantry Organization on a Budget from Slay at Home Mother and used some of her ideas.

Steps for a Budget Friendly Small Pantry Organization

Remove all items from the pantry
Determine what items you want to continue to store in the pantry-only food or food and non food items?
Discard any food that has expired
Find other spaces to relocate rarely used items or donate unused items
Decide on how many bins and baskets you will need
Purchase plastic bins from a dollar store
Check out home goods stores for inexpensive items you can use
Search Amazon for pantry storage items

I purchased an assortment of canvas bins, plastic baskets, and canisters. All in, I spent around $50.00. All of the blue bins and baskets were purchased at Dollar Tree. I purchased the air tight canisters and the tall cylinders from Amazon (affiliate). I found the canvas bins and the large white bins at Walmart. I found a can storage rack at Home Goods for a great price. I had the shelf liner (affiliate) on hand because I had planned on doing this project a while ago, but never got around to it!

Once I had all of the containers I needed, I sorted through some that I already had to determine how they could be used. I cleaned the pantry and lined each shelf. Here’s where I’ll show you just how unorganized my pantry had become. Yikes!

Bottom Shelves

and the top shelves

What a mess that was! In my defense, I have to say that it looked a little better than this before the rush of the holidays. Not much, but a little!

Organizing the Small Pantry

Use a sturdy shelf liner
Plan the layout for the bins, baskets, and canisters
Sort similar items into bins
Creating labels adds to the overall organization look

I used my Cricut machine to create labels. These bins with handles from the Dollar Tree are good to use on the top shelf for baking items that I don’t use every day.

Using the blue bins added a pop of color to the space.

Getting rid of the the boxes of pasta and using the air tight canisters makes for a much neater look. We always have an assortment of pasta in the pantry and now I don’t have to search around to find the type I want.

I am guilty of having a lot of dishes. All kinds -baking, serving, cooking, plates- I’ve maxed out the storage in the kitchen cabinets and need to use the bottom of the pantry for more. Instead of having the dishes on a shelf, taking up space, or on the pantry floor, I’ve used the canvas bins to hold them.

Two canvas bins are easy to access just behind the trash bag box. On the far left, I stored large roasting pans that only get used a few times a year. The blue tote basket from Dollar Tree works well to hold a bag of potatoes.

As I was organizing the pantry, I wanted to make sure that it was functional and practical. I wanted it neat and organized more than I wanted to make it pretty. I’m all for dressing up spaces to match your decor, even ones like a pantry, but I’m not going to spend a lot of money to get a coastal look that would match my kitchen! Using the blue dollar store bins is about as coastal as I was going to get with this project. And that’s okay!

How to Organize a Small Pantry on a Budget

I’m happy to have this task behind me and I’m looking forward to keeping it this way!

Pin Me, Please!