You went out to Chipotle and only ate half of your burrito bowl.
Naturally, you bring the rest back and plan on eating it later. But thanks to your new roommates and a shared fridge, that never happens.
Brenda, we’ll just call the food thief that for now, decided that anything placed in the shared fridge was to be shared and ate it.
Naturally, you’re filled with rage and wondering what you could do differently? You sit and question “Should I have labeled my food?”.
There is no simple answer to this question.
If you take it upon yourself to always label your food then you run the risk of coming off as a crazy. If you don’t label your food, then Brenda is going to love always eating your leftovers.
Solving this problem is easy, just let everyone have their own shelf in the fridge
Yes, it is a shared space but everyone can be entitled to their own shelf.
This way you have free range of one specific area to house all of your random leftovers and forgotten apples.
Assigning shelves also ensures that everyone will always have room in the fridge. You can even go as far as to designate shelves in the pantry. Protect your food.
Doing this also makes cleaning out the fridge a million times easier. Everyone can come clean their shelf and then call it a day. What goes on your roommate’s shelf in no longer your problem or concern. The only gray area in this whole equation is the freezer because it has no shelves but if you just let people know what you purchased and keep it all together, there should be no problems.
You will drive yourself insane labeling every single item you buy. And honestly, nothing is more tempting than eating someone’s leftovers after they went through all the trouble of writing their name on them.
Save some time and organize the fridge.
Have any tips on dealing with a snack thief? Let us know.
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