Pantry Storage That Costs Nothing: Using Repurposed Glass Queso, Instant Coffee, and Pickle Jars

I've been saving empty glass food jars and their lids for a few years now. What I love is that since I buy the same foods over and over, I have a good-sized collection of several sizes of jars, but enough of each type to have some uniform food storage. 

I've wanted to transition much of my food storage to glass containers. And using repurposed glass food jars seems like the first step in this process.

I have a whole bunch of queso/salsa jars from my daughters. (They love queso and buy it for themselves often.) The jars are small, round, have a large opening, and hold about 2 cups. I grow all of the oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, and basil that we use in a year. In addition, I buy all of our spices from bulk bins. Till now, I've stored our herbs and spices in an oddball collection of plastic containers. Repurposed queso jars look to be a good size for herbs and spices. The labels on these jars peel off cleanly. My plan is to store all of our herbs and spices in these jars.

I'll need to label the jars, so I don't confuse ground cloves with allspice or oregano with marjoram. The easiest "nice" label uses chalkboard paint.

The jars above are on Mother Earth News, from the article, How to Label Glass Jars. My only cost would be chalkboard paint. Hobby Lobby sells a small bottle (enough for my labels) for $1.89.

Another jar type that I've been collecting is from our instant coffee. I've been buying Great Value Colombian instant coffee and saving the glass jars it comes in. The coffee is good and I love the glass jar.

The jars are tall, squarish, and are easy to grab and pour from. The only drawback is the top opening is not wide enough to fit a measuring scoop larger than a 1/4 cup measure. But I do like these jars and have saved about 5 so far. They hold about 3 1/2 cups by volume. I'm thinking pourable ingredients would work best with the small opening. 

These might be good baking "extras" jars, such as flaxseed meal, cocoa powder, chia seeds, coconut flakes, and chocolate chips (when I buy from WinCo's bulk bins or buy the super large plastic bag from Walmart). They might also be a good storage container for the grains and pulses that I buy in smaller amounts from the bulk bins, such as quinoa, steel cut oats, millet, wild rice, red lentils, yellow split peas, etc.

Since my baking ingredients and grains/pulses are rather obvious to identify, I don't think I'd need a label for these jars.

My last collection of jars are 32-oz pickle jars, again a purchase of my daughters. Go figure -- I make pickles from our own cucumbers, but still they want to buy more. I have 6 of these jars, so far (who knows when my daughters will get another pickle craving and buy more). 

Like the queso jars, the pickle jar labels come off cleanly. They have a decent sized opening, so scoop-able (1/3 to 1/2 cup max scoop) ingredients as well as pourable will work with these.

32 ounces is about the right sized container for small pasta shapes for my household, like rotini, macaroni, and small shells, and for some of the grains we eat but not in large amounts, such as cornmeal, grits, and barley, all bought from bulk bins. The biggest issue with repurposing pickle jars and their lids is the odor. I've had good luck with airing the jars and lids in direct sunlight for the day. I've also read that soaking the jars and lids for 24 hours in a solution of 1 teaspoon of baking soda for every half-cup of warm water will deodorize pickle jars and their lids.

The only type of label that I'll need on these jars for the above listed foods is cooking instructions. for example how long to cook the ingredient and/or ratio grain to water. Again, I like the chalkboard paint label as they can be changed when the jar is refilled with a different ingredient.

Am I the only one who saves empty glass food jars? Who, here, repurposes their "empties" for pantry storage? In your experiences, what sizes work for which ingredients?

My "Trick" to Get Myself to Do Work I Don't Really Want to Do

I'm not loving painting the deck railing. But they way things work in my household is the person who most wants a job done does it. The rest of the family really doesn't care that much what the deck railing looks like, but I do. So, this is my job. It's a good thing that I'm neat and can paint carefully.

Just how do I make myself get out there to paint almost every day when I don't want to? I do this with other challenging tasks and ordeals, too. I tell myself I only have to do a small amount, and I can decide not to do any more after that. When I was going through all my dental stuff, especially the four surgeries (not all were big surgeries, though), I told myself I only have to get through this one, and if I don't want to go any further, I can choose plan B instead.

When I'm cleaning up the house after a family event, I tell myself I only need to pick up this one small space. What usually happens is I find the cleaning up isn't so bad, I get into a groove, and before I know it I've finished the house. 

I didn't want to make dinner for tonight. I was tired. But I told myself I will just get the pasta cooked and set aside (I made a seafood pasta salad), then I could go rest for a small while before finishing up dinner. As it turned out, I had enough energy to do all of dinner and have it chilling while I rested.

It doesn't always turn out this way. Sometimes I do just the small amount I've convinced myself to try. I'm okay with that. At least I did a small amount of work. This reminds me of parents asking their kids to try a bite of a new food. Their hope is the child will discover they like the new food and eat more.But if they don't, at least they tried and had some.

This afternoon after my dentist appointment, I told myself I'd just go out and put a final coat of paint on the small section I did yesterday. I did that and then put two coats on one of the 4 X 4 posts and washed the section that I'll work on tomorrow. I didn't go all crazy and paint for hours, but I did get some good work in on a day when I felt tired.

And now. as I anticipate a lot of painting yet to do, I've been telling myself that it's okay if I don't finish the job this summer. This is how I'm getting myself out to paint each day, by not letting myself think the job is overwhelming. If I finish the whole railing, that will be great. But if I don't, I've already decided that that outcome will be okay with me. I can always do the rest next summer.

Anyway, this trick has worked to get myself started on many tasks. Do you have any ways you get yourself to do work that really isn't something you enjoy?