Save yourself time and stress with a little kitchen upgrade! You don’t have to be Martha Stewart, and you don’t need expensive supplies to make this happen. A few, well-organized areas can make all the difference. Here’s 5 ways to organize your kitchen with dollar store supplies.

1. Use notecard boxes for tea bags, snacks, and other small items. 

Small items always end up slipping through the cracks on pantry shelves or at the bottom of a drawer. Use a transparent index card storage box instead. 

They’re the perfect size for neatly storing tea bags and fruit snacks, and you can put them anywhere: in drawers, on shelves, or the back of the countertop. 

The transparent box lets you quickly see at a glance when you’re running low. No more reaching into the snack box and finding only one snack pack left!

2. Use magazine holders/book bins or wire plate stands/shelf risers for storing water bottles in the cabinet.

Are you wasting a lot of vertical space in your cabinets because you can’t stack your water bottles? Grab a few magazine holders from the dollar store, place them in your cabinet on their side with the narrow, tall side down, and you will be able to store three or four water bottles stacked on their sides. It’s an excellent space saver for small kitchens!

If you don’t like the look of the book bins, grab some wire shelf risers instead. Put two or three stands next to each other in your cabinet so they form another “shelf” in your empty vertical space. Store your water bottles horizontally on their sides in the reclaimed space. 

The lids should keep them from rolling, or you can add a couple of binder clips (with their loops up) to the edge of the riser to prevent the bottles from rolling off the side.

3. Use foam board to create a custom drawer organizer for utensils.

While you can buy utensil organizers for cheap at dollar stores, sometimes you need a custom job. Stop stuffing other items behind and to the side of your utensil organizer that doesn’t quite fit in your drawer. Instead, get a piece of foam board from the dollar store and create your own custom-fit organizer. 

Keep it simple with just two strips of foam board. Cut one to the length of the drawer and cut the other to the width of the drawer. Add a small, partial cut to the center of each foam strip and slot them together to make a plus sign. Now you have a four-compartment organizer that doesn’t waste drawer space!

Modify this design as needed to fit your storage needs. You might want longer compartments in the back for cooking utensils and shorter compartments in the front for measuring spoons. Measure the length of your cooking utensils, and move the slit cut on the longer foam strip accordingly to make room. When you put the two slits together, you’ll have a lower-case “t” instead and plenty of room for your longer utensils.

4. Use binder clips to hang sets of seasoning packets.

If dry gravy and taco seasoning packets are constantly getting lost, crushed, or ripped open in your pantry, then try separating them from your cans and boxes. Stack three-four packets and use a binder clip to keep them together. Turn the metal loops up, and now you can hang the packets in a safe space instead of throwing them on the shelf.

Use S-hooks from the dollar store and hang the packets from your wire shelving or add adhesive hooks to the back of a cabinet or pantry door and hang the packets out of the way. You could even use magnetic hooks on the side of your fridge. Wherever you have extra space! 

5. Use magnets and hooks wherever you can.

With some dollar store supplies and a little DIY, you can increase your kitchen storage with hooks and magnetic containers.

• Add a metal strip to the bottom of your cabinets or pantry shelves, and store your spices in small containers with magnetic lids.
• Use your fridge and put the magnets on the bottoms of the spice jars. (Just make sure your fridge is magnetic first!)
• Add a small towel bar or tension rod and hang utensils from hooks over your stove or on your backsplash.
• Hang towels on small adhesive hooks on the side of your cabinet by your sink.
• Store your pot lids on the inside of your cabinet doors with sets of small adhesive hooks.

With a few quick updates that won’t break your budget, you’ll save yourself time and stress in your newly organized kitchen.