The following is a guest post by Carley Clark. Carley is a personal finance content writer from Michigan. She is also the owner of The Magic Finance, a blog that aims to educate readers on personal finance topics in a fun, energetic manner.
Maybe you know the feeling: it’s dinnertime—your stomach’s rumbling.
You eye the kitchen and cringe; trash litters the countertops, dishes are stacked to the ceiling, the stove’s covered with old, dried-up spills.
You’re not alone; many people have a hard time keeping their kitchen clean. After working all day, cleaning is probably the last thing you want to do. It’s no big deal if you just leave it for tomorrow, right?
You may not realize that cleaning your kitchen does more than make your home look tidy.
Here are five ways a clean kitchen can actually save you money:
1. You’re more likely to eat at home.
A lot of people struggle to control their spending on food. Buying food from restaurants instead of cooking at home is usually the reason behind this.
If you struggle to stay within your food budget because of restaurant spending, you may find more motivation to eat at home if your kitchen’s clean.
When your kitchen’s messy, it’s easy to make excuses to run to McDonald’s:
One excuse you may use is that you would have to wash dishes before you could even start to cook. Or that the messes left from the last meal are too intimidating to deal with right now.
It can turn into an ugly cycle: buy groceries, cook a couple of meals, leave the kitchen a mess, accumulate more messes, get discouraged, get takeout the rest of the week, realize the groceries have spoiled, repeat.
You lose out twice: once when you buy the groceries you never eat, and again when you pay the expensive restaurant prices.
If you’re trying to eat at home more, maintaining a clean kitchen is critical.
Tips
After each meal, wash the dishes and put them away, or load them into the dishwasher, if you have one.
Make a rule for yourself that you can’t go to bed until the sink is clear.
Sanitize your countertops every day.
2. It reduces food waste.
Keeping your kitchen organized makes it easier for you to take inventory of your food, which will cut down how much you throw away.
When we don’t know what to cook, we usually go to our fridge, freezer, and cupboards for inspiration. If they aren’t organized, it’s easy to overlook the foods that need to be eaten first. If foods aren’t used before their expiration date, they could spoil or become rancid.
To prevent this, continuously rotate the foods with the earliest expiration dates somewhere you can easily see them. That way, when you’re foraging through the kitchen, they’re the first thing you see, and you’ll be more likely to grab them.
An organized kitchen also makes it easier to assess what you need from the grocery store, preventing you from overbuying.
For example, if you don’t see that full carton of eggs hidden under a loaf of bread and an old pizza box, you’ll buy another carton that you don’t need.
Keeping your kitchen organized allows you to easily see what foods you need to eat first and what you need to get from the store.
Tips
Plan your meals based on what food needs to be used first.
Spend a little extra time organizing your kitchen after getting home from the grocery store.
Freeze any food you can if you know you won’t use it before it spoils.
3. There will be less to replace in the kitchen.
Maintaining a clean kitchen can also keep your countertops and appliances in good condition.
If you own a house, this means you won’t have to replace them as often; if you rent, it means you’ll get more of your security deposit back.
Letting spills sit for too long can cause permanent stains and damages.
It can be impossible to restore countertops and appliances to their original condition if a spill has sat for too long.
If an appliance isn’t cleaned regularly, it can begin to rust due to hidden oils, corrosion, and other minerals building up over time. Rust doesn’t just affect the aesthetic; it can also affect the usability of an appliance.
Unwashed dishes may also need replacing before their time. Metal utensils can rust, and other dishes can be permanently stained or discolored if food is left on them for too long.
Consistently cleaning your kitchen can save you thousands of dollars in replacements.
Tips
Wipe up any spills as soon as possible.
Clean your kitchen sink, stove, fridge, and other appliances regularly.
4. It discourages rodent and bug infestations.
One of the best—and grossest—reasons to keep your kitchen clean is to prevent nasty pests from moving in with you. If you leave crumbs and spills, there’s always a good chance they will attract insects or rodents.
Not only will an infestation give you the heebie-jeebies, but it can also turn into a costly problem.
These unwelcome guests can carry many diseases, so any contaminated food has to be thrown out.
If you decide to treat the problem yourself, you’ll have to buy sprays or traps.
In extreme cases, you may have to call an exterminator. The cost of extermination services varies depending on the type of pest, but the national average is between $60 and $290.
You can avoid these expenses if you keep your kitchen clean.
Tips
Wipe crumbs from countertops.
Sweep the floor every day.
Keep the garbage can covered with a tight-fitting lid and take out the trash every night.
5. It saves you time (therefore, money).
You know the old saying, “time is money.” Well, a clean kitchen can save you a lot of time.
Spending less time cooking means you have more time to spend with the family, work on a side hustle, or just recoup after a long day at work.
Cooking in a clean space allows you to be more efficient. There are fewer variables to slow you down during the cooking process.
Here’s a scenario to illustrate how a dirty kitchen can take up extra time:
You’re making spaghetti.
The pasta’s done cooking, so you go to the cupboard to grab the strainer. Shoot! It’s dirty! You dig through the sink and find it.
After the strainer’s washed, you have to find a strategic spot to strain the pasta because there are so many dishes in the sink.
You dump the spaghetti noodles into the strainer, but you underestimated how heavy they would be. Your hand gives a little under the weight, and the strainer submerges—just a little bit—into a pot full of dirty water from who knows how many days ago.
Now your spaghetti’s contaminated, and you have to start over.
Little things like this go wrong all the time if you don’t keep your kitchen clean. Taking 10-20 minutes to clean up will save you more time in the long run.
Tips
You’ll spend less time cleaning overall if you clean as you go.
Sanitize your countertops so that you can set utensils down.
If you have any downtime while cooking, load dirty dishes into the dishwasher, clean out the fridge, or wipe the counters.
Conclusion
In short, keeping your kitchen clean will save you money. You’re more likely to eat at home, it reduces food waste, you’ll have less to replace in the kitchen, it discourages infestations, and it saves you time.
