Thrifty Thursday: Using What you Have On Hand to Fix a Problem

I had a story to tell you about how much I dislike cleaning the fridge and I was trying to figure out how to tell you about it and where to start.  It gets so gross on the top shelf from the milk and my ice tea pitcher.  I am not sure if the things are leaking or if they just get a little on the bottom and spread around the love through the whole fridge.  Do you have that problem? 

I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to search for a solution (with my store credit).  They had a shelf liner for the fridge that was supposed to keep produce fresh and be machine washable.  It started to sound like a good idea so I got it and came home.  Only later to put some more thought into the solution.  This shelf liner product was going to move around and drive me crazy and I wasn't going to be able to put it in the laundry every week because then I would still have to clean out the fridge while it was in the washer.  It looked a lot like this one found on Amazon.

Although it is really flexible and can be cut to fit, I would then I have to try to piece it back together every time I washed them which also seemed a little more work than I was looking for since I could probably clean the fridge in less time.  Plus, it was a solution that cost money so I decided to return them to the store and rethink the solution.

In my kitchen drawer, I found black silicone trivets that I barely use because they are small.  I thought that they sounded perfect.  I put the square one under the milk on the left side of the fridge.

Then, I put the round one under the ice tea pitcher on the right side of the fridge.  Since the pitcher was round, it made sense to use it and it does a great job catching all of the drips.

They now catch most of the mess from the under side of the containers.  I move the containers and clean the silicone trivets when they get dirty.  This one came out and got cleaned right away!!!  They go right back into place to keep the shelves in tip top shape.

Now there isn't much on the rest of the shelf so it is usually clean and if anything has gone over the edges, I just have to run a quick cloth over the shelf.  It makes for faster clean up and it was using things that I already had in the house.  Welcome to my clean refrigerator!!

I have seem lots of other ideas to keep the fridge clean like clothes, paper towels or cling wrap on the shelves.  Look around your house and see if you have the solution to your problem.  There are so many things that you can try and spending very little money on the solution is a added bonus!!  I love a thrifty solution to a problem that has been bothering me for a long time.