Marie Kondo Says Your Fridge Should Be 30 Percent Empty

This morning, while I waited for my coffee to brew, I did a semi-serious fridge cleaning. I was away for a long weekend and sloppily left some restaurant leftovers in there to rot. There was also lots of mostly eaten containers of dip, bottles of way-too-spicy barbecue sauces, and bags of plant-based cheeses. (We do lots of the taste tests for the site from my apartment and my fridge quickly becomes a hodgepodge of randomness. If you want some dessert hummus from Aldi, let me know! I don’t toss this stuff, I just give it away to friends when I see them!)

If I had to estimate, it was about 91 to 93 percent full. And I have plans to grocery shop for the week later today, so I knew that some space had to be made.

Then, an hour or two later, in a fortunate stroke of serendipity, I saw this in an Instagram story from KonMari.co, the lifestyle brand from Marie Kondo.

“Don’t stuff your fridge,” it read. “Keep it about 30% empty and use the extra space for leftovers and new groceries.”

There it was! The inspiration that I needed! I had probably gotten down to about 20 percent empty, but she was right: There was not going to be enough room for me to put my new groceries unless I did a better edit. I mean, there was a container with, like, a tablespoon of whitefish salad in there. (I ate it and recycled the container. Again, waste not, want not!)

I got down to that target number, and while I do have questions about how to keep it at 30 percent if you’re consistently adding leftovers and new groceries, it does make sense when I look at the space now. And I guess, once I roast the broccoli that’s on my list, it’ll take up less space in the fridge.