Being a bachelor on budget means thriftiness and economy . Now, for many of you a refrigerator is pure luxury and we need not talk about such nonsense; but for those of us who the gift of cold storage, we're going to need to discuss efficiency.

No, I'm not talking about energy savings. What I mean is that there's only so much food that's going to fit in your treasure chest for leftovers.

First we examine the little icebox on top of our fridge--the mini-freezer. The average bachelor mini-freezer contains: two packages of wieners, two ice-cube trays, one bag of frozen vegetables, six Eggo waffles, and a half-consumed Slurpee. Everything seems to be in order here. Let's move on to the fridge.

The degree of freedom that you will have in your refrigerator will vary inversely to the number of roommates that you have. And let me say right now that labeling your food does not work. Anything that has your name on it is an invitation to your roommate or his/her friends to eat every last bite of your stash. The safest way to prevent roommates from eating your food is to buy only the products that they think are disgusting, but that you like. It's not easy to figure this out, and it may require a degree of trial and error. Try not to eat their food either; you want to avoid conflict as much as possible. Someday you may need your roommate to do a load of laundry for you.

Let's carry on.

What you put into your fridge will not always be the same as what you get out of it. Don't put anything fresh in there. Left over ramen noodles are okay, as are your fast food remains. This is fine as they won't have enough time to go bad. If you are in a situation where you have leftovers going mouldy, you are obviously spending too much money on food, and my advice isn't going to help. It's more likely that you are divorced and have some issues with individual portions and your marriage.

Let's look at long-term foodstuffs. There must always be a jar of pickles on the back of the second shelf. This is not negotiable. I cannot explain the phenomenon, but it has always been so. The brand or style of pickle is not important. Beyond that, you may have a container of jelly, and perhaps some form of cheese. This is not a minimalist approach--this is reality.

Beyond that your fridge should be filled almost entirely with condiments and sauces. I recommend that you buy only squeezable condiments, as not only are you saving yourself effort in applying them to your hotdog, toast, whatever, you are also saving on dishes (see my article on minimizing dishwashing efforts). It is alright to keep a margarine container filled with mustard and ketchup packets you've obtained on your bachelor journeys.

Now, we must always consider what space must be reserved before filling our fridge with any other unnecessary products (milk, eggs, AA batteries). There must always be room for a case of beer on the bottom shelf, and room enough for three pizza boxes on top of that. This is important when considering potential freebies. Your friends will always take beer home if it's left on the counter, yet they might forget about it if it's under a pizza box. Got it?

Having to replace that box of baking soda is bullshit. There will never be enough food in your fridge to worry about odors. Some of you have probably been hungry enough at one time or another to consider the edibility of that product. Just leave it for the next occupant.