Food storage tracker: one list for the freezer and the cupboard
Most people who want a food storage tracker have two problems in different rooms: tins they keep rebuying because the cupboard is deep, and a freezer whose bottom layer is a mystery. These look like different jobs and they are not. Both are a count of things you own, and splitting them across two tools is the quickest way to end up maintaining neither.
One list, with a place on each row
Keep a single list and mark each thing as freezer, fridge or cupboard. You then get the two views you actually want: everything, for a shop, and one place, for standing in front of it. The alternative — a freezer app and a pantry app — means two sets of upkeep, two places to look, and an argument about which one is current.
What to record, per place
For the cupboard: the thing, how many, and a buy-more-at number for whatever you hate running out of. For the freezer: the thing, how many, and roughly how long it has been in there, because age is the only honest signal for home-frozen food. For the fridge: as little as possible. Most of a fridge turns over in a week and a list of it is work with no payoff — the exceptions are the few things you buy in bulk and freeze from, and they belong on the list for that reason.
Count things you buy in multiples
A tracker earns its keep on exactly the things you buy more than one of and finish slowly: tins, bags, jars, frozen portions. It earns nothing on a single bottle of vinegar, and recording that bottle is pure cost. If you only put the multiples on the list, the list stays short enough to read in a shop and short enough to keep true, which are the same thing.
Make the upkeep smaller than the memory
The test for any food storage tracker is what happens at the moment food leaves storage. If recording it costs more than remembering it, the list loses, every time, in every house. So the only feature worth being picky about is the decrement: one tap where the food is, available to everybody in the house without an installation or a login.
What this costs
tincount is free, and the reason is arithmetic rather than generosity: a household list is a few kilobytes of text and a handful of changes a week, inside hosting that already exists. The stickers print on your own printer. The barcode lookups run from your own browser. Nothing in it costs money per use, so there is nothing to charge for — and if we ever add something that does cost per use, it will arrive with a price rather than as a cap on the list you already have.
Frequently asked questions
Should I track the fridge as well?
Only the parts that turn over slowly. A fridge mostly empties itself every week, so a list of it is upkeep without a payoff; the things worth a row are the bulk buys you freeze from and the few items you hate discovering you are out of.
How many things should be on the list?
As few as answer a question in a shop. People who put everything on it stop maintaining it within a month; people who put the multiples on it are still using it a year later. A list holds up to 300 things, which is far more than a useful one needs.
What about expiry dates?
Shop-bought tins print their own and your cupboard is a better reader than a database. For home-frozen food nobody knows, so tincount records how long ago something was topped up and leaves the judgement to you rather than inventing a date.