With food prices soaring and energy costs at record highs, it's time for an energy-saving tune up for your refrigerator and freezer. Keeping food fresh--while conserving energy--can bring a helpful boost to the strained pocketbook.

Try these tips to minimize energy use and save money on groceries:

• Fill the freezer, but give the fridge some air. The freezer works most efficiently when packed as full as possible. Need to fill in some space? Tuck extra ice for cold drinks or cold-packs for summer picnics into any empty space in the freezer.

  A black-out bonus: full freezers keep food frozen longer if a power outage occurs.

  The refrigerator is a different animal; it needs air circulation to keep food at an even temperature. Packing a refrigerator too tightly means some foods become too cold--and may even freeze--while others aren't kept cold enough for proper storage. Let the refrigerator breathe to keep food fresh longer.

Once again, I mark the coming of autumn with a clothing closet declutter. I wade into the closet and find the boxes of out-of-season clothing. Try everything on, skin itching at the touch of wool when the temperature's 80 degrees.

Sort the summer's keepers from items to donate. Look for "holes" and orphans in my autumn wardrobe. Count the upcoming dinners and fund-raisers, and divide them by the number of my cocktail dresses. Try, for the 900th time, to locate some good transitional outfits: cool enough for warm autumn days, but not too summery or too bare.

A closet declutter is more a ritual celebration of the change of seasons. It's a time for reflection, a time to face up to changing identities. Who's living in your clothes closet? Read more »