November 12, 2011

Two Freezers????


Yes, that is what my husband said when I told him I wanted another freezer.  His response was that maybe if I used up what was in the other freezer I would have enough room and wouldn't need another freezer.

Men don't get it.

Right now we have a large upright freezer.  I think it is about 15 cubit feet.  It is full of meat, cheese and frozen veggies.  I would like a separate, small chest freezer for casseroles and such that I make ahead of time and also for day old bread that I get on sale.

First of all I'm not sure that I could plug in another freezer in the same outlet in our basement.  I should be able to, but I'm not sure and would have to have an electrician check this out for me.  

Second of all, he does have a point about using up what is in the first freezer to make room for more stuff.  However, the reason that this freezer is full is because I came across an in store deal on ground beef for only 80 cents a lb. and I bought as much as I could buy at the time. This is an example of how I shop for meat.  When I come across deals such as chicken hindquarters for only 39 cents a lb., turkey for 49 cents a lb., boneless pork loin for only $1.59 a lb. I buy a lot.  These prices don't come around very often and with prices increasing, I have to be able to buy in bulk when there is an exceptional deal. 

The bottom rack of my freezer is jammed with frozen vegetables that were on sale one week for only 69 cents for a 1 lb. bag. 

You may be wondering about the freezer above my fridge.  Yes, it is packed with day to day freezer items such as lunch meat, bread, ice cream and items I use for pizza. 

I am probably preaching to the choir here but I know that I would make good use of a second freezer and in no uncertain terms there is no way I would buy a third.  I believe wholeheartedly that our economy will never be the same again and that we need to go back to living like our grandparents - simply and frugally.  Grandma had a garden and canned and she helped to butcher and process her own meat.   I have the advantage of grocery stores that offer great deals that I can buy in bulk and freeze.

A small second freezer makes sense.  Convincing my husband of this will take a few months of hard work. 

How many freezers do you have?

12 comments:

Melissa said...

I have one small deep freeze and two refrigerators. My deep freeze is full and the kitchen freezer on my refrigerator is full. The other frig is sometimes full and sometimes not just depends on what I have stocked up on. Honestly I could not justify a second freezer I don't think mine would be full enough to justify the electric it would use.

Rocky Mountain Homemaker said...

We're a one freezer family. If I froze the garden rather than canned it, I would likely wish I had two of the them.
We're hunters, so we pray for lots of game to pack into those freezer shelves. So far, no luck.
We live an hour from a "city" with supermarkets, so I have a computerized shopping list and we go on a two-cart grocery run once a month. For that reason, we need a freezer for bread, gallons of milk, etc. We also have a mini frig with a tiny freezer in our basement. Even that little freezer is handy for things like butter and tortillas.
I love your posts!...........Denise

~Carla~ said...

We have a 3/4 size freezer and the freezer on our fridge. I think that gives us plenty of room and there are 6 of us. I'm kind of with your hubby on this one.. Is it just the two of you? But youre right about the prices of food never dropping again, i think its here to stay! Also, "grandma" never had a 2nd freezer. ;)

Van Zante family said...

I've got two large chest freezers (both of them full: beef, corn, applesauce, casseroles, carrots, etc) and two refrigerators with freezers. As we empty one freezer of all the garden produce (mostly corn and applesauce) then we consolidate. Mostly we have two freezers plugged in for about 6 months of the year. Otherwise the 2nd one sets empty. Our 2nd freezer was free from my aunt. I say "go for it".

Chars said...

We have 2 fridges - with one being half fridge half freezer... The other being 100% fridge and 1 upright freezer...

I too would LOVE another freezer to be able to store bread, milk and cheese in. I can only manage to store an extra loaf or 2 at the moment, which is annoying as I try to avoid going to the supermarket.

Anonymous said...

Men. I have two freezers myself. One holds all my meats, ham, etc. My other one holds meals that Ive already cooked or frozen vegies from the garden and all that. The one above my fridge is for ice cream or leftover I am putting to the side for the week.

Judy

Unknown said...

We have our regular refrig freezer and that's where I store the "everyday" stuff (lunch meals, blueberries for oatmeal, breakfast burritos). Our freezer in the garage is for the stock-up runover. I loaded up on 3 lb tubes of 80% ground beef today, and took advantage of HyVee's buy-a-ham, get-a-turkey free deal. It was looking rather empty before I grocery shopped today!

Is there someone you might be able to "tagteam" with? Someone you trust enough to share freezer space with? For me, my parents live in town and have an extra freezer...well, it's rarely ever full (or even half). I should have thought of "renting" space in their freezer before buying one of my own.

I do like the convenience of having my own freezer, but Plan C could have been a viable option.

Martha said...

We may be having some college students living with us beginning next semester so I would like to have the extra freezer space for food. Also when items such as turkeys and hams go on sale, it would be nice to have an extra freezer. But if my husband is dead set against it, I will have to live without it.

Rose said...

Martha,
I am going in the opposite direction of you. We want to rely less on our freezer, and can more of our food. We have our fridge in the kitchen of course, plus we have an upright in our garage that is packed to the brim. If there is a power outage during the winter that lasts more than 2 days, what are you going to do with all that food? Our generator will be heating our house, not trying to keep food from spoiling. My goal is to have more food canned so we don't need to rely on electricity. Right now, if we lost power for a couple of days, I would be canning up everything that I could from the freezer. But, if you're not into canning, a second freezer can be a good alternative.

mikemax said...

I have a 20 c.f. upright freezer that I bought about 15 years ago when there were 5 of us living at home. Now, with only 3 here, I wish it were a bit smaller. It's about 3/4 full. I make a monthly trip to the bread store, and that fills up one shelf. I still have half a turkey left from last year and will be buying two more when they are cheap at Thanksgiving. I have a lot of pork and other meats bought on sale...and now you have to hear about my steak!

A friend told me about the grocery store in a tiny town (pop. 618) about 35 miles from here. They have outstanding meat, and they freeze the markdown meat and price it at half-price. I happened to be near the town about two weeks ago and decided to drop in. As I was going through the meat freezer, choosing what I wanted, the owner told me he'd sell me a box of frozen meat for $50. Well, naturally, I went for it! When I got home, I discovered I had 30+ lbs. of ribeye, NY strips, Porterhouse and bone-in rib steaks! It worked out to $1.63 lb.

As he was ringing up my sale, he mentioned that he actually had 3 boxes that he needed to get rid of to make room for a couple of pallets of turkeys. I put my meat in the truck and called my friend. When I came back in the store, the milkman--who was making a delivery--was buying the second box of meat! I bought the third one for my friend. She did her math differently and said that her box contained $280 worth of meat. Even at half-price, she would have paid $140. What a deal!!

The only drawback was that the meat was frozen in the original packaging. Not good for longterm storage. I've removed each steak, wrapped it in foil and stored them in plastic bags. Small price to pay for USDA Choice steaks for $1.63 lb!

Leilani said...

We have 2 chest freezers...one 6 foot and an 8 foot freezer. We freeze all sorts of things. We live here in Hawaii and things cost a little more than the mainland. However, we have found some excellent deals and our freezers are used for these purposes. During this time of year, we will buy 10-15 turkeys and butcher them up so we will have turkey breasts and ground turkey all year long. There is a place in town that sells overstocked grocery items such as cheese...we've gotten 5lb bags for $3.00!! We'll purchase 10 bags and into the freezer they go. We grind our own meats when we purchase roasts of pork or beef that are at low prices for our area. We make our own bread and we purchase large bags of bread flour(25lbs.) from Costco which we put into the freezer. Costco is on the other side of the island so we purchase 5
or 6 bags at a time..We save a ton of money by having these freezer to accomodate our family of 7 especially during these economic times!! Thanks for letting me share!!

Xa Lynn said...

I am also going in the opposite direction. When we moved from our former house into this small apt, we discovered we couldn't get our ancient upright in here. And for that and a couple other issues, we got rid of it and replaced it with the smallest chest style freezer available. We are in the process of buying another home - one that is smaller than what we had, without a basement, or any good place to put the chest freezer except possibly the laundry room/bathroom, which doesn't really appeal. Anyway, this means I am going to canning a lot more, rather than freezing. So I'll be buying many more jars...

Xa Lynn