One of the best ways to save money for any family is to use a freezer. If bread goes on sale, I buy it. If ground turkey goes on sale, I buy it. If pizza goes on sale, I buy it. In order to keep track of what we have, I have divided my chest freezer with coated wire baskets.
These baskets are ones that can be used to store clothes but they just happen to fit into my freezer perfectly. I have three that stack one on top of the other.
Why does this work? Because I can take each one out with all the contents and I don’t have to rifle through the entire freezer. I know that they stack easily and each one holds different items.
Another trick I like to use in family freezer is to use containers to store frozen veggies & fruits. Bags can get squished and several opened at the same time. Since, you tend to use items that you can clearly see, this method lets you keep track when you are running out. Using a labeler to label each container also helps when they need to be re-filled. {I’m an organizer people, I label a lot of things…}
We bought this small chest freezer when we bought our first house about 18 years ago. It still works well and is the perfect size. Investing in a small freezer just means that you won’t lose items or keep them for too long. This is how I have divided the freezer:
- on the bottom I keep ice packs that I only use for coolers and items that I don’t use as often but are nice to have handy (above)
- The second basket has items that I would use more frequently but that I don’t need access to all the time. (above)
- The third baskets that sits on the top hold items that I use most frequently and need access to easily. I make sure that when I ask the kids to look for something in the freezer it is most likely in that basket. (above)
- the area to the right of the baskets is where I stack items on their side so that I can read the label on the packaging. So often we have a tendency to pile items on top of each other and that just makes for a lot of lost lasagne and Swedish meatballs!
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You can stack things just make sure they are not to deep. You always have to have some crinkle cut French fries just in case you have a gang of teenagers show up at your door.
Margarita Ibbott is a travel and lifestyle blogger. She blogs about travel in Canada, the United States and Europe giving practical advice through restaurant, hotel and attraction reviews. She writes for DownshiftingPRO.com and other online media outlets.
I like the idea of putting the fruit into containers! I just keep mine in the bag and half the time it doesn’t get sealed!
I have little kids, but I make sure I ALWAYS have a bag of french fries in the freezer. I think when they get to be teenagers, I’ll have to have to get a big wire basket just for fries!
the mr and I were just talking about what was in our freezer today! it’s relatively new and we still need to ‘organize’..i have no idea what’s in it!
Thanks for the reminder to organizer the freezer. I keep going to Costco and stocking up on meats only to come home to see bags of the same stuff already in there!
Definitely need to divide everything up into smaller portions (or single serving size) to make dinner prep faster during the week.
Deb: Thank goodness you got rid of the large chest freezer. People are always happy to get them but don’t realize that they use up a ton of power. Good for you for upgrading!
I love my freezer! We inherited a HUGE old chest freezer with our house, and I never did get the hang of organising it so I could find things. I love your system. We recently traded out our chest freezer for a more energy efficient and space efficient upright. (The chest freezer was from the 60s I think – seriously looked exactly like the one I grew up with.)
Like you, I stock up when things are on sale. Also, a freezer lets you buy in bulk and then divide up your chicken breasts or ground beef or whatever into single meal packages.
Very informative! I wouldn’t have thought you could store pizza on its side, but if it’s frozen, why not?