Is it worth having a second freezer

lilac_lady

Is it worthwhile getting a table top freezer to keep in the garage or are they too small to be of any use?? I've no room for a full sized one there.

halia

thanks all - will wander off and find a decent deal. How do I find out running costs btw?

bubblegumcola

We're a family of 5 and I am beginning to think I really should get a chest freezer. I have a 16 year old Hotpoint fridge freezer in my kitchen but the fridge isn't really big enough and the freezer is too wee if I want to take advantage of special offers. My kids never seem to stop eating at the moment!
When my Fridge freezer goes kaput I'd rather buy a decent sized tall fridge and get a chest freezer. We've got an integral garage so I could put a chest freezer in there, only problem is I'll really need to give my garage a big clearout! I read somewhere that you need to make sure it has integral condenser in it if you want to keep a chest freezer in a garage?

I'm sure I'd save money by going food shopping less often. If I make extra for meals then i can freeze the extra as portions rather than OH buying himself ready meals if he is going to be late home from work. I'm not sure about what size to get or what make. They seem alot of money to buy but if it lasts years like my fridge freezer then I couldn't complain. It would be handy to have especially in the winter months, nothing worse than having to go out in bad weather for a loaf and milk. Any suggestions at to a good brand to buy?

[Deleted User]

Oh I am green with envy. I used to have two lovely upright frost-free freezers but I gave them away when we downsized. I now have 4 small drawers at the bottom of a fridge/freezer. Mind you we are now two and I have adapted pretty well. The upside is that I cleared 3 shelves pretty quickly after I discovered costco and yesterday I shopped there and filled them

I have to be very selective now eg no batch baking for the freezer but the remoska helps me out as I can bake economically in that

Many moons ago I had big chest freezers but tbh the upright ones with doors were much easier to keep organised

slowandsteady_2

what a great thread, glad im not the only freezer loving person out there!

We have 3 freezers, we moved to where we are now (a house) from a flat in April, in the flat i had my fridge freezer and took the shelves out so could stack more, then we got given a table top type freezer which went on top of the FF and when we moved here i got a 6 drawer upright off my dad that he doesnt use. Admittedly its an old one we had it when i was younger but its immaculate, im not too worried about the extra electric cost as my flat had pre pay electric and gas cards and my bills now metered and DD and have reduced drastically so im used to paying out loads on those awful pre pay cards so feel like i pay next to nothing now!

I use my tabletop type one to store joints of meat and squeeze whatever else i can alongside, i use my fridge freezer to store mostly convienience bought food and batch cooked stuff, and my upright mostly has frozen veg and portoned up meat, mince etc and picked berries at the moment.

My cupboards and pantry are now looking healthy after we ran em down a bit before moving, but i too have a fear of us being short of money and not being able to buy food. I dont know why, just got a thing about it!

We've got enough food to last weeks, i did a freezer inventory before i got the upright and had enough food to make 129 meals! There is only me dh and 8 mth old dd! Iv added to that, think i need help!

I love my freezers though and am happy with 3 so i'll stop collecting them now!

[Deleted User]

you lot got me thinking and this morning I decided to have an objective look at my kitchen. I want and NEED a freezer because no matter how I try to convince myself, my fridge/freezer with 4 small drawers is just not enough for me. I made a footprint of brown paper and put it in a place where I think I could site a freezer and it will FIT easily but it has to look very good indeed because that part of my lovely kitchen is directly opposite the front door and will be seen by all

I have done a lot of looking around today and we have decided that white would not look good here and smeg is not that good internally and anyway not big enough so we have finally decided on a stainless steel miele freestanding tall frost free freezer. Yes it is expensive but It will also match the new floor we are having in a couple of weeks

I cannot wait now that we have made the decision. Roll on next gooseberry season

LilacPixie

Sorry not sure if this is the right place to put this, board guides please feel free to move it if you feel there is someplace more appropriate.

I would like to ask everyones opinions on the pros and cons of an extra freezer. We are a family of 4, 2 adults 2 kids, both adults work pretty much fulltime. I tend to bulk cook things like curry, bolognese, chili and freeze in family sized portions then we defrost heat and cook rice/pasta etc on the day. I only have a small freezer of 1.9cubic feet capacity not including the drawer baskets. We do manage with what we have but i feel that I don't have the space for the veriaty or amount of meals i would like to keep and as a result spend more money on fresh foods.

My husband works for a food distrabution company. That company has a policy not to send out foods with less that a 3 day use by date on the items mostly meat. Items with less than 3 days date are sold off to staff for a massive discount. For examply Friday he came home with a 5kg box of fresh chicken breasts, 2.3kg diced stewing steak, 10 pork escalops, 2.3kg cumberland pork sauage rings. All dated 21st December This cost him just under £7. We did split this between ourselves and both sets of parents so there was no wastage but it meals all our freezers are full now for a month or so. This is pretty much a daily occurance but OH only looks when we actually have room in freezer. The meat is very good quality IMO and comes from a real butcher as opposed to a meat plant ingecting water and such into the meat.

I am undecided. On the one hand I think getting a 2nd freezer would be a good idea, we have a cupboard that used to be a coal celler when this place had a coal fire that we can have a socket fitted into for power but on the other I wonder how much if anything a 2nd freezer would save us in money. At the moment I find that 1-2 days a week we are resorting to a take away or something fresh from the supermarket because we have run out of cooked meals.

I should say my OH is lovely but a disaster in the kitchen. I work until 6pm and its 6.30 before i am home so evening meal is his responsibility and anything more than boiling some pasta and heating a sauce plus putting garlic bread in the oven is testing him severly so its not like i can even leave him with fresh ingredients.

So opinions old stylers. do you think an additional freezer would be benificial to us??

ifonlyitwaseasier

yes yes yes yes yes

currently i have access to 2 fridges and 3 freezers, (not mine just where i live) and even then we struggle to fit everything in, admittedly if it was up to me i'd have a re-arrange of them and swap the small one for a large standing one and then use it for batch cooking/woopsies etc

maman

I'd say definitely go for it, can't think of any cons at all. When we had a new kitchen it was my number one priority to make room for a second freezer and I'm delighted with it. I do all the batch cooking like you do and take advantage of any reduced items that come my way. Also,I keep plenty of frozen veg for using at the end of the week or times of the year when fresh veg is ridiculously expensive (like when cauliflowers cost £1+).

All I would suggest is that it you have space in your coal hole then go for a chest freezer. Because I didn't want anything huge and overpowering in my kitchen I have 2 underworktop models with fitted shelves and plastic 'baskets'. Unfortunately, it's difficult/impossible to get a turkey into them!!

Pink.

Hi LilacPixie,

I would definitely go for it. We have two freezers (an upright and a chest freezer) in the garage and I use both of them constantly. If one were to die, I'd replace it immediately.

There's an earlier thread that should help you to decide:

Is it worth having a second freezer

I'll add your thread to that one later to keep the opinions together.

Pink