Is it worth having a second freezer

suzybloo

I have two small chest freezers and an upright one. The upright and one of the chest ones are in the garage., as I bulk buy from the butcher (get 10% discount), chicken factory (whole chickens £1.50, large grade A chicken fillets 60p each), fish shop (haddock £2 a lb cheaper when bought in 7lb boxes), also send to Stornoway for black puddings, white puddings and haggis I feel I can justify the 3. The one in the house has rolls, bread, cooked meals, one chicken, half dozen fillets etc in it with the main stock being outside, When I am sorting out the meal planning for the week I 'shop' from the ones outside and move whats needed into the house - it saves me trailing out in the dark and cold to get anything. It works great for us (me hubby and DD2) as I hate shopping so just need to go one a month. It was fantastic over the past month as we didnt need to go shopping. We are now living out of the freezers for January too so I can out extra towards the winter bills

Broomstick

Hi Mardatha,

I've been wondering about getting the smallest size of chest freezer as a second one. Have you, or anyone else, worked out how much a freezer like this would cost to run?

Thanks
B x

mardatha

Well Suzy, this is one of my aims. To cut down shopping trips as much as poss. I am very impressed with the idea of buying in bulk - thanks for that. NO Broomstick, havent worked out cost, lots of people on here will have though... I need to find out who and pick their brains

suzybloo

Mardatha - As well as the discounts for bulk buying I also take into account to offset the cost of running the extra freezers the fact that I only use fuel once (or delivery charge once in the month), I dont pick up any unnecessary purchases eg sweets!, etc and the time saving factor that I dont have to trail round the shops for an hour and a half each week, then take another half hour to put the bloody stuff away - along with moaning minnies standing in the aisles in Tesco putting the world to rights but ignoring your polite request to get past! Can you tell I love shopping!

jcr16

when buying one, i've been told that frost free freezers cost more to run.

i'm unsure why this is true or even if it is. i personally prefer frost free, but i've now go into a routine of de-frosting every couple of months the big tall freezer, so there is never alot of ice and it only take a couple of hours to do.

jammy_dodger

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

We've always run two freezers for the two of us and now we have Dad as well and also a dog who is fed a raw diet most of which is delivered monthly frozen. Currently we are a bit OTT as we're running five freezers :eek: which I suspect is contributing to our huge electricity blls....

Our aim is to get down to at least four - one in each section of accommodation, main house and grampa annexe then the chest freezer in the shed and a small freezer for the dogs food.

I'd like to get down to less but that would involve one of the accommodation units not having a freezer or mixing the dogs food with ours which is a recipe for disaster!

Oooooo FIVE am jealous

glad am not the only one with3 though i grow own veg and forage , bulk buy and stock up with reduced items , great money saving and time saving as i live rural, always have something in to eat ..well actually could probably live out of them for quite some time

ifonlyitwaseasier

Mar, really???? do you EVER need encouragement to be naughty???

stilernin

For two freezers to be cost effective, good stock control is the answer. It is easy to buy whoopsies, grow your own and spend hours bulk cooking, but if more goes in to the freezer every week than comes out, it becomes a very expensive larder. Almost every post has talked about how much can be stored but you have to make sure that you take stuff out and use it every day too.

Imagine you fill your whole freezer with whoopsies and save £50. If this is not used for a whole year and the electricity has cost £50, you have saved nothing. (Oversimplified I know, but you get my drift.) The quicker you 'turn around' what is in there, the cheaper it is when you eat it

To help with this I have one drawer for 'stuff to use up': the last couple of spoonsful of peas, a single chicken breast, a lonely bread roll etc. I look in here first for ideas for a meal. Also, I take things out of packaging, particularly meat from plastic trays , and put into freezer bags to save space.

Having said all of that................... I might just buy a second one this year if the new allotment goes well :j

mardatha

Well I live very rural, dont get in for whoopsies but am going to grow more veg this year than last, and I can forage a lot of fruit. I buy meat in Costco so that takes up room. I keep some bread flour in the freezer, and a lot of milk, and make a lot of soup. I think I'm havin one. And IOIWE I'm sure I dono what you mean !

Penelope_Penguin

mardatha wrote: »

Is it worthwhile getting a second freezer ? I have a fridge/freezer but its stuffed full, and I got the pressure cooker so I could batch cook and freeze meals ready to eat - but can't get on with it because the freezer's full of meat and frozen veg. Am wondering if its OTT to have a second freezer for ready-cooked meals, although there are only two of us.

Unless you're growing your own fruit, veg and meat, and want to store surplus around the year, no it isn;t worth having more than one freezer

Bargains come round again, so eat what you have in the one freezer, and save your money (for a new freezer and the running costs) to do something more fun :T