Living without a fridge

meg72

Being of the generation that grew up without a fridge, I have to say I really would not like to go back to it, we shopped daily and in smaller proportions then,

rising_from_the_ashes

I did it for a fortnight at Christmas (old one broke & had to wait ages for the new one to be delivered as it was in the run up to "the big day" and all the slots were booked).

TBH it OK on a short term basis but it was cold and I kept stuff in my garage - I certainly wouldn't want stuff lying around out there at this time of year.

Could you really be bothered to go to the shops for milk etc every day?

I guess it depends on where you live - it's an 18 mile round trip for me to get milk so wouldn't be cost effective in fuel terms.

valk_scot

You could move the big fridge out to the garage and see how you get on. If it turns out to be a pitb, you can then buy a smaller fridge. When my big fridge died two months after the five year warranty ran out I bought a small cheap fridge as we were intending to get our kitchen remodelled. Four years later we actually did this, and I was relieved to go back to a bigger fridge. The small fridge went on Freecycle.

I'm a great fan of larder fridges actually, if you've got a seperate freezer somewhere. I'd rather have extra shelf space in the fridge than a freezer compartment.

VioletOblivia

Hi all,

My poorly fridge is finally dying. I had to chip ice off of the inside of it this morning, just to be able to shut the door properly. The icebox section broke and froze completely including outside of the icebox. It is running but only just and my new fridge won't get delivered til Tuesday 19th of March. The thing is, I know I can get the UHT Milk but what do I do about things like cheese spread and yoghurts? I'm trying to eat healthily so they're a part of my diet. This isn't a situation I'm familiar with so I'm stumped for what to do. Would love some tips.

Thanks in advance.

b_girl

Hi everyone, I'm hoping you can give me some tips with your canny OS ways.

I move into a new house tomorrow but after a bit of a saga will be without a fridge/freezer until Thursday. I'm wanting to keep costs down as much as possible and not resort to splurging daily on convenience foods. I have all other amenities - oven, kettle, microwave, toaster etc. it's me, DH and dd (18 months) so want to make sure she's having milk and a healthyish diet until the fridge is here.

I'm looking for advice for meal ideas but also how to keep my daughter's (cows) milk cool and stop it from going off.

Look forward to hearing your tips

Gigervamp

I'd buy the milk daily and keep it cool in a bucket of cold water.

DigForVictory

If you're *not* on metered water (check!) then a trickle of cold water running through whatever sink in which you keep milk & a weighted waterproof box of butter etc works a treat.

If metered, then you can cool things by wrapping in damp newspaper & letting it evaporate cool, but milk overnight? Coolbox with frozen blue blocks & plenty of dry newspaper as extra insulation?

All the very best!

Gigervamp

Thinking about the coolbox idea, you could introduce yourself to your new neighbours and ask if they'd mind freezing a couple of icepacks for you.

LameWolf

First - a disclaimer: I know zilch about feeding small children.

However - I am unable to shop for a while as my husband has just had a hernia repair, and he pushes my wheelchair when we shop, so Ive bought in a supply of long-life milk. Would this be a possible solution for you?

If UHT milk isn't suitable for little'uns, sorry, I was just trying to help.:o

Mistral001

Recently I measured, with an energy meter, how much electricity my fridge used over 24 hours when temperature in house was 18 to 20 degrees. It used 0.9 kWhr which equates to nearly £5 a month I reckon. My fridge is a fairly modern under-under-the-worktop model thus fairly modest in size and well insulated.


This amounts to about a quarter of my electricity usage in the summer months, but before I measured the fridge's usage with a meter, I was convinced that it used a lot more and was even thinking of not using it at all.