Is it worth buying a chest freezer?

jcr16

i'd be lost without my chest freezer. only prob i do have tho is struggle to reach stuff at bottom.

i got mine second hand for £20. local papers , freecycle . always see them on there. so u could purchase a second hand one cheaply and see how u get on nad if u want to then buy new.

I've had nice almost 4 years now. best £20 spent . i'm going to try and get an upright freezer tho later on , just because i find it easier to store things in , in the drawers but that's personal preferance.

Sarahsaver

Yes definitely.
I have a small one I got 10 years ago when dd was born. Made loads of baby foods and froze them.
Now I am planning to get lots of meat. Half a sheep sells for £25 in a butchers near me, and MIL has used some good online fish delivery company which was v good value.

Skint_Catt

If you're thinking of getting one don't forget to appeal on Freecycle - lots of people who are downsizing can't fit one in anymore and need to get rid of them!

cdodd

Skint_Catt wrote: »

If you're thinking of getting one don't forget to appeal on Freecycle - lots of people who are downsizing can't fit one in anymore and need to get rid of them!

yes we had a large chest freezer and downsized to a smaller one, gave the large one away on freecycle it was about 20 yrs old but still in working order

Sarahsaver

They do seem to last a long time. Not a lot to go wrong with them i suppose;)

calleyw

Umm Yes, Yes, Yes is all I can say.

We looked at both upright and chest freezers a couple of years ago when we moved. We found the uprights to be about £100 more. So we had a chest freezer A rated as well as having three drawers in my fridge freezer.

It is great not having to think if I have the space to buy reduced items.

I can get bread from my local sainburys reduced to 10p a loaf in the evening and seeing as the average price is about £1 a loaf for something half way decent.

The savings you make from the supermarket it is worth it. And mine is A rated so uses very little leccy.

Yours


Calley

beemuzed

We bought our chest freezer the month we moved here...24 years ago! Yes, sometimes I have to dig deep to find something, but that's because I'm not organised. One day I will keep a book of exactly what's in there and keep the baskets holding foods of one type only, rather than the jumble of surprises thats the norm here! If it broke down tomorrow it'd owe me nothing and I'd definitely replace it. We keep ours in the garage too.

BrandNewDay

I have a stand-alone freezer that is the standard under-the-counter white appliance size. It's not a chest, but has three drawers. I got it when we moved up to the Highlands and I knew I'd want to take advantage of sales when we drove to the big grocery stores once a month. I used it for long-term storage of bulk stuff - extra pastry, big roast joints, etc. I kept stuff I'd actually want/stuff that was opened in the freezer at the bottom of my fridge. I'm not sure it really made all that much a difference in my life, but I think it was good to have it and know we had all the stuff we needed.

When we moved to the new house, our fridge wouldn't fit in the kitchen. We have a dinky thing that has a regular top-shelf freezer. It's big enough to hold ice cream and a bag of frozen veg. I'm so glad we have the extra freezer! It sure does look naff in the corner of the living room, though.

Anyway, if you feel you don't have enough freezer space, then having more will be appreciated. You don't have to buy anything too big, you know.

For me, it makes shopping at Farmfoods a real option.

I don't have huge amounts of food in it, but it can hold a fair amount of stuff. It's easy to find things, too.

do_it_today!

Hi :hello:
Just passed a shop selling compact chest freezers for £60 - now & again I see posts about what people have in their chest freezers. We are only two at the moment but plan to be more at some point. Am trying to get into meal planning and batch cooking + we have an allotment which we plan to use to full capacity next year. Is it worth it and what are peoples tips and experiences?

We do bulk buy tinned stuff, toilet rolls and washing powder but are ristricted when it comes to frozen stuff

thanks

Seakay

Chest freezers are good if you are super organised - you have to have a system which allows you to know exactly where everything is or you will waste loads of energy by having the lid open for ages which raises the internal temperature and causes frosting etc.

Also, you need space to keep it where you can raise the lid, and to be able to resist the temptation to keep anything on top of it!