Money Moral Dilemma: Is it OK to fill my freezer with 'yellow sticker' bargains?

General_Grant

Wizzbang said:

This is hardly a moral dilemma! You are free to buy what you like, unless the shop imposes limits. However, I would urge caution - I buy less and less yellow stickers, they're not good value because they're so close to their date, they go off in the freezer. I got sick of removing bread or baked goods, only to find the were covered in green mould. Or worse, smelly meat. It's not very money-saving and you really should freeze food when it's as fresh as possible, not on its last legs.

Are you sure you've got a freezer and not a larder?

If they come out covered in green mould that's the way they went in.

Edina_Typhoon

Absolutely not.  Don't be a selfish, greedy b****rd!  You wouldn't buy that much if it was full price.  Leave some for other people.

Wizzbang

General_Grant said:

Wizzbang said:

This is hardly a moral dilemma! You are free to buy what you like, unless the shop imposes limits. However, I would urge caution - I buy less and less yellow stickers, they're not good value because they're so close to their date, they go off in the freezer. I got sick of removing bread or baked goods, only to find the were covered in green mould. Or worse, smelly meat. It's not very money-saving and you really should freeze food when it's as fresh as possible, not on its last legs.

Are you sure you've got a freezer and not a larder?

If they come out covered in green mould that's the way they went in.

Absolute rubbish - food can still deteriorate in a freezer. Mould spores are initially invisible, as they are airborne. If you leave goods until the last date that the manufacturer suggests they are safe to eat - they have had all that time, potentially a week to be exposed to such pathogens. A freezer pauses the deterioration process, but as soon as you defrost the food to use it - the mould particles become active again once at a warmer temperature. Hence you can open a packet of bread or whatever and find it's gone off. That's why there are advised freezing times for different types of goods - because the structure of them can deteriorate, or they get freezer burn. Household freezers are merely designed to slow the process of food decomposition - they aren't cold enough to completely suspend it.

t14cy_t

buy the lot. first come first served. 

Poorexgirlfriend192

I’m on a very tight budget so I will get a few bits with yellow stickers to freeze as soon as I get home. 

MATTR5

I buy Yellow Sticker stuff 3 times a week. I would say less than 1% shows any mould so if you freeze it that day no problem
We almost live off the stuff - though its getting harder - Waitrose and Tesco certainly not as good as they were - but a couple of others great 
At my local everyone knows the time its put out so there can be a bit of a bunfight - I wish they had some sort of "Take a ticket" and then you get allocated eg next 5 items but its all good fun. We even buy a yellow sticker Turkey every Christmas Eve (Though this year we plumped for a Goose as it was £6) 

wiseonesomeofthetime

I would buy what I thought I would need. This is based on experience.
Last year, there was a burst water main by my local store and it flooded vehicle access to the store.
When I walked in, the store was practically abandoned and the entire fresh bread/cake etc section was on 90% + discounts!
Walked out with as much bread, pancakes, and doughnuts I could carry. Even paid for carrier bags
While I did not waste any of it, I felt like I was eating stodgy stuff for ages as needed to clear freezer later that week for the Iceland shop 
In summary, it is first come, first served, but be sensible otherwise it is not money saving, it's money spending.

Primrose

there,s surely a difference between money saving and sheer naked greed!  Take a reasonable amount but leave some for others who may be more hard up than yourself. 

wrongplanet

No it's not.

Every now and then at the local supermarket you get someone - it's usually a couple working together - who start doing this. The staff don't like it any more than other customers do plus the offenders usually have a bad attitude towards them. So they'll alter the time they do the final reductions for a bit and let the considerate regulars know when they'll be done. The offenders soon go somewhere else.

tain

Wizzbang said:

General_Grant said:

Wizzbang said:

This is hardly a moral dilemma! You are free to buy what you like, unless the shop imposes limits. However, I would urge caution - I buy less and less yellow stickers, they're not good value because they're so close to their date, they go off in the freezer. I got sick of removing bread or baked goods, only to find the were covered in green mould. Or worse, smelly meat. It's not very money-saving and you really should freeze food when it's as fresh as possible, not on its last legs.

Are you sure you've got a freezer and not a larder?

If they come out covered in green mould that's the way they went in.

Absolute rubbish - food can still deteriorate in a freezer. Mould spores are initially invisible, as they are airborne. If you leave goods until the last date that the manufacturer suggests they are safe to eat - they have had all that time, potentially a week to be exposed to such pathogens. A freezer pauses the deterioration process, but as soon as you defrost the food to use it - the mould particles become active again once at a warmer temperature. Hence you can open a packet of bread or whatever and find it's gone off. That's why there are advised freezing times for different types of goods - because the structure of them can deteriorate, or they get freezer burn. Household freezers are merely designed to slow the process of food decomposition - they aren't cold enough to completely suspend it.

Quite a bit of what you are saying is very confused, and doesn't give the right message.

Bacteria and pathogens are not active at freezer temperatures. So the mould or anything you speak of will not affect the food until it is defrosted. If it is then defrosted in a fridge kept below 4C, it will still be too cold for pathogen growth. If you have mould growing, one of these two elements failed.

Freezing isn't perfect, though, and food can still deteriorate by drying out, getting freezer burn, or being unsafe to eat before it goes in.