A Second Fridge or Freezer: Frugal or Unfrugal?
Tuesday May 6, 2008
With all the focus on stockpiling lately, I have to ask: do you consider it frugal or unfrugal to maintain a second fridge or freezer in your home? Personally, I'm against the idea because I'm concerned about the extra energy use/cost and the possibility of losing a lot of food to a power outage.
But what do you think? Does an extra fridge or freezer help you to save money? Share your thoughts!
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Photo Credit: Jen_Dunlap
Comments
Freezers allow sale stock-ups, and room for quick items on busy days - easier and cheaper than take-out. Make room for a bag of ice or jug of frozen water during stormy seasons. The ice will extend food life if you lose power. The ice will also help your freezer run less.
I grew up with an extra freezer, and it saved us lots of money. My parents would buy a side of beef each year for our family of 6. The butcher would cut it up and package it how my mom wanted it. It was a huge initial investment, but in the long run it saved a lot of money.
Now I wish I had room for an extra freezer so I could do a similar thing. I don’t need so much beef–but so I would know where my beef was coming from. (Food safety, etc).
Under certain conditions, I would certainly have two freezers. A friend who had purchased a very small freezer for her apartment recently moved into a house with her children. A friend of hers who no longer needs her slightly larger freezer gave it to my friend. Now she has room for a garden and the extra freezer space to take advantage of home-grown goodies!
Sinchronicity!
We have an extra freezer and when we find meat onsale we buy it! Especially now when chicken and pork going up!!!!
My Mom taught me to be prepared and always had food in case of snowstorms. It was a sense of security. I have followed that tradition and have a large freezer that I keep stocked. With the price of food going higher, I buy on sale and freeze. I have always thought it was worth the extra electricity . Today we also have energy conserving appliances that don’t use as much electricity.
I have a large chest freezer (manual defrost to save money on the electric bill) and I have recently finished stocking that one and the fridge freezer to the absolute max! I spent about 500.00 total (after coupons) and along with the cupboard stocking up (I got toothpaste on sale with double coupons for .50cents a tube - I bought 26 of them lol) I won’t have to shop for anything other than milk, eggs, and fresh fruit/veggies (till my container garden starts producing anyway). I definitely see having an extra freezer a plus. The money I spend now to stock up on both frozen/non frozen items will really save over the next few months as food prices continue to rise and we need to save for winter fuel oil and wood pellets.
It also gives me the chance to be creative while making meal plans and challenges me to see just how long I can make everything last.
We always buy gallons of milk marked down to $1 and keep them frozen until use and have never had any problems. I put a new one in the fridge a few days before I need it and it slowly defrosts and a quick shkae and it is ready to use. We only buy skim or 1%, whole milk might need more shaking. When we were without power during Hurricane Rita for 4 days, we only lost some minor stuff, because the freezer was full, everything stayed cold. We did cook it all up very soon after that though just to be safe. I could not live without my extra freezer.
I live in Florida, we used to have a second refrigerator in our garage (it was the only place we could keep it), until we had an energy audit. The inspector explained how much it was costing, and we got rid of it. If I lived in a cooler climate and had a basement, I might consider getting a second refrigerator.
I never thought an extra fridge or freezer was necessary, but my husband has always insisted upon it. Now that we have two, one in the garage and one in the house, I see the benefit. Number one, we have two young children with big appetites and gallons of milk take up a lot of space. Also, my husband likes to make fresh juice so we go to the farmer’s market and buy huge amounts of carrots and apples and now we have a place to store them. It helps financially, not only because you can buy stuff on sale, but also it reduces the amount of times you have to use gas to drive to the store.
We have a second refrigerator with a large freezer compartment in our garage. (We brought it along from our previous home only to realize that it didn’t fit in the new kitchen!)
We’ve found it very handy. I cook things like soups, stews and pasta sauces in large batches and freeze the leftovers in portion sizes. The fridge side is pretty much a beer and soda cooler so that’s not frugal, just a convenience.
My husband is an avid elk and deer hunter so for us, the extra freezer is a necessity. It’s kept in our unfinished basement and it really helps on the power bill as it doesn’t need to run as much - especially in the winter.
We have our electric down to 44$-50$ a month. That is with 2 freezers stocked full plus everything else that we use in the house. Not a problem here when buying sales.
Frugal implies absence of luxury and simplicity of lifestyle. Raising 5 children I have been through the one refrig one freezer and found that if you do it right one nice size frig will do just fine.
Stocking up and freezing? How much gets thrown out because of freezer burn because it was “pushed back” in the freezer and never used.
I have many friends who are elk and deer hunters and fishermen. I would make sure of the dates on the wrapper before I ate anything from their freezers as they keep “stuff” for over a year meaning they cannot consume all they shoot or catch and that meat is stale.
NOW, if you keep a lot of things in the freezer and at some point know you are not going to use it you can give it to the needy but that is another story.
I think two refrigs are not necessary but a large family with a refrig and freezer, both stocked properly (not with soda pop), can save money.
A second freezer would not be economical for our family. We don’t really stock up on food, we plan our meals usually a week at a time and buy enough food for that. This means that we eat fresh food and we don’t eat out. We also live in a city that is prone to lengthy power outages due to ice storms and we lose an entire refrigerator full of food every year or two. We also try to live green and feel that an unnecessary freezer just wastes energy. If we hunted or had a large garden, it would be a different story. But at the end of the day, if you don’t eat the food you put in there, you’re not saving any money.
Yesterday I thought that my big chest freezer had stopped working. The panic! I could have lost all the meals I had already cooked. The freezer contents are insured but you can’t get your labour back. I am not going to rely on one freezer so much in the future, never mind two.
I have both a second freezer and refrdigerator as my elder son and wife are living with us and we needed the room for fresh items. A freezer is a must if you buy meat on sale as I do. Stocking up when it is cheapest saves me tons of money and I pull it out daily for my dinners. Extra refridgerators are to me a luxury but was needed due to the extra people in my home-when they move out it will be a blessing for drinks and fresh foods-especially handy for holidays too.
I have a hard time using all of the meat and other items in my freezer before they suffer freezer burn, no matter how well I package them. It seems to me that buying enough food for 1-2 weeks at a time and planning your meals so you only buy what you need is a much more frugal way of grocery shopping. Plus, you eat healthier because you don’t have so much food to just pull out and eat!
It really depends on the size of your family if it is cost effective. When I was running mine it cost about $20 more a month on the electric bill. It wasn’t worth it for me as I have a small family.
My family growing up always had at least 1 freezer in the basement, my Dad now has 3! I went without the extra room and missed it for 2 years while we lived in AK, didn’t ship our freezer. I freeze lots of garden veggies and my Dad gives my family a cow at Christmas and a hog for mid year. If you are organized you will not “forget” what is in your freezer, I am so thankful to pay the utility bill for great meat and veggies, not to mention the savings on the food bill.
When we move from our apartment, we are thinking of getting a freezer b/c ours is always packed full. Is there a cost difference between an upright freezer and a chest (reach down) freezer (meaning monthly electricity and related, not the initial cost)?
We have 2 fridges and a freezer. 2 fridges b/c we did not measure when buying one and it did not fit in the kitchen. But we do keep them stocked w/ frozen homemade soup, chili, spagetti and meat sauce, meatballs w/ sauce, etc. Those meals that we make and freeze save us big b/c we are less tempted to go out to dinner when we get home and are tired and do not feel like cooking. Instead, we put them on the stove on low and they thaw in the amount of time we’d've spent driving somewhere to either go to the store or go out to dinner. Makes life easier.
During hurricane season, we let the freezer food run down. Plus we have several ice chests to fill if we have to evacuate.
I think that since most of the meals we freeze cost $6-10 and going out would be $30-40, we absolutely save money by having them.
We use our little upright freezer all the time–vegetarian soy foods are really expensive, so when we get a sale, we stock up. Also, we have huge crops of berries and cherries (that come all in one month or so) and freeze them for use in oatmeal, baking, etc. Plus,having more room, makes us waste less as we can see everything, rather than having it all crammed and buried and forgotten in the freezer on top of the refrig. and if fruit looks like it is going bad, we can also freeze them to use in healthy shakes (e.g., bannanas).
We have an old extra fridge we inherited in our garage. I keep things in the freezer (to extend their life) like flour, dried veggies, breads, rolls, etc. In the fridge part I keep extra yeast, sourdough, milk, juice. In the summer with my veg. garden I keep those there too. I think it pays for itself with the money and I save and security of being able to not shop (combined with rain barrels and extra dry foods) for a few weeks if we ever had to. Even if it’s not “energy efficient” I don;’t mind the small expense. But I will go vacume the coils, been a while!
I was raised on a 360 acre farm in Nebraska (more years ago then I care to mention). We had a large family (7 kids), 5 cows, calves, 4 pig sows, usually about 500 chickens, ducks, lambs, etc. We had 2 acres of land in garden plus various fruit trees. You picked or killed and prepared the food you ate when it was ready to be killed. Not later. The basement of our house was lined with shelves for stuffed we had canned, special bins for egg storage, 4 freezers and 2 refrigerators. We had a tornado shelter behind the house that was built underground which we also used for winter vegetable storage (potatoes, squashes, carrots, etc.) Mom shopped once a month for things we could not produce ourselves like flour, sugar, coffee etc. Is an extra freezer and regrigerator a necessity? When I was a kid…we where as poor as mice when it came to money. Farm folk are poor. But, we never ever went hungry. Storing food for the winter….or the rise in price. Yes!
My parents have a big, energy-efficient fridge and a deep freezer. The freezer’s in the garage and holds extra meat, veggies and juice (separated, of course). Once they got the second freezer over 20 years ago, they never went back.
Whether you need a second fridge or freezer depends on the size of your family and other factors. I don’t see myself needing any such thing as long as I live alone, but I can see why other people do.
We have six children. It is certainly worth it to stock up on all types of foods when they are available at the right price. We have large house, three refrigs and two freezers. We stock up on sales. I have considered going smaller but the inconvenience plus the gas (we also homeschool) just isn’t worth the convenience of the freezers and the money I have saved by buying in bulk and good sales.
We did lose our electricity for a week once but then we shared the food with others and ate ate ate out of the freezer.
If an upright freezer is 16.5-18.9 cubic feet, and your electricity rate is $.0105 per kWh, it will cost $78.44 a year in electricity. Depending on where u live, it may cost more.
So in the example above, you will need to save much more than $78.44 in food cost to justify plugging the freezer in. You also need to consider the extra pollution you will create when you plug in the extra freezer, as well as eating more frozen foods.
Also, since you may be freezing the food in plastic, remember that plastic breaks down in extremes so now you also need to consider the added cancer risk because you will be eating more food that has been exposed to the chemicals of plastics.
It’s about much more than the money you could save.
There are only 2 of us and we have 2 refrigerators and 1 freezer. For starters, my husband works out of town, and I freeze up meal sized portions for him to take with him to save eating out. I use the freezer as an extended “pantry”. I keep all of my baking supplies, including extra bags of flour in there. I freeze nuts, coconut, corn meal, etc. If milk is marked down, I buy it and freeze it in quarts, which is more user friendly for us. I freeze butter, shredded cheese (blocks and sliced don’t freeze well). I keep my homemade hot chocolate mix in there, along with powdered milk and buttermilk powder. All of my homemade mixes are stored there. I have a ready supply of homemade bread,hamburger buns and homemade bread crumbs. Left-over pancakes get frozen for another meal. I have a recipe for homemade freezer biscuits, but haven’t tried it yet. I also keep extra herbs like minced onion bought in bulk in there. There is a good meat market in our area, so I get 2-3 months worth of beef and have it double wrapped in the sizes we can use. We have purchased beef on the hoof before and had it put up, but doing it this way suits our needs better. We live out in the country and the shopping isn’t so hot. We drive 60 miles each way once a month and hit Costco, Kroger, Tom Thumb, Sprouts, Target, Petsmart, etc. We have an excellent electric co-op and hardly ever lose power out here. If we lose the contents of our freezer, we lose it. I worry more about hail storms and tornadoes here in Texas! I don’t think having extras of these appliances is being un-frugal. I think actually, they are a tremendous aid in saving money and provide you with a better quality of life. I think the less trips you make to a grocery store, and the less processed food you eat, the better off you are!
2 freezers???, we have 3. Theb again, we have a calf killed each year, we buy a local organic hog, and we also have certain vegetables and fruits that we raise and freeze. Just in case the power ever does go out for an extended period, we can thaw and preserve and cann whatever we want to. Beef jerky, pork, you name it. The other stuff we candehydrate it or cann it as well. Then again, we also have a generator and a wood stove, for just such an event.
We have a side-by-side in the house and a top/bottom fridge in the garage. I find it very helpful for sale items (meats & milk), odd sized items like cakes & garlic bread, and drinks. We don’t use the ice maker or fill it to maximum capacity. Just what we know we can use and will use.
I have one large side by side refrigerator/freezer upstairs and one small up/down refrigerator downstairs.
I cringe when summer comes because I worry about blackouts and losing food. I try to keep a lighter freezer space in the summer time. Meaning, I don’t keep expensive steaks, chops or roasts in the freezer. Insurance companies do not pay for spoiled food due to blackouts.
However, I think that with the high cost of gasoline, you are better off with the extra freezer, or side by side refrigerator/freezer combo than with just one small refrigerator. You can eat at home more often instead of giving the $$$ to the filthy rich oil companies. I guess you have to make choices — giving your $$$ to the gas station or the electric company. When you eat at home out of your freezer you also save wear and tear on you car.
We all have some important decisions to make here.
We have two freezers in the basement. I buy 1/2 a longhorn grass fed steer and had it processed the way I like. I do not have to worry about beef recalls. I buy pork and chickens when they are cheap and freeze. We go to the trift store for bread and buy 5 or more at a time and freeze. Also milk when cheap.
I don’t think the cost to run an extra freezer is that noticable on the bill. We have one extra chest freezer in the basement and we also have one extra fridge in the garage - but I also have 5 kids so we go through a lot of stuff. When I find a good deal on something I want to be able to stock up and have plenty of room. I think it’s worth it.
About the power going out - I think in our chest freezer manual it said if you keep the lid shut - without power the things inside will stay frozen for 3 days. Hopefully I will never be without power for 3 days. Even so - those times are few and far between.
My situation is very simular to Rose of May 7th except that my husband is disabled and I can only go out to shop when the caregiver is here to be with him once a week. We have had a freezer since our first year of marriage and it saved us much money during the years the children were home. Farmers near us let us glean their fields after harvest. We eat very little meat but had lots of fruit and vegetables. Now I buy in bulk so that I am never out of something to make in case our grown children or grandchildren can get by for a meal. I keep the fridge stocked with about the same as Rose but also pastas, anything that can get bugs in it. By buying in bulk and lead items from stores on my day to shop, my records show that what it cost us for a month is about the same as what it cost some people for a week. We have not had to worry about black outs. We replaced our old freezer and refrigerator when the electric company gave us a rebate of $35.00 each and would haul them away. Our new appliances are Energy-star. Because I have replaced all of our light bulbs and am very careful not to leave lights burning, our electricty bill is relatively low. I feel we are still ahead, even with the cost of the new appliances and the weekly car trip.
Rescilla
One thing you need to consider when trying to stockpile: are you sure you will always have electricity? I lived in Florida during the 2004 hurricanes and we were without power for weeks. All the frozen meat thawed and had to be discarded. So it was NOT a bargain to have stocked up, after all!
My family only has the small freezer on top of the refrigerator and we find no need for another. We stock up on non-perishables and only use the freezer for a week’s worth of frozen meals for busy nights. We are, however, vegetarians. If we were meat eaters, filling the freezer with a half a cow might save money.
We have one standing freezer now and are preparing to buy a second one. With all of the money and energy saving tricks we’ve used this past year, we’ve seen our bill going down, even with the addition of the freezer. And the money we’ve saved by being able to take advantage of deep discounts on food items really makes up for any extra energy costs. I can tell the person who was quoting $78 a year in energy costs…I’ve saved that much on just the whole chickens and beef that I’ve bought when it was deeply discounted and frozen!
No savings $$ here ..between recent electricity rate hikes and the freakishly high incidence of storms with attendant power outages…a definite: nope. IMO Even with the back up generator, it just isn’t worth it.
For my family a small chest freezer is sufficient. (my longest power outage was 3 hours) It allows stock ups on thrift store bread and loss leader meats. We also eat down the stock at least 2 times a year to make sure we do not waste foods. Growing up my mom would serve us freezer burnt stuff because of lack of organization. I chose a little chest freeze because with kids my big fear would be someone leaving the door open. I used to have the second fridge instead of the freezer. My electric bill went down 20 dollars when we replaced the big old fridge with the small freezer. I calculated the cost of the small chest freezer to be about 4 dollars a month,and we save that much on bread alone.
As most people have said, it depends on the usage. I live in a studio apartment, and have a 7 cu ft chest freezer. My mom and sister bought it for me for my birthday knowing that I wanted one to store dog food it.
My service dog is allergic to grains, so I feed him a raw meat diet. Having the freezer allows me to take advantage of sales (I try to stay under $1/lb) and buy from co-ops.
My freezer costs me about $2 a month. The amount of money I save on vet bills and allergy pills more than makes up for the cost.
We are a family of 6. We have 2 refrigerators and a medium sized (15 cubic feet) chest freezer. Both refrigerators are energy star, we are replacing the current 15 y.o. freezer for a 25 cubic foot one, energy star of course. Sale priced meats, garden produce, flours, thrift bakery breads, etc. are stored. We rarely have extended power outages.It SAVES significant money to keep an organized freezer. I plan my meals one month in advance, using my freezer inventory as I write. We rotate our stock so it’s not wasted.
I am seriously considering a small freezer. Our utility company has a $50 rebate on energy star freezers that will cover the 1rst years electricity. (unfortunately our mid-size/priced energy star fridge only has a small freezer).My mom taught me that when prices go up, it’s time to stock up. If I can avoid one trip to the store or meal out a month, I think that will cover the electricity cost going forward.
We’re like Anthony-we have three freezers and a generator to back up two of them. We live in Florida and don’t have a wood stove yet, but will be getting one soon. After hurricane Andreww our food in the top of the refrigerator took 2 weeks to thaw out -then I soaked everything in salt brine to preserve it. No one got sick. We are learning how to can and this is very important-meat can be canned. We also have a loaner freezer at a friend’s house and he will back it up with his generator if a storm hits. I think an extra freezer is great when I can buy 100 pounds of meat at about 89 cents a pound, and during deer season it’s a necessity.