Cost vs. Benefit Analysis: Extra Chest Freezer In The Garage?
Now that we have a home that we plan to stay in for a while, we are considering buying a chest freezer to place in the garage. Growing up, a lot of my friends with larger families had either a chest freezer or a second refrigerator in the house, and I’d rather not have another appliance inside the house. Also, I love the convenience of frozen foods and our current freezer is always packed. Is the worth the investment? Here is a quick cost/benefit analysis:
Costs
There is the obvious upfront cost of the freezer, monthly electricity costs to run it, hopefully minimal maintenance costs, and I suppose we’ll lose the space in the garage. Here is the rough breakdown for various sizes of chest freezers (Energy Star rated, name brand):
7 ft3: $210 + $25/year in electricity. Assuming 10-year life, that’s $3.83/month. For a 20-year life, that’s $2.96/month.
15 ft3: $410 + ~$38/year in electricity. 10-year life: $6.58/month. 20-year life: $4.88/month.
25 ft3: $710 + ~$52/year in electricity. 10-year life: $10.25/month. 20-year life: $7.29/month.
Potential Benefits
Less Eating Out
To be honest, I really just want to stock up on a large variety of frozen foods so that there is less of the daily question… “What am I going to cook for dinner?”. Too often, the answer ends up as “let’s get take-out”. I want staples like frozen chicken breasts and veggies, as well as having a few Trader Joe’s pizzas and burritos tucked away.
Ability To Stock Up During Sales
If there is a sale on something like frozen vegetables, now I can buy in bulk instead of waiting around for the next sales cycle. You can also freeze everything from bread to milk.
Storing Fresh Fruit
You can do some fun (and cheap) U-Pick at local farms during the summer and not have to eat it all at once. Blueberries, strawberries, peaches, yum. Home gardeners can do the same.
Less Shopping = Less Driving = Less Gas
I try to grocery shop in conjunction with commuting or other errands, but living in suburbia has still definitely increased my fuel usage.
Buying Half A Cow
Although I’ve never done so, it might be cool to buy a whole cow. I guess I’d need one of the bigger freezers for such an undertaking.
Cooking In Bulk
I have tried a few times to cook an entire week’s food ahead of time, but I’d often run out of freezer space. Also, this way one can make their own soups or stocks in large batches. My mom always used to freeze her homemade chicken stock into “pucks” using old margarine tubs.
In addition, there are also the make-your-own-takeout places like Dream Dinners and Super Suppers, which I have never tried before because I never had that kind of freezer space.
I would imagine that I should be able to make up the $5-$10 a month in costs, especially if I can cut down on the dining out. Everyone I know with a chest freezer likes it. Anyone out there disagree?
Find more in Frugal Living | 8/18/08, 4:16am | Trackback
August 18th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Just be careful if you get one and plug it into a GFCI outlet. I had a friend who bought half a cow and had it spoil because lightning tripped the GFCI and he didn’t know.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:39 am
Try a quarter cow, half a pig, or a giant pile of organic, cage free chickens… leaving the meat in there too long (ie half or full cow) could leave you with less than desirable results down the road, depending on how fast you eat all that meat.
I have a small extra deep freeze in the basement that I got for free. I too keep frozen pizzas, meats, veggies, fruits, and desserts in this for a rainy day. Just try to empty it out at times so nothing spends 3 years in there.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:06 am
We actually have an upright freezer in our garage. It adds about $12 - $15 a month to our electric bill, but the savings you mentioned cancel it out (especially the eating out thing — now instead of ordering takeout or delivery when neither of us feels like cooking, we just use one of our pre-prepared meals, which cost less).
At any rate, the upright is nice because you don’t have to rummage around for stuff at the bottom. We have things arranged on the shelves so that we can easily see what we are running low on, and so that we can easily access what’s inside, without having to leave the freezer open while we try to find what we are looking for.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:26 am
I was hoping you would discuss the cost of operation more. Just this weekend my wife was suggesting that we get one… and I’m concerned that the cost to operate was going to be exorbitant.
My main concern is that I’m in the Houston, TX area and it can easily be 100+ degrees in the garage for more than 6 months of the year… I would think the amount of power needed to operate it in our climate would be quite a bit more than in say Maine or California.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:28 am
wow, I wish my garage was big enough! The builder said it was 2 car and it technically is, 2 cars can go in there. If it weren’t for the cutout for the washer and dryer, those wouldn’t fit. Most people in my neighborhood don’t even keep their trash cans in there, as it packs things in too much.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:28 am
We bought a 7 ft chest freezer a couple of months ago and I was surprised on how much food it actually holds. (Kenmore from Sears) I haven’t noticed a difference in our electric bill either.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:30 am
The house we bought last year had a standup freezer in it - it’s the size of a normal fridge and opens like one, but it’s all freezer. It’s great! I think it’s far easier to manage than a chest freezer, because you can separate the different meats on the different shelves, and there’s racks on the door as well. With the chest freezers it seems like you’d always be digging for what you want.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:34 am
My fiance and I have been looking into the same thing. it’s definitely a good idea, especially because of the no-eating-out bit. Every time you spend $12 eating takeout, or $35 going to a restaraunt, you could be spending $7 having a really great home-cooked meal.
Also, like someone else said, you don’t have to buy a whole cow, you can almost always get a quarter or a half. It’s a lot, but with a deep freezer, you can keep it for months and it’ll encourage you to try new recipes with cuts of meat you haven’t had to work with before.
Also, consider joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture http://www.localharvest.org/csa.jsp), they have them for meat and for veggies, and not only is your money going *directly* to the farmer, you know exactly where your food comes from, and you just can’t get it any fresher. The meat CSAs deliver it frozen already, so all you have to do is drop it in the freezer.
Deep freezers make cooking large batches of food a viable option, which means taking advantage of economy of scale (buy a whole chicken at 1/2 the price of chicken breasts, eat the breasts and make the rest into soup/stew).
It’s just an all-round good idea. The main reason my fiance and I don’t have one is lack of space. We live in an apartment, and don’t have a garage or basement space for one.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:47 am
We bought a used one on Craigslist last year for $65 and it fit right into the space where the garbage can used to go in the garbge (not inteferring with parking two cars in there) (we moved the garbage can outside on the side of the house behind a bush). I didn’t know the cost of electricity so thanks for that. We used it for 8 months and were just overjoyed with the convenience of making meals in bulk and freezing them. Then one day, it stopped working. We saved most of the food (cramming into our freezer in the house - a side-by-side). Now we’d desperately like to find another one on craigslist because it is just so convenient to have meals at the ready.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:49 am
My wife was just researching these as well. One important thing to note - depending on the climate you live in, putting the freezer in your garage might not be the best idea.
http://www.consumersearch.com/.....eview.html
“Although many people like to keep a freezer in the garage, manufacturers say this isn’t a good idea if your garage gets very hot or cold. In hot weather, compressors have to work overtime to keep food frozen, reducing the overall life of the compressor and making it more prone to breakage. We contacted Frigidaire, and a representative told us that the ideal temperature for keeping a chest or upright freezer in the garage is between 55 and 85 Fahrenheit. So if you live in a mild climate, keeping the freezer in the garage isn’t a problem. For others, however, the basement is a better option.”
August 18th, 2008 at 6:10 am
I had no idea this was so cheap in terms of electricity. In addition to savings in terms of less time eating out, it is also savings in terms of less trips to the grocery store, so less gas and less time spent there.
I believe ours will be in the basement, but that is only because I am putting my office down there and will be able to grab things on the way back up.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:24 am
We have a large upright and frankly I don’t think we could ever go back to just having the top of the frig. One tip I got several yerars ago is that if you don’t use all the space put jugs of water on empty shelves. The freezer has to work less to keep itself cool (mainly because when the door is opened the space occupied by the jug of ice is not filled by warm air from the outside that wiould have to be cooled).
August 18th, 2008 at 6:51 am
We have an upright in the garage, too. Our CBA was a little easier because it cost me a 6 pack of Budweiser.
One marginal factor to consider, and believe me, it’s probably de minimis, is that if you just have the one freezer and you overpack it, it costs a lot more to run because it’s very inefficient if there isn’t good airflow.
August 18th, 2008 at 6:53 am
I bought a big chest freezer used for $75 through the classifieds, and it cost $100 to move it but it was still cheaper than buying a new one. I liked having the extra space to stock up on sales plus to freeze produce from the veggie garden. My grandmother had one and she said that freezers keep best when they are full, so I filled the bottom layer of the freezer with bags of ice cubes or bottles/jugs of water to hold the cold. She also kept hers at -10F, saying that it kept food fresher.
The freezer finally died after 10 years. I think on average it added maybe $10-15 a month to the electric bill.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:07 am
I’ve been looking into this and can offer a few more tips.
Upright freezers, while more convenienet, are not as efficient as chest freezers. This is because everytime you open them, the cold air comes rushing out. In a chest freezer, it stays put. So less time spent cooling back down. Not sure exactly how much this changes operating costs.
Also, you probably want to get a manual defrost, not auto-defrost. Manual defrost uses less electiricy and auto-defrosters are said to make food more suceptible to freezer burn because they remove moisture from the air.
I’ve also read that in regards to sizing, you need about 3 cu. ft. of space per person.
I think when I get one, I’ll put it in the basement.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:26 am
I’d say don’t bother. A large chest freezer is a good thing to let you buy meat in bulk - but if you are trying to be frugal then you should be cutting back on meat as opposed to making it easier to buy and hold.
Switch to a fresher diet. It’s cheaper and better for you.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Greg, this doesn’t sound like a very good tip to me. By freezing water you’ll spend so much energy upfront, that you’ll need to open similar freezer that doesn’t hold water jugs 3398 times just to break even! I’m sure you’ll need that space sooner and remove those jugs loosing the energy spent on freezing them.
My calculations are based on:
thermal capacity for water: 4183 J/kg/K, dry air: 1005 J/kg/K
density for water: 1000 kg/m^3, dry air: 1.225 kg/m^3
assuming both air and water are cooled to 0C(32F) - water freezing temperature to avoid including ice into estimation to make it simple.
If you are never going to use that freezer volume, then more efficient would be either buying a smaller freezer or filling that space with empty (filled with just air) jugs. But avoid using water by all means, it’s an energy sucker!
August 18th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Greg, this doesn’t sound like a very good tip to me. By freezing water you’ll spend so much energy upfront, that you’ll need to open similar freezer that doesn’t hold water jugs 3398 times just to break even! I’m sure you’ll need that space sooner and remove those jugs loosing the energy spent on freezing them.
My calculations are based on:
thermal capacity for water: 4183 J/kg/K, dry air: 1005 J/kg/K
density for water: 1000 kg/m3, dry air: 1.225 kg/m3
assuming both air and water are cooled to 0C(32F) - water freezing temperature to avoid including ice into estimation to make it simple.
If you are never going to use that freezer volume, then more efficient would be either buying a smaller freezer or filling that space with empty (filled with just air) jugs. But avoid using water by all means, it’s an energy sucker!
August 18th, 2008 at 7:58 am
If you have friends that hunt, they may just GIVE you a bunch of deer meat. I’ve hardly met anyone that could tell the ground from real beef in spaghetti, chili, casseroles, etc.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:40 am
You discussed Costs and Potential Benefits but never got to Potential Liabilities?
August 18th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Ditto DaveD’s comments on manual defrost.
We have 3 deep freezes. Two are 15 cubic feet and the other is about 10. We have been known to raise our own beef, pork, and chicken as well as freezing vegis from the garden. Only two of them are in use at this time, though. My wife likes the upright ones better because they are much easier to keep organized.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I can’t believe how many people have freezers in the garage! It’s the dirty secret of the suburbs.
Personally, I don’t understand why two people need that much frozen food in storage. Sounds like a) your refrigerator freezer needs to be emptied of expired or undesirable food, and b) a freezer in the garage is a bandaid for an eating-out habit. It seems difficult to justify the expense until these things are addressed. And if you don’t cook now, do you really think you’re going to take the time to butcher a whole (or even half) cow? How about using some of that money you would have spent on a freezer for a fun cooking class you and your wife can take together?
August 18th, 2008 at 9:35 am
And I would also add that, unless you have a generator, you open yourself to the possibility of hundreds of dollars of food spoilage in a power outage. Personally, I like my money in the bank rather than in the frozen food commodity market.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Wow, what a timely article! We just bought a 5 cu. ft Kenmore chest freezer yesterday after lots of research!
Pro’s to Chest Freezer:
1. More efficient/Less $$$ for reasons already mentioned
2. In power-outs, can hold food for 24hours!
3. Cheaper per cu. ft.
One Issue: We had a HARD time finding a freezer in-stock this time of year — apparently your blog readership is huge!
We also got the recommendation from the salesman to put it in the basement vs. garage — apparently very high temps and very low temps in summer/winter may damage the unit.
Also, we were told that Once a Year we have to pull all the food out & manually defrost it to prevent excessive frost build-up on the walls (effectively reducing your storage space).. This involves hooking up a garden hose to the bottom and letting the water drain out.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:35 am
We went to an upright when our old chest was retired. Trying to organize and retrieve items from a chest was dfficult. We ended up emptying half the chest quite frequently to retrieve items and also found it harder to rotate. With the upright, we can store faster moving items in the door or upfront and easily reach things in back when needed.
We store our freezer in the garage and do not see any noticable effect on electric bill. In the winter, we get to benefit of much cheaper cooling. We waited until HD had a good sale and bought a medium sized freezer for family of four. Using jugs of water helps a lot.
Being able to buy in bulk is great. We store whole hams, turkeys, bread and much more that we purchase at a discount. We always cook extra portions with every meal that go right into freezer for work lunches during the week. The lunches more than pay for the freezer and I’m the only person at work that has steak for lunch regularly.
Just don’t buy to big of a freezer. You’ll be more efficient about what your storing and can always upgrade later and resell current freezer.
Happy Shopping!
August 18th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Now if you bought the freezer used then you could easily cut your upfront costs in half. Check out Craigslist in your area. There are several of these available in Austin for under $100.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I’d seen a neat little hack a while ago, and your article about chest freezers just reminded me of it.
http://www.builditsolar.com/Pr.....fridge.pdf
I don’t know that I would necessarily want to do this, but it’s an interesting idea, nonetheless.
August 18th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Get the freezer. Always can use more space, the Costco trips will be larger but less frequent, especially when you really can get a deal! Plus if someone needs to store something you can even charge em! It has happened to us many of times! Great blog. I am new to the game! Be easy!
August 18th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
i just use mine to keep dead bodies.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I took a look at large upright freezers as well. They seem to cost more and use more electricity per cubic foot. I wonder why? They would save some floor space, though.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Hey Jonathan: the extra freezer is definitely a cool idea for a family. We had both an extra fridge and an extra freezer (with 5 people in the house).
But why do you need it for 2 people? How often do you grocery shop? How much do you value fresh produce?
There are two of us, with a regular size fridge and we can easily keep two weeks worth of groceries in the fridge. I can definitely appreciate the desire to keep a frozen pizza or two in the freezer, but I don’t particularly relish the concept of stocking an extra freezer just to hold my frozen burritos. Let’s look at the reason here:
Less eating out
To be honest, I really just want to stock up on a large variety of frozen foods so that there is less of the daily question… “What am I going to cook for dinner?”
Yeah, but you’re still going to get home and say “ah great, now I have to go to the garage and find the 3-month old frozen chicken breast and then thaw it…. An extra freezer isn’t going to solve the problem that you haven’t planned dinner. Taking 15 minutes to make a weekly meal plan will solve that problem.
Ability To Stock Up During Sales
OK, so there are two of you, what are you stocking up on? How good are these sales? Saving 25 cents / frozen dinner is a great deal, except now you have to eat frozen dinners.
From your simple dollar link.
Buying a side of beef is a good choice if you like to cook, you eat a lot of meat, you have storage space, and quality is important to you.
Storing Fresh Fruit
Not really cost savings, unless you are an addict to some specific fruit. Otherwise you just buy whatever fruit is in season and inexpensive.
Less Shopping = Less Driving = Less Gas
Again, meal plan one week in advance and make one trip to the grocery store. My wife and I have tried going more and less, but we keep finding ourselves at the grocery store once / week for the regulars (eggs, milk, bread, fruits).
Cooking In Bulk
My wife and I can easily store a week’s worth of chili in our freezer. If you’re prepping one week at a time that’s like 10 to 14 bowls of chili. For us, that’s about one 4 gallon pail, that’s 2 gallons in the fridge, 2 in the freezer, that’s not really a lot of space.
As always, you can do as you feel. But for two people, I just don’t see a big benefit to operating an extra freezer, not when you can fit two weeks of fresh groceries into a regular fridge and a regular pantry.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
To maintain taste and texture, you really can’t store frozen food for a very long time. Nothing is worse than taking something out of the freezer, thawing and cooking it and finding it tastes “funny”. Here are some guidelines for optimum length of frozen storage:
Raw foods:
Bacon: 1 month
Chicken pieces: 6 months
Ground meat: 3 to 4 months
Hot dogs: 1 to 2 months
Pork chops: 4 to 6 months
Sausage (pork, turkey, or beef): 1 to 2 months
Steaks: 4 to 6 months
Whole chicken: 8 months
Cooked Foods:
Beef: 2 to 3 months
Breads and cakes: 3 months
Casseroles: 3 months
Chicken pieces: 4 months
Hard sausage (pepperoni): 1 to 2 months
Vegetable or meat soups and stews: 2 to 3 months
August 18th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Good post. My mom would tend to overstock ours with cheap generics and loads of frozen meat so any cost saving I’m sure was lost on a majority of the food never getting eaten and it just seemed to be a wasted space for the most space or a nice counter top to fold laundry. Anyways I hope yours comes in handy if it does.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
rather than jugs of water, I might suggest bags of ice that could be used if you threw a party. even better for filling space in a freezer is styrofoam, which simply occupies the space, rather than requiring the freezer to cool it, potentially wasting more energy, as Vlad pointed out. This is an old carnie tip, passed down through the generations.
My aunt uses an upright fridge freezer in the garage, which effectively doubles both spaces. Seems most useful when hosting people or party planning.
While many posts favored it, I tend to agree that it isn’t necessary for 2 people. froze veggies are good as backups to fresh produce, and you should eat leftovers more regularly.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
They seem to cost more and use more electricity per cubic foot. I wonder why?
Well, the most obvious reason for this is that heat rises, so it’s easier (takes less energy) to cool the entire horizontal freezer to a given temperature than the vertical freezer.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
There is a supermarket chain that gives away a free freezer if you buy certain foods. They have done it for the past 2 years now. I can’t think of the name. We don’t have them in the Northeast.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I also like the idea of a seperate freezer to store extra food, items purchased on sale, etc. Cooking enough meals to last a week or more is a great idea. I remember my mom and I doing that when I was younger and boy was it convenient to just pop the meals in the oven at dinner time. And the taste was out of this world. We would usually make two different kinds of meats and two or three different vegetables for variety. We’d take about 3-4 hours on a Saturday to do all the cooking, freeze in individual aluminum storage containers and then stack the freezer with our very own T.V. dinners.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I wonder if they have little gauges you can put on outlets to see how much energy you are using for a particular item. Those electric prices seem really low. I live in Austin though, so my garage is often 90+.
I leave my hot tub off and unfilled most of the time in great part because I don’t know how much energy it costs to run. (It came with the house…)
August 19th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Costco has a nicely reviewed small one for $200. Of course, costco is the reason we need one! I believe it might be 7 cu/ft.
It is about 1/4 inch from the most energy efficient models. It says $36 per year.
Flash frozen food is the best thing ever!
August 19th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Is power outage a problem?
August 19th, 2008 at 8:22 am
We have (inherited) an upright freezer, but if I were in the market I’d go for a chest freezer. I’ve heard that less cold air “falls out” of a chest freeze when it is open, so they tend to be more efficient. We try to make a once-a-month trip to Sam’s or Costco to stock up on meats for the month. Then weekly grocery store trips are to restock perishables and produce, mostly.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Timely post for those of us in FL… If you live in hurricane country, than a chest freezer can be your best friend. If you have one that is too large, ice bags can be a great idea… they will act as filler, but will not be a waste as Vlad suggests. When the power goes out (as mine did for Hurricanes Wilma and Katrina), the ice (as well as frozen vegetables become freezer packs to assist in keeping more perishable and more expensive foods colder longer.
It’s also a good idea to keep and in/out list. We have a magnetized paper list right on the freezer that keeps a running tally of what we have in the freezer and the date that it went in. It really helps. Getting that great buy on 24 lamb chops is one thing. But when you get them home and divide them into freezer bags of 4 each… well, all those little bags can get into the nooks and crannies easily and get a bit lost and confusing in the shuffle.
Also, get into the habit of marking the zipper bags with a Sharpie. What is it and what’s the date.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:36 am
We got a 7 cubic feet chest freezer off of craigslist for $70 and we love it! My wife has a really strict diet of mainly unprocessed foods for health/allergy reasons, so we really needed the extra space to store frozen berries, veggies, etc.
I really like having it. If steaks go on sale I know we have enough room to stock up on them!
August 19th, 2008 at 9:36 am
based on the posts, a Phd in thermodynamics, a psychologist, and a serial killer all read this blog regularly.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Definitely buy a used freezer, like from 5-15 years ago. They were made to last longer then. My grandma had a chest freezer built in the 80s and it still works!
My Maytag fridge was built in 2002, recently broke, got the maytag guy to fix it and he let me in on a secret: All fridges and freezers built after 2003 are only gonna last 2-3 years before breaking. All the warranties are only for 1 year now, no matter what brand. Do the math.
You’ll have to pay for repairs after 1 year, unless you buy an extended warranty for 2 years. I dunno if you’ve hired a repairman recently, but they charge so freakin much is it worth it?
August 19th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Thanks–I am going to send this to my mom–she LOVES to freeze things.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I’ll be needing to buy a new freezer, as our one-year old freezer was damaged due to a recent flood in our basement (3 feet of water + sewage). It’s good to have a few numbers to back things up. We’ve been without a deep freeze for almost two months now, and it sure makes like different, not having the ability to buy and store in bulk. We’re waiting for the insurance claim to go through a little further, as well as waiting for some re-construction of the basement to happen before we get the new freezer in.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I wish I had a basement. People don’t want to cut through limestone here to make them, though. Or maybe the water table is too high. If you have one of those basements that floods, it’s probably not a good place to keep your freezer, what with water and electricity not mixing well.
I wouldn’t want a freezer except that my boyfriend hogs all the space in ours and says he would like an extra freezer. His philosophy is that there is always room for something else. But then I can’t find anything. I barely even buy things that need to be frozen anymore except ice cream which has a sacred designated spot.
Chest freezers do use less electricity than the others, and the newer (easily breakable?) energy-efficient ones use less electricity than the older ones. We’re talking about getting a small chest freezer but haven’t yet done it. Our garage is boiling hot in summer, but one option would be to use the freezer only the other nine months of the year. A good system of wire baskets could really help with the organization.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Upright freezers use more electricity because heat rises, cold air sinks. So when you open a chest freezer, the cold air stays put, but when you open an upright, all the cold air falls to the floor and the freezer if flooded with warm air.
I just wanted to mention that the old freezers that you find on craigslist may be a good deal initially, but if you intend on keeping them a decade they may not be. First, they are older units which may just decide to die and you have to replace it. Ok, you can counter that by looking at the manufacture date on the serial plate. But second the older freezers are more inefficient. Yes, the old ones probably used better material in the chest and will not dent/break as easily, but that compressor and the insulation are horribly less efficient. Living in a state where the electricity costs are WAY higher than most of you, that electricity cost is VERY important for me to consider.
With my electrical rates, I decided I could ‘dig’ in the chest freezer the few times I want to get things and I picked up a tip I believe right on this very forum of using milk crates to organize it. I have managed to keep my electric bill down by putting timers on the hot water heater, switching to a clothes line instead of a dryer, but I will NOT get rid of my freezer. My electrical usage right now is about 5kw per day in my house (with 3 computers on most days to boot) down from about 21 kw a year ago, but I am NOT going to touch that freezer.
To combat food getting ‘forgotten about’, put your food in milk crates and rotate the bottom crates with the top crates every so often. Yes, occasionally you will have to defrost the freezer to keep the crates from getting stuck, but I just get a couple thick blankets and wrap up the crates in one pile in the kitchen and then pour hot water on the frost in the freezer. Take out the now floating chunks of ice and put them in sink, whipe out the freezer and putt he crates right back in the freezer. So those crates make the job much faster and easier than handling every piece.
Another tip is to try to write the date on each thing when you put it in there. Yes, you can look for the ‘use by’ dates, but it’s easier if you know everything is in black permanent marker.
Back to the crate system, I keep the groceries that I buy today in one crate. Yes, it is not as organized for ‘quick pickings’, but then I can keep the older crates on the bottom, newer on top. When one gets near empty, I will combine it and make a list of things I need.
With a chest freezer, unlike the standup, you can ‘look’ at what’s available for dinner a lot longer without things defrosting, so you can look at the old food (now conveniently on top) and get ideas for dinner. Unlike standing in front of the fridge, the cold air will stay in since it sinks and hot air rises. Yes, it will warm up, but at a much slower pace.
Unlike most of you who are putting the freezer in the basement/garage, mine is right there in my kitchen. I covered the top with a butcher block and use it as a workspace. Yes, I now need a stick to hold open the lid, but I like having a nice place to work and since I rent, I wasn’t able to replace the countertops which are just plain unusable in my apartment. Another benefit of being in the kitchen, the fridge is where my ice cream/treats for the kids are stored and my main meals are in the freezer. If it was in the garage/basement (I don’t have one) I doubt I would ever go look in the freezer as it was too much effort to go do it, so we would end up having MacNCheese more often.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Freezers might be a good way to store things but could be used in a good and bad way.
Good way: Make food and store it or store raw ingredients to make something.
Bad way: Get millions of frozen dinners. Save grocery time but mess up with stomach problems.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
My family had chest freezers growing up, and they certainly were handy (especially for ice cream treats !
). However, there is a risk that is hard to ignore, and that is the inevitable power outage. Granted, it might take several hours to cause a problem (?), but I can remember ending up with quantities of spoiled food in ours growing up.
Just something to consider …
August 20th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Years ago I had a chest freezer and bought a half side of beef, plus the deal came with pork and chicken. It was a great bargain for the meat, but extremely difficult to find what I was looking for or keep the food rotated in order for it not to spoil, or get “freezer burn”. It was like having a grocery store in my house, so was very handy.
These days we have an extra refrigerator in the garage, but only use it for holiday cooking and storage and turn it off for the rest of the year. When we leave it on, it’s an extra $30 a month on the electric bill. Here in Texas it’s just too hot to run an extra freezer in the garage.
My husband’s parents have an upright freezer in their garage, and are constantly sending meat that has freezer burn home for our dogs. I won’t even feed it to the dogs because it looks so bad.
We try to stock up on meat when it’s on sale, but our space is limited to our inside refrigerator. I would love to have another freezer, but it’s just not cost effective for me with the extra energy used, spoilage, and power outages we have during the storms we have here, which sometimes last for days.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:57 am
noone has brought up the issue of kids getting stuck in one.
my folks got a stand up simply because they didnt want us kids falling into a chest freezer…. or putting eachother in!
August 21st, 2008 at 7:03 am
In an inflationary environment freezers make sense. As you’ve witnessed this year, we are trending in that direction.
The inflationary asymptote hasn’t started yet (wage / price spiral hasn’t kicked in) but when it does, hoarding will be a national pastime.
As you can imagine, hoarding makes inflation worse. But when it’s every man for himself (or rather, middle class America against the billionaires with the printing press), camp out at Costco next to the loading dock.
I’m somewhat surprised no one has even mentioned the connection between hoarding and freezers in this popular post. Prepare to hoard people…
p.s. Any talk of “deflation” you hear going forward is flat-out a deception and a lie. The men who own the printing press will never let deflation occur. Ever. Period. These printing-press owners are also the same friends of big business and Wall Street, which totally survive on more liquidity. Hearing a Fed mouthpiece or Wall Street stooge spread fears of deflation is absolute total word spin to cool down an inflationary moment. When you hear ‘the fear of deflation’ on cheerleader CNBC, dismiss it.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
I’ve always had an extra chest freezer. My parents and grandparents did too. Freezing summer vegetables and extra portions of cooked food is a way of life to us.
Learn to use your freezer effectively and you will not regret the initial expenditure. You will make up your electricity costs instantly as you reduce your ‘take out’ trips. To protect against accidental loss of contents, due to power outage etc, you could see if your household insurance covers this. Ours did in Europe.
Here’s a link to everything you could ever want to know about freezing food: http://www.goodhousekeeping.co.....ck=main_sr
Good luck!
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:20 am
[...] Cost vs. Benefit Analysis: Extra Chest Freezer in the Garage. Jonathan from MyMoneyBlog runs the numbers to determine whether it is worthwhile to buy an extra freezer. This is a good example of an analytical approach to decide whether the potential benefits of a large purchase are worth the cost, but as always, a number of assumptions are involved. [...]
August 27th, 2008 at 6:32 am
You need to buy a “foodsaver” vacuum packer to make food storage a real advantage because the food will last far longer and the flavor remains.
August 27th, 2008 at 6:39 am
I like the vacuum idea. Saving space and getting your food to last longer is a good idea. It is so convenient to have the “extra” stuff you may need instead of having to go to the grocery store so often. And you can always be prepared for unexpected guests that may happen to drop in.
Be well.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:22 am
[...] Freezers Apparently, I was not alone in doing cost/benefit analysis on an extra chest freezer, as this AP article shows: Once relegated to the dank corners of the basement, freezers are being [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Just found this blog. Today, bought a frigidaire 5.0 chest freezer. Been wanting one for awhile.
Im a single guy and Frozen Dinners and Frozen Pizzas are a big part of my diet. (Too big)
This week, they had great specials on both and a beer company had $15 rebates on pizza to boot. (Im doing 3 or 4 of them to different addresses)
Anyway, to make a long story short. The cheapest they had them new was Samsclub and they were $163.32 after tax and after 1.25% credit card cashback. Thats not including the $29 delivery charge they get.
Found one nearby. 2.5 miles away. An older lady said she had it about 4 years. The manufacturer date was 2/03.
It was in good shape.She listed it for $75 on 2 community forurms but no craisglist or anywhere else. Negotiated it down to $55 with me getting my neighbor to help and using his truck. He ended up working late and the lady had her son in the neighborhood so I ended up paying $60 and they brought it to my garage. (I would have felt bad just giving my neighbor $5 for gas even though it was just 5.5 miles round trip.)
Im not exactly sure how long its reasonable for it to last without service. Nor do I know how much it will increase my power bill.
I think I computed approx $26 a year. Looked at a Lowes website and added about 15% because our rates are going to go up that amount soon.
Anyway, assuming it lasts me 6 years and then dies, my cost of operation will be about $216 which means I need it to save me well over $3 per month which it SHOULD do.
For an example of what I loaded up on, Hungryman dinners at publix were buy one get one free $3.49 for 2/.
Got a bunch of $1 off 2 coupons. One cashier let me use one per dinner despite what it says (Several of the experienced ones let me) A young kid would only let me do it face value.
Still not a bad deal. $2.49 plus tax for two. Or 7.45 for 10 if they let me use 10 coupons. Either way, it beats the heck out of walmart prices.
On the pizza, a local grocery chain had Jacks thin crust 5 for $10. They are really good and I cant find tombstone for less than $3 even on sale nowdays.
I loaded up on both and got rainchecks on both. Although I dont think the one store will carry the Jacks when their current supply runs out. They were out of Supreme, I only like the meats but I told them they were out of “spme and they wrote it for me.
Im new here, have never posted before.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:21 am
[...] Chest Freezers - Not really much of a gift idea, but still something to consider as food prices are still going up. [...]