YNAB You Need A Budget

[malisab]

I some of you frugalistas have separate freezers. I'm thinking of starting to plan for acquiring one.

I see that chest freezers are MUCH less expensive, but I'm worried about things getting lost in the depths of it. One issue with my regular freezer (bottom freezer of refrigerator) is having to dig through the drawer to find things (and forgetting what's there...out of sight, out of mind). Currently, we're also having the issue that we just don't have enough room in it to take advantage of cooking ahead and freezing portions or purchasing things on sale and freezing as we'd like (okay, as I'd like). I'd think that the 'losing things in the depths' and forgetting what's there would be exacerbated with a chest freezer. But the uprights are so much less expensive.

And I don't think I want to go used on this, FYI. I've got some rewards hanging out on a CC and I can get some gift cards for HD, Lowe's, or BestBuy, where it's probable I'll get the best deals anyway. I already have some HD gift cards, but I see that they carry GE while Lowe's carries Frigidaire...I think the Frigidaire's look better at first glance...so I wish I had the cards at Lowe's, but that's not a deal breaker. But any GE vs. F feedback welcome too.

[vmi1991]

Upright vs. chest is a person preference thing. Im a chest-type. I grew up with them. We had a "small" one and a large one. The large one was about 6.5 feet long. The small one about 4 feet. In there went about 900# of beef that we killed, some pork, chickens, milk we bought on sale when we either had no cow or she wasn't freshened, and a LOT of vegetables frm the garden.
Yes, forgetting about stuff is a problem, but you get close to 90% usage of the internal volume. The chest-type will use less electricity because the cold air doesn't "spill" when you open the door (think about those open-top freezers in the super market).

Advantages of the upright include less floor space required and it's usually easier to find stuff.

Just depends. Either way I suggest reading Consumer Reports for their Best Buy suggestions of each type.

George

[adajmk]

We have a little upright freezer that is perfect for my family of four. However, we don't keep hundreds of pounds of meat in it. Rather we use it for freezing the extra chicken breasts or ground beef when we buy the club packs from costco as well as frozen pizzas or chicken pot pie for when we don't feel like cooking (although I have started making my own pizza which tastes way better than any frozen kind and it isn't that difficult to do). Easy to find things in it and nothing ever gets lost or forgotten about.

I know that the upright freezers are much less efficient, but we rarely open the door to it (maybe once a week or so) so I don't worry too much about it.

At the end of the day, it all depends on what you are going to use it for and how often you will be going to it.

[malisab]

Thanks to both of you. I'll still take opinions.

We have a little upright freezer that is perfect for my family of four.

It sounds like you use it much like I would.

Do you recall or is it easy to tell how big your little upright is? (Does it have a sticker in the door?)

I haven't seen a chest freezer that's frost free. That would be a consideration too. I don't want to defrost.

[KimberlyS]

I recall reading that the automatic defrost feature promotes freezer burn (possibly due to warming up slightly to melt frost, although I don't really understand the mechanism). So for long term storage, it's not recommended. This may not be a concern in your case, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[malisab]

I recall reading that the automatic defrost feature promotes freezer burn (possibly due to warming up slightly to melt frost, although I don't really understand the mechanism). So for long term storage, it's not recommended. This may not be a concern in your case, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Thanks. I wouldn't have known that. Something to consider.

I was thinking of putting it in a spare room, rather than the garage. At least until the garage gets cleaned out this summer. And I don't see how I could do that with a freezer I'd have to defrost. But in the garage, I guess I could deal with it once in a while.

I think I'll go look at them sometime this week.

[Trakeveth]

I don't have any feedback about GE vs. Frigidaire and I know that you said that you don't want to go used, but I thought I would throw my 2 cents into the ring.

My husband has recently gotten into hunting and it became clear rather quickly that we would benefit from a freezer. All of his hunting buddies told him not to buy one. They said that people are always trying to get rid of freezers and nobody that they know has ever bought a freezer...they have always been able to acquire one from somebody looking to downsize.

So, upon their advice, we were patient.

Sure enough, a few months later my husband was having a few beers with his buddies when a friend of a friend showed up and said "Hey, do you guys know anybody who wants a freezer because my sister is looking to get rid of hers."

The next day my husband brought him his sister's freezer for free. It is an old Imperial upright and I am very happy with it. It is very clean, inside and out and my husband was surprised that it doesn't use more electricity than it does.

We put it in the basement and it is perfect for our needs.....and it was free!

[WairereRose]

My personal preference is for a chest freezer. Several reasons. If you're not the only one who goes in to it, then I have found that the doors on an upright don't always get closed properly. If you don't have children that may not be an issue, and if your dh is OCD about shutting doors then it may not be a problem, but I prefer to not have an entire freezer full of food need to be eaten in 3 days because it thawed because someone else went in there after your once-every-2-3-days visit and the door was left open till the next time you got there. Experience tells me that even a 'frost free' will frost up under those conditions, so don't assume that frost free will save you too much work.

With good seals on a chest freezer you should find that defrosting doesn't need doing more than about every 6 months anyway, and depending what size you have it may not be an issue. When it's time to do the defrost you spend a few weeks 'eating out of the freezer' and clearing out all those old things you forgot you had in there so that you haven't much on hand to empty out while you do the job.

The only real positive I found with the upright (even finding things wasn't that much different) was that it's really easy to defrost:
- switch off at the wall
- put several bowls of boiling water in on the different shelves - about 3 or 4, evenly spaced.
- close the door and wait about 15 minutes
- open the door, remove the bowls, and slide the sheets of ice off the walls/ceiling straight out and place them in the sink/bath/outside to melt.
- quick wipe and you're done.

There's more stretching involved in the chest freezers, but if you have one with the little 'dribble' hole at the bottom they are almost as easy to clean and only a little slower.

[malisab]

Update: I got a new side by side refrigerator/freezer (to replace an old one with freezer on the bottom) and it has plenty of room! The old one was stuffed to the gills and when I put the same stuff into the new one, about 1/3-1/2 of the freezer is still empty.

Thanks all!

[blarg]

I'm so jealous! We have a fridge with the small freezer on the bottom and just two wire drawers to cram everything into. My partner loves it though, so it won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

The American in me wants it to be bigger so I can hide a whole cow in there.

[woodnboats]

A couple of points:

1. A chest type is definitely more efficient, and uses its volume more efficiently as well.

2. Either type can cause loss of food because things get under or behind and are never seen again. The short-term solution is a list of contents, with quantity, date(s) and location taped to the door, or in my case in my SplashShopper program on our kitchen computer. That, plus a large note on the door to UPDATE THE LIST keeps everyone honest (usually).
The long term solution involves defrosting. I don't like frost-free for a variety of reasons, so every six months we take everything out, defrost the freezer, and put the stuff back, noting dates and location as we put it back, and throwing out or planning to use soon anything that seems at the end of its lifespan, such as that cabbage-peanut butter-bean casserole from two Christmases ago (you DO date everything that goes in, right?).

I've always had a freezer in my family, going back to when my Dad, an old-time country doctor, would get paid for his services in produce.

Kirk