There have been a number of postings about freezers. Please allow me to toss in my thoughts on the questions.

1 year ago I purchased a new Frigidiare chest freezer. I shopped for about a year, never finding what I thought was a really super deal. Being frugal, the actual price is not all that important to me, I buy based on what I believe to be the best value, the most frugal thing to do. (Once one has decided on a particular make/model and all are identical then of course actual cash price is important but I digress) Finally, Lowe's had a model clearance and I got a super-smoking-deal on a new-in-the-box-take-it-home-and-unpack-it chest freezer. Got it for right at $200, including sales tax plus an additional basket. Pretty white Frigidiare, works super!

It has been a great unit. no problems. EXCEPT I can't keep things organized in it. Just the other day, I had to toss out some food that had gotten buried on the bottom and freezer burned or expired. I probably tossed out $50 worth. It wasn't just the $50, it was my time, effort, trouble, to shop, save, wrap, harvest, pick, and the time involved, etc etc etc.

Lately I had been thinking about buying an upright freezer. My thinking was if I had it to do over again I'd buy an upright.

I went back and looked through the old posts about freezers. Upright or chest, frostfree or regular, brand name, etc etc etc. Fords vs Chevies vs Dodges. One thing that really caught my attention was that the most you can spend is about $500 for the largest freezer available.

Then EUREKA it came to me !!! I am going to buy a medium-sized upright freezer too !!!

You're probably thinking, is this guy crazy? 2 freezers? WHY NOT?

Here is my rationale. Provided one has sufficient space to put them I think it's a terrific idea. I've already spent $200 which as I said was a super-smoking heck of a deal. For around $300 or less I can get a medium sized upright. I will use the chest freezer to store "fungible" items, such as bulk buys of meat, a quarter side of beef, a case of frozen Tyson whole chickens, etc etc etc. I think you get the idea.

The upright will be used to hold items I like to keep separated and organized. I eat a big variety of frozen veggies and fruits, and I have my own personal modified version of once-a-month-cooking. With shelves in the freezer door, and shelves in the freezer body, I can sort, store, organize and inventory the upright much better. I think you get the idea here too.

In my opinion, the chest is "electically" more efficient, but the upright is much more "physically" efficient and "user friendly".

Costs? Well, if you go spend close to $500 for a large upright or chest, then thats all you've got. For the same amount of money you can have 2 freezers, one each upright and chest. Failure rates are miniscule, but if one fails, you can save items by moving them into the other freezer.

Costs? My chest uses about $2.00 a month of electricty. Right now, today, modern appliances are so much more efficient, they are such slow-sippers of energy it's downright amazing. Maytag has a new refrigerator that uses less than 10 cents a day of electricity. See this months HomePower magazine. How much electricity will an upright use? Not a lot either. Of course, that depends on how often its opened and some other variables, but i think less than $5-$7 a month of electricity. In my book that's cheap enough.

Will this idea work for everyone? It can for a lot of folks. But I do think it will work for me.

-- gene ward (gward34847@aol.com), September 28, 2001

Answers

gene,, when I use my chest freezer,, starting about now,, and thru the winter, till spring. I pack things into milk crates,, they stack nice,, easy to get things seperated,, veggies, venison,, beef,, ect. I paid 50 bucks for it. Its older,, but my electric only goes up 10 bucks a month when I use it

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), September 28, 2001.

I just recently purchased a combination refrigerator-freezer, with the largest freezer top I could find. Than I am doing what you suggest, keeping large bulk buy or butchered meat downstairs in the chest freezer and moving up what I might need for the month to the combination. Now a big help is an inventory sheet my son made as to what is down there and where. As we use it up or replenish it, the sheet gets updated. I, too, keep things in small milk crates to facilitate finding things.

-- Kate henderson (kate@sheepyvalley.com), September 28, 2001.

I didn't like my upright because you can't fit as much in them. Every time I would open the door, something would fall out. A big frozen roast doesn't feel good on the toes. ;-) They're nice if everything is square & can be stacked nice. I have a chest freezer now & love it. I just make sure when I put something new in, I rotate the old stuff to the top.

-- Wendy (weiskids@yahoo.com), September 28, 2001.

We have been toying with the idea of two freezers, so it's interesting to read your post. Ideally, we would keep one for meat, and the other for things like vegetables, pesto, orange juice in cans, butter, bread bought at the outlet, etc., and vegetables.

As you probably know, half a beef takes up a lot of room. We really like meat frozen instead of canned. We also get a lot of seafood and it tastes better frozen, too. We could easily fill one freezer with meat and fish.

While I would love to be able to put up a few hundred quarts of everything we raise (or buy) I can't conceive of having the time to can that much; ergo, we use the freezer.

When I was a kid, my family had a huge commercial-type freezer with interior doors. It was great!!! It's probably still running in the basement of our old house. Since something like that is not a practical consideration for us, we think two freezers would be a good option. If we have long-term power interruptions, we'll have to use the generator a bit. Longer than that....well, we'll invite everyone we know over for a banquet and eat it all up!

Now all I have to do is figure out how to buy another freezer!! That's right down the list after buying more hay, etc., getting the tractor fixed...groan.......

-- sheepish (WA) (the_original_sheepish@hotmail.com), September 28, 2001.

Two freezers is not a silly idea. I have a small chest freezer that is 22 years old and a large upright that is 4 years old. I keep them both full. The chest freezer keeps majority of the meat from turkey, pigs and the beef (not all at the same time) and the upright I use for the vegetables, fruits, and smaller packages of things. I even have a third larger freezer in the garage that I use when we have large amount of meat processed. I probally could do with out the garge freezer, but it is sure nice in the fall when everything is full. Denise

-- Denise K. (Rabbitmom2@webbworks.com), September 29, 2001.

I also use the milk type crates for organizing my chest freezer. I use the plastic ones that go on sale this time of year for college kids to use in their dorms. Get the sturdiest one you can find. If I have a side (or more) of beef I put the different kinds of meat in separate crates - no searching. If not full of beef a different crate for each kind of meat - pork in one, chicken in another etc. Another method of keeping track is to keep a inventory list taped to the freezer and cross off what you take out. I list everything that goes in when we butcher and write numbers after each item. Like- Hamburg 1 2 3 4 etc for how many packages and then when I take one out I just cross off the last number and I always know what I have left. Understand? It keeps me from ending up with 20 roasts and no hamburg. Barb

-- Barb (MBRanch@POP.ctctel.com), September 29, 2001.

Same here on the milk crates for organizing the freezer. We also use paper grocery bags and label the bag with what's inside. We keep milk and juice jugs filled with water to take up the unused space. Provides drinking water in a power outage and keeps the electricity usage down on the freezer.

-- Rose Marie Wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), September 29, 2001.

I have 2 fridge/freezers and 2 upright freezers. I inherited one of each when my MIL died and since my fridge is about 40 years old I kept them.

I keep the newer, larger, frostfree fridge/freezer in the kitchen for daily use. I do not keep meat in the freezer. I keep the other fridge/freezer in the laundry room full of water jugs, etc. and the freezer full of meat.

I read that meat lasts longer in a non-frostfree freezer since it does not defrost slightly every time it cycles. Makes sense to me.

In one upright freezer I keep meat and in the other items like flour, meal, coffee, etc. Basically I keep the two separate so in case of power outage we only MUST run the one off the generator if the outage lasts a while - last winter it lasted 9 days.

After having 2 of each for several years I can not imagine not having them all. I have no idea what it costs me in electricity but I am positive that I more than make up for it in gas saving, not to mention impulse buying savings, not having to go to the store very often.

-- Viv in TX (kudzu1@webtv.net), September 29, 2001.

I vote for the two freezers. I, too, have two freezers but both of them are uprights. One is only a 9cu ft and the other is a full size. I like it because when the season comes where I need the room of both, I have them available, then as food gets used up I move it all over to the big freezer and turn off the little one. I need to replace probably both of them but definitely the little one because the seal is gone on it so I think I might follow your suggestion and get one chest type and one upright. I do love the suggestion of using milk crates. I could even color code them, i.e. red crates for beef, blue crate for lambs, yellow crate for poultry, etc. LOL Okay, I'm just kidding. I realize I can go overboard when it comes to getting organized.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), October 02, 2001.