Thrifty Tip Of The Day – Can A Deep Freezer Save Money?

Posted by oshun on April 3, 2009

I have been a believer of buying in bulk for the past four years, and since my conviction seems to grow every season, I am now adding a deep freezer to my personal list of thrifty appliances.

Over the past 2 days, I spent a little under $200 on enough storable groceries to last us 6-8 months. Among the purchases is a 6 month supply of rice, beans, pasta, spices, flour and 3-4 months frozen goods.

But now it seems my obsession with storing healthy food has created a new dilemma, a blessed lack of refrigerator freezer space. So even though it was something I considered in the past, I am now planning on buying a deep freezer.

I’ve always cooked 99.9% of meals at home, so cooking in bulk is a natural progression. Besides freezing loaves of homemade bread, I love making stews and soups in the crockpot and freezing the leftovers, as well as stocking up on fruit in season and freezing for out-of-season eating. I’ve gotten pretty good at bulk buying store-able groceries, however I still make twice-weekly visits to the grocery or farmers market for fresh produce and other perishables, so being able to bulk purchase, and freeze these items would save gas money and time.

In my quest to see whether a deep freezer purchase really made sense for a newly single vegetarian mom of one vegetarian son, I started doing some research. After all, I always thought a deep freezer was for storing sides of beef, legs of lamb, and heads of deer.

Thankfully, I found this great article, which did most of the math for me, and another one which echoed my own lifestyle. And yes $230 for a chest freezer, plus the estimated $50-60 a year to operate it, is thrifty, for me. Not only will it save money, by supporting, and accommodating my expanding bulk buying/cooking habits, it will also save incalculable hours of my time, which is, quite frankly, priceless.