Anybody find that they don’t use their extra freezer?

[gymnbomb]

We have a small chest freezer in the basement. I think right now its contents are about half frozen breast milk, a quarter meat, and a quarter vegetables. There are probably a few random things like a bag of ravioli, some popsicles, and maybe some garlic bread? We bought it when I was pregnant with DS to have a place to stash some breast milk before I went back to work when he was a baby. We used it some and enjoyed having it in between kids, but could probably do without it after DD is weaned. I'm sure we'll keep it until it dies, then take a little while to decide if we want to replace it. If we do get another one it will probably be an upright with a smaller footprint. Like someone else mentioned, the biggest benefit is not having to think about if we have space for something. If we get an ice cream cake for someone's birthday, I know we have space for the container. If my Mom cooks some extra stuff when she comes to visit, I know we have space to put a few casseroles and half a ham in the freezer for later.

[mommy111]

If you don’t use it, you don’t use it! Sounds like you have the time to make several grocery runs a week, we don’t so need to buy ahead and freeze (even stuff like buying onions and chopping enough for a month or so tigether, frozen fresh tomatoes from our garden etc)

[bnme]

We have a full size fridge/freezer in the garage. The fridge gets way more use. The freezer is usually only a big box of BJs ice pops in the summer or the occasional BJs box of waffles that I can't cram into the house freezer. I don't buy meat ahead and freeze. Honestly, the fridge holds mostly drinks and extra gallons of milk. It gets the most use when entertaining/hosting holidays. Makes buying ahead and prepping food ahead so much easier. I don't host a ton, but I would not give up the fridge for the convenience of this alone.

[Philly Mom]

We bulk cook so we always have soup, pasta sauce, casseroles, etc in our freezer.


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[marymoo86]

We bulk cook so we always have soup, pasta sauce, casseroles, etc in our freezer.


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This and our SBS holds pathetically small amounts. But we stock up on sale meat/seafood/chicken. Large bags of frozen broccoli, cauli rice, etc. No prepared items unless you count prebreaded fish and chicken when Bell & Evans goes on sale.

That and not being able to make or want to make several grocery store runs makes it invaluable. Runs lower in the summer but gets packed in winter especially with soup and chili.

[TwinFoxes]

If you don’t use it, you don’t use it!

[AnnieW625]

We have a side by side unit (because that is what we have space for), but even when we had our traditional top freezer unit, which I liked the organization of slightly better we still had a small upright freezer in the garage. I absolutely love having it and would like a larger one, but there is nothing wrong with the one we currently have (which is 20+ years old....we bought it from a friend’s dad in 2006), and will either upgrade the current unit when we redo our kitchen (hopefully next summer) or will definitely get a larger unit when we move in 2020.


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[DualvansMommy]

For us and our lifestyle we need the extra fridge and freezer space to store extra milk, juice boxes, OJ, etc and big fresh vegetables. But we do also need extra freezer space too; so buying upright fridge and freezer works for us.

I cook in bulk several times a week and always cook 3-4x normal recipe size for soups, chili, pancakes, etc to keep in extra freezer. For you it sounds like secondary fridge is more useful to store your excess fruit and vegetables. Might as well sell your chest and see how you get on after 6 months and if you do find you still need more fridge space, get cheap upright fridge with small freezer on top.


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[Kestrel]

We found that for our family, the huge chest freezer didn't work for us, once there wasn't breast milk any more! We were casually talking at daycare one day when DS was about three how we didn't need it anymore, and another family - with four kids and another on the way! - said that their small upright freezer wasn't enough anymore. We decided we'd just trade! For our smaller family (DH, me, DS and dog), the small, upright freezer works much better. In my opinion, it's far easier to organize and the smaller volume suits us better than the huge monster we used to have.

[basil]

We have 3 fridges and 3 freezers:
French door fridge/freezer in kitchen
Small “beverage” fridge in kitchen realistically used exclusively for produce
Top freezer fridge/freezer in garage (fridge used for extra milk/eggs/bread/citrus)
And small chest freezer in garage.

It’s a lot of space and we aren’t the best about organizing it in the most efficient way. But I try not to shop more than once a week and between the fruit my kids eat and the vegetables that I like and my habit of buying seldomly used ingedients...we use the fridge space easily. I buy meat in bulk so I don’t have to deal that often. We have some frozen stuff like chicken nuggets, shrimp, dumplings, etc that are bulky and take up a bunch of space.

I’m sure we could do better with organization and avoiding duplication but for now I’m not itching to get rid of anything.