Second fridge/freezer? (update #28)

[♥ms.pacman♥]

Anybody have one? I feel so greedy or whatever the word is, but DH & I are considering getting a 2nd fridge/freezer. Now that we are using our Vitamix a ton (and our kids are eating a decent amount) we find ourselves consuming crazy amounts of fruits & veggies and we are just running out of space. We have a ton of frozen meals as well that we prepare beforehand. We get milk at Costco and we are often storing 3 half-gallons in the fridge at a time.

If you have a 2nd fridge/freezer, where do you put it? Garage? We could put it in our garage but the downside is, it's a GFCI outlet so if the power ever went out there, it wouldn't reset automatically and we might not realize it until a day or two later (whenever we'd open it next) and our food would go bad.

Also, any suggestions for cheap yet decent one? DH does not want to do craiglist. We were thinking Sears?

[BabyBearsMom]

We have an extra fridge/freezerin the basement. I love it, especially around holidays. Plus when our main fridge died a few months ago we could put everything in the downstairs fridge.

[brittone2]

In our last house we had an extra fridge/freezer in our mudroom/laundry room space, and then an upright freezer in our basement.

in my current house we have our regular kitchen SBS (here when we bought the house) and just have the freezer in the basement, no extra fridge. I do miss the extra fridge space sometimes, like before a big party or holiday.

We bought our upright on CL-it is a commercial model.

I use my freezer heavily; we have purchased 1/4 or 1/2 of beef a few times. The local pastured meat place sells their grassfed beef for 3.50/lb if you buy 50 lbs, so we do that periodically. I also stock the freezer a lot with things like grilled chicken, cooked ground beef, etc. to give me a head start on meals. We freeze a lot of stock, soup, chili, etc. too.

I also keep a lot of frozen veggies on hand for quick dinners.

[kaharris83]

We had a chest freezer we bought when I was EPing for DS1 and we had 1000's of oz of BM to keep frozen. When we moved in our new house the owner had just replaced the appliances with new ones but the fridge was just a small one. We replaced it with a french door fridge with a bottom drawer and put the other fridge down in our laundry room in the basement. We sold the chest freezer, but since we started doing freezer meals I often miss it. It is nice to have extra space to put things.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

thanks for the responses! we had talked about getting a chest freezer when i was exclusively pumping for DD when she was in the NICU for so long. Now though that we're done with nursing, i think we'd like to have a fridge & freezer combo though. Fridge mainly for drinks, extra milk (we get the organic 3 half gallons from costco...my kids go through it so fast). And freezer for freezer meals, frozen fruits/veggies/meats. I just started doing a gluten-free frozen meal exchange (where each family makes 7 of the same dish) then we meet up and "trade" with other moms so we each have 7 different freezer meals. It's awesome, but does require some space in our freezer. We've also done Once A Month Cooking before. Also, our kids are only 2 and 3 now, and they (especially DS) just eat so much, especially fruit. I can imagine it's only going to get "worse" esp, when they're in school and teenagers.

anyway thanks again for the replies. i don't feel as bad for wanting/needing an second fridge. remember when we first moved to the US, my parents were shocked at how big the refrigerators were here and how full people kept them and it seemed so excessive to them. however, thing is, now that i work full time i just don't have time to go to do grocery store runs that frequently. we go to Costco or Trader Joes on weekends and stock up on stuff and it takes up a decent amount of space. i just don't have the time to visit the grocery store every day and prepare a fresh meal every evening like mom did.

[barkley1]

That's not greedy, lol! We have one in our garage and love it! We store mostly drinks in there...waters, cokes, juice boxes, beer, etc but I do especially appreciate it during the holidays when I'm cooking ahead a lot.

[brittone2]

Yeah, I like not having to run out to the store all of the time. We can usually pull out a protein (sometimes already cooked like grilled chicken) and a frozen veggie, and we *can* eat that for dinner, even if we might prefer something else at that moment. We already shop at a few different stores, so running out for extra trips just gets really annoying (not to mention time consuming and more expensive). That also lets me stock up on certain items from certain stores (better prices, items not offered elsewhere) and not have to make the trip to that specific store as often.

Freezer cooking helps me survive, especially when the kids' schedules are busy in the evening with sports and so forth. We have lots of things I can throw together in 15 mins or less using what's in the freezer (provided I thaw!). Since all 3 of mine are home during the day with HSing, it also makes for quicker/healthier lunches for us. Low mess, etc. if I can pull something out of the freezer as a starting point. I think of it as DIY convenience food :)

[jenstring95]

We bought a 2nd fridge/freezer combo right before Thanksgiving. We love it and use it all the time. It allows us to store things from Costco, take advantage of sales without worrying about where to put everything and store things like the ~12lbs of strawberries we picked recently. :) Ours is in the laundry room, as we have the same GFCI issue in the garage.

[dhano923]

We have a chest freezer that we bought when DS was a baby. It was to freeze meals mainly, as DS was a horrible eater and sleeper and I often didn't want to cook. I'd cook a double meal when I did and we'd freeze the extras. We kept it in our garage. When we moved into our house 3 years ago, we put it just inside our playroom door. Is easy access for us. Now we use it to store extra freezer items, and we buy meat in bulk when on salefrom the grocery store and Costco and I break the packs into small freezer bags. Love having proteins in hand whenever I need them, and it saves money too. I also keep frozen veggies, homemade stock, ice cream, etc in there.

The freezer in the kitchen fridge is used for a couple frozen veggies, veggies burgers, a couple small meat packs, breakfast sausage, Etc.

[scrooks]

Extra freezer here too! In our basement! It's totally full... We bought 1/3 of a side of beef awhile ago. It's really great to have. I hope in our next house we have room for an extra fridge in the mud room or similar area. As the kids get bigger I can see it being helpful for fruit and drinks and extra gallons of milk!

[ellies mom]

We have a small upright freezer in the garage. I like having the extra freezer space. As long as I remember to take the food out of the freezer, it really makes it easy to have our go-to ingredients on hand (I love Costco's individually wrapped chicken breasts). I like to split larger recipes and freeze half for another meal. So it is nice to have the space for that as well.

[urquie]

We have a stand up Kenmore (Sears) freezer. It has an alarm, that sounds, if the temp gets too warm. The alarm is battery powered, so you'll still hear it if the power goes out.

We also have a mini fridge from costco, for drinks and costco size produce.

Both are in our garage and we LOVE them!

[kdeunc]

We have a second fridge and an upright freezer in our garage. We did get ours from Sears. The fridge is a low-cost super basic one. I love having the extra storage. We buy milk 3 gallons at the time too. :)

[twowhat?]

Couldn't live without it! Ours is in the garage. Basic fridge with top freezer. Got it from Sears outlet. Fits a Costco bday cake.:thumbsup:

[AnnieW625]

We have a 9 cu. ft. Upright freezer from Sears. We bought it in 2006 from a friend's dad. We use a lot. Whenever we redo our kitchen if our current fridge is still working it will go to the garage.

[Zukini]

We have a small chest freezer in our laundry room/mud room (<7 cu ft). We initially got it as we were gifted 1/2 cow from a relative with a ranch. We use it now as overflow space for good deals on meat from the store (bogo on pork tenderloins or good price on whole roaster chickens) and farmers market hauls (berries). I don't have to think twice about making large batches of stock or stews as we have the space to freeze and store extras (before surgery last year I stocked up on pre made food). It's only the two of us now but I know it will only become more useful as our family grows.

[Pear]

Our living room is on a different floor than the kitchen and I has a pretty substantial built in bar area with room for a full fridge. We use the fridge for stocking beverages preferred by friends and family and the occasional overflow. The freezer is stocked with all my premade meals.

[khm]

We have an extra freezer, we split a beef with my parents/siblings every year or so. So, we definitely need the room. And, well, Costco! We buy most of our frozen fruit/veggies there, and those bags ain't small. We'd have to skip the (awesome, local) beef and radically change our shopping habits without the garage freezer!

It was a cheap upright from Sears. Nothing fancy.

[jerigirl]

We have our current second refrigerator/freezer in our garage. We had our 2nd fridge/freezer in our laundry room in our old house. (We actually left both fridges with the house when we moved since we didn't want to move them!) So we bought another 2nd fridge for this house. We usually shop Sears and Lowes for these. This last time Lowes had the best deal. If you aren't in a hurry, Memorial Day usually has some good sales.

[lhafer]

We have a second upright freezer in our laundry room (there is a specific spot for it). Had to buy a second freezer after baby number 1 was born due to the amount of milk I produced. And it proved very useful for the same reason after baby number 2. Now it just holds meat, frozen fruit, premade meals. Love it!

[BayGirl2]

We have a chest freezer in the garage. dH installed a Gfc outlet out there. We prep a lot of meals in advance so it works well for that.

[kep]

We started out with a full size deep freezer, and then added on a full size freezer-less refrigerator. We keep them in the garage, and surprisingly they don't take up a huge amount of space, and we have a single car garage. While I like the freezer, I have found that we use the extra fridge constantly. Daily. Sometimes it's a glorified beer/beverage fridge, and other times it's full of bulk Costco stuff, birthday cakes, holiday extras, etc. Worth every penny.

[oneontheway]

We have a second fridge/freezer in the garage and a deep freezer in the basement. It's helped a lot with the bags of frozen fruit we've been using lately.

We've found awesome deals at home depot and lowes when they get in new floor models and clearance the old. I think it's normally on Fridays but you could ask the store. Our main fridge we just bought at hd it was originally $3000 and we got it for $1500. They had just moved about 10 models to clearance... All price ranges. You can also check your best buys open box inventory for deals (online).

[abh5e8]

we have a chest freezer in the attached garage. we use ALL the time. mostly for meat, as we buy beef, pork and chicken in bulk. (as in 1/2 a cow, 1/2 a pig and 10 or so chickens a few times a year). we have saved tons of money doing this, enough to pay for the freezer and the electricity. not to mention the ease of having meat all the time and not having to shop for it every week.

we also have a full size SBS fridge/freezer in the attached garage, it came with the house. we don't use it now, but are thinking we may this summer, as we will have a large garden.
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[hellokitty]

We have a small fridge/freezer in our garage. The freezer mostly holds ice packs and the fridge has milk, eggs, cheese, produce and beverage over-flow. We also have a huge deep freezer in our basement with a 1/4 of a cow and other frozen stuff. Our kitchen fridge is cabinet depth and doesn't hold much.

[KrisM]

We have a second full-size fridge/freezer in the garage. The freezer is completely full right now. I make a lot and freeze for later, so that goes through cycles. The fridge is less full, but I buy 4 gallons of milk at a time, so the extra goes out there. Pretty much any extra is there instead of inside. Most times, we could probably get away with just one fridge, but it would be really full.

When we moved here, we brought our fridge, but the owners left their old, so that one went to the garage. It last a couple years. We replaced it with one made for the garage so that it's less likely to break due to the temperature changes. Something about how the regular fridges regulate temperature makes them not work as well in a cold garage in winter and then the food gets warm. I'd have to look it up. Anyway, we now have this: http://www.gladiatorgarageworks.com/skip/appliances/gladiator__174__chillerator__174__garage_refrigera tor_garf19xxyk.pro?scr=category&activeCategory=0&activeSubCategory=5

ETA: I love it in the garage. So many times, I just unload all the groceries straight to that fridge and rearrange later when I have more time. It seems lately, I'm always getting home just a few minutes before I have to leave for preschool or something.

[egoldber]

When we moved here, we brought our fridge, but the owners left their old, so that one went to the garage.

This is what happened to us too. We moved a refrigerator from CA to VA (having previously moved it several times within CA) but the owners left their old refrigerator. We love having both the extra refrigerator and freezer space.


If you have a 2nd fridge/freezer, where do you put it? Garage? We could put it in our garage but the downside is, it's a GFCI outlet so if the power ever went out there, it wouldn't reset automatically and we might not realize it until a day or two later (whenever we'd open it next) and our food would go bad.

We did have this issue in our old house. We just learned after it happened once to ALWAYS check the garage refrigerator any time that we lost power or even if the power flashed.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

thanks for the replies, everyone!! So helpful.

we looked online at Sears website. there were a number of promotions going on (St. Patty's day deal, plus a 25% off appliance sales and then Sears card discount on top of all that). We went in store to check it out, and eventually managed to snag a 18 cubic feet Kenmore top freezer refrigerator for just $322 (orig price was almost $600). :D Woo! It will be delivered tomorrow, cannot wait.

As for GFCI issue in our garage, we decided to make some room inside our formal dining room for the fridge, since tat room barely gets used anyway (we only use it like a couple times a year, really!). We also wanted to put it inside so that our 3yo DS could easily access it (lower shelves, at least) and get his own food/drink.

[AnnieW625]

That's a great price. I would love an 18 cu. ft. upright freezer so when our current 9 cu. ft. dies we will get at least that size one. I would love more space than we have, but we would be lost without our freezer.