If you're looking for ways to economize, using your deep freeze to save money is a great strategy. Although running a deep freeze will increase your electricity bill, the savings you will see from your grocery bills will be well worth it.
The key to saving money with your deep freeze is to get organized. Even if you have a gigantic deep freeze, using the space inside it wisely will increase your savings.
If you already have a deep freeze, I recommend setting aside some time to really clean it out. Get rid of all of the mystery foods, and incorporate the ingredients you have into a meal plan.
Once you know what you have in your deep freeze, you'll know how to best use your grocery budget. Here are some ideas for how to use your deep freeze to save money on groceries.
How to Use Your Deep Freeze to Save Money
- Save the Leftovers. Only finish half the lasagna? Freeze what you didn't eat, and you'll have another meal ready to be heated up in a week or two. We do this all the time with pizza too.
- Buy in “bulk.” If you have an opportunity to buy a larger quantity of food at a big discount, you can do it and freeze the food you won't use right away. We like to buy 40 pounds of chicken at a time from Zaycon and freeze it for meals throughout the season.
- Stash extra veggies in a plastic bag to make broth. Save leftover vegetables, and when you have a full baggie, throw them in the crockpot with water to make broth. I like to use our homemade vegetable broth when we make rice in the rice cooker for added flavor.
- Take advantage of seasonal produce. When blueberries are in season, we like to pick them at the farm, and bring them home to freeze. Our blueberry stash from last summer lasted us for almost a year's worth of weekly smoothies!
- Save food before it goes bad. We like to buy big bags of spinach from Costco, but we don't always end up using it all in time. Instead of letting it go bad, I try to freeze it in plastic baggies. We use the spinach later for smoothies or lasagna.
- Find out if foods can be frozen. If you're not sure, do a quick search online and get some advice about how to freeze certain foods. You'd be surprised at how much food you can save by freezing!
- Invest in few “emergency” meals. Ideally, we'd all like to eat healthy food all the time. But sometimes, you just want a pizza. Heating up a frozen pizza is a lot cheaper than ordering one for delivery.
- Stay organized. Deep freezers are really hard to keep organized, but if you can't find your food, it's not saving you any money. Here's some deep freezer organization ideas.
- Have a deep freezer inventory. Write down everything you have in your deep freeze, and cross off items when you use them up. That will help you keep track of what you have, and save you from having to dig through a super-cold freezer to see what needs to be used up.
Need more money-saving ideas? Check out these articles about organizing your finances!
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