Cut Your Food Costs With a Stand-Alone Freezer
Published on - June 13th, 2009 (Modified on - June 14th, 2009) (by J.D. Roth) Kris and I recently bought another side of beef. Well, to be more accurate, we purchased one third of a cow. Every year, we go in with several other families to split an animal. This year, our portion of the purchase comprised:
- 46 pounds of lean hamburger (in 24 packs)
- 36-1/8 pounds of roasts (in 10 packs)
- 31-1/4 pounds of steak (in 20 packs)
We also received 2-1/4 pounds of beef tongue that we’re giving to the guys at the box factory. José and Jesus tell me that lengua is delicious, but I’m not willing to prepare it myself. (If they want to make something for me, I’ll eat it.)
We received a total of 115-5/8 pounds of beef for $425, which is an average cost of $3.66 per pound. (In December 2006, we paid $300 for 83 pounds of beef, for an average of $3.61 per pound. In November 2007, we paid $277 for 81 pounds of beef, an average of $3.42 per pound.)
The problem is, Kris and I can’t eat this much beef. We love it (sorry, vegetarians), and we think we’re getting a great deal at this price, but we’re not willing to prepare beef more than once a week. This year, we recruited help. We found two other families to split our share. They each gave us $100, and we gave them one-quarter of our load.
This still leaves us with a lot of meat. Fortunately, we have a 20-year-old upright freezer, which we picked up for free from one of Kris’ co-workers. This freezer is a godsend. We use it to store our beef, and plenty of other food besides. But whenever I mention the freezer, I get comments asking me how cost-effective it really is. That’s a great question. I finally found time to answer it.
Using my Kill-a-Watt electricity meter, I took four readings of the freezer’s power consumption.
- After 47 hours, the freezer had consumed 3.13 kilowatt-hours of electricity (for an average use of 67 watts).
- After 70.5 hours, it had used 4.73 kWh (67 watts).
- After 116 hours, it had used 8.07 kWh (70 watts).
- After 154 hours, it had used 10.69 kWh (69 watts).
For ease of calculation, let’s say that our freezer seems to be using an average of 70 watts, or about 1.68 kilowatt-hours per day. That’s 613.2 kilowatt-hours per year. Because our electricity costs us 12 cents per kilowatt hour, that’s a total cost of just over 20 cents per day. It costs us about $75 a year to run the upright freezer. A newer, more efficient model would no doubt cost even less to operate.
“How do you feel about that cost?” I asked Kris once we’d computed the numbers. “Do you think it’s worth it?”
“Totally,” she said. “And here’s why. Having the freezer gives us flexibility because it lets us stock up on things when prices are good, instead of just when we run out. If I see that butter is on sale, I can stock up.”
“That’s not all,” she said. “Because of the freezer, we’re able to buy a lot of things in bulk, which brings the cost per unit down. Like those Costco bags of shredded cheese that I use in soups, quesadillas, tacos and other stuff. I just divide it up into reasonable portions and stick it in the freezer.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And I guess I’m able to buy several boxes of my favorite Trader Joe’s items which means we don’t have to make extra trips, which would require more gas and more time shopping.”
“Right,” said Kris. “Finally, don’t forget the most important reason for having a freezer. It lets me preserve a lot of food from our garden. We’ve been using frozen jam, berries, and pasta sauce all winter. I’ve already added a batch of strawberry jam and twelve cups of frozen berries from this month’s berry crop.” I licked my lips at the thought of fresh strawberry jam as Kris continued: “I’ve never run the numbers, but I don’t have to. I’m certain the freezer saves us more than a $6 per month.”
For more info about the cost-effectiveness of a stand-alone freezer, check out:
- Consumer Reports Home and Garden blog: As food prices rise, consider a stand-alone freezer
- St. Petersburg Times: How to buy a stand-alone freezer
This is the first time I’ve really used the Kill-a-Watt to help evaluate my financial choices. For my next experiment, I’m going to measure how much electricity Kris’ computer and monitor use. How much energy (and money) could we save by turning these off when they’re not in use?
Edit: Holy cats. I cannot believe I typoed “freezer” as “feezer” in the title and left it live for eight hours. How mortifying. Please take away my license to blog!
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Hi JD.
My brothers were both on special diets and my mom spent A LOT of money buying their food in bulk, including meat, and saved a lot of money. We also had a freezer downstairs that housed all our overflow meat and other items. I think it really helped out my family (can’t remember when the bought the freezer, it could have been before my time) because it solved the problem of storage when the food my brothers ate went on sale (the expensive food wasn’t really the meat part, but due to their restrictions, my mom fed them a lot of beef to compensate whatever she felt she needed compensating). I am now a vegetarian, and I wonder if it has to do with thawing meat for my mom all the time
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Ummm, creepy……I posted #44, but not #45
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When I was in college, 12 of us pooled our money, bought a small chest freezer and 1/2 a side of beef. We kept the freezer in the dorm kitchen and at the end of the semester, had a big BBQ to use up the last of the meat. We sold the freezer to one of the housekeepers and made a profit on it!
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Yikes, I cringe when I hear about people buying an extra form of refrigeration. The reason? Most people (households of 2) don’t need to be using the extra energy. Plus, they tend to get older, less efficient models and put them in the garage. THE GARAGE IS THE WORST PLACE FOR A FRIDGE/FREEZER. Why? It has to work harder (read: more electricity, more $) to keep the food cold during summer months. If you absolutely have to do this (because you are a survivalist family with 6 people or whatever), please for the love of god get a new ENERGY STAR chest freezer and put it in the basement.
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Why apologize to vegetarians because you like beef? Now you’ll have to apologize to everyone who might not like anything you mentioned. People who are offended by freezers will be beside themselves in this article.
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Great post JD, I’m looking into getting a standalone as well. We’ve recently taken to buying whole beef tenderloins from BJs Club (Costco has them too) and butchering them ourselves (well, ‘butcher’ isn’t really the word for it – ‘clean and portion’ maybe?) to save some cash. Without freezing – the only alternative is to eat beef tenderloin for the next 5 nights straight, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but still… : )
Random Unwarranted Tip:
Meat freezing for ultimate freshness and minimal freezer burn – The trick is to get the meat to freeze as quickly as possible, since that creates smaller ice crystals. Smaller crystals disrupt the structure much less than big snow-covered frosty ones (no one wants a big freezer-burnt meat-popsicle).
For steaks, I’d cut and portion them how I wanted, then put them in the fridge on a small wire rack UNCOVERED on the bottom shelf for maybe 45 minutes or so – this is to get the temp of the meat as low as possible without freezing – so my freezing process goes quicker.
Then I move them to the freezer just as they are – on the wire rack (for better air circulation) and, again, totally naked and uncovered. Once they are frozen (2 – 4 hours depending on how awesome your freezer is), I usually wrap them in 2 layers of heavy-duty plastic wrap and THEN 2 layers of tin foil.
Your mileage may vary, as always, but I find that it lasts the longest that way, and doesn’t have that ‘previously frozen’ kind of vibe to it that happens so often with frozen meats. (rendering the eating of that “good deal” kind of bittersweet – if you as me)
Just my 2 cents. : )
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For our upright freezer we purchased a set of plastic bins. We pre-measured each shelf, went to target when they had plastic bins on sale, and came up with size configurations that fit each shelf efficiently.
Each bin is numbered and corresponds to a bin number in a spreadsheet of freezer contents which we keep printed in the kitchen.
This helps in
A) knowing what is in the freezer
B) Menu planning
C) More cost efficient on electricty because we are not standing there with the freezer door open – If we need to sort we pull the bin
D) More cost efficient because even frozen food have a best by date. Items do not get burried on the back of a shelf.
I believe that we can actually get more in the freezer as well because you can stuff things in the bin, but the bin contains the mess and keeps it from spilling onto the floor.
It is a bit anal-retantive I know but it is a life saver.
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We have a chest freezer (given to us by a relative). Another way we save money with it is by keeping things from being wasted — beyond things that need to be frozen. For instance, we freeze bags of bulk grains for a few days, take them out for a few days, and then freeze them again for a week or so — to kill any insect larvae that might be in the grains. (Surely we’ve all experienced the nasty shock of opening “buggy” flour.) I do the same with wool goods – from sweaters and hats to flour and spinning fiber and home decor — to kill wool moths. That way, our stuff isn’t destroyed, and it helps keep the freezer full.
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A freezer is great but one major caveat is to note how long the unit will keep items frozen if and when power is lost. It does little good to fully stock a freezer if it all ruins in a snow storm or hurricane.
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The initial commenter is incorrect. “Kilowatts” or watts refer to the *rate* of usage.
Kilowatt-hr is the cumulative usage, which in fact is how electricity usage is billed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt_hour
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Modern stand-alone freezers use little energy.
There are large (15 cubic feet) Energy Star-rated chest freezers that use less than 1 kWh/day.
And storage life is much better with a standalone that uses manual defrost.
Regular kitchen fridge/freezer combos are automatic defrost, so freezer temperatures are not stable.
I left my $25 second-hand chest freezer set at -20F.
Very little biological activity takes place at that temperature.
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I think we also need to consider the environmental cost of this strategy. We may reduce our own personal costs but that comes at the expense of the environment via the increased use of electricity (that has to come from somewhere).
It’s tough to do everything right. My main point is simply that if we add in the increased environmental costs then the overall savings from this strategy is not as great.
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We love our freezer– it is in the garage. With four kids to feed it pays to buy in bulk when meat, bread, and frozen veggies go on sale. It is a real money and time saver.
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Having a freezer is great. I am sure you save much, much more than $6 a month. It is definitely a good investment.
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Great Article, I must Get my Hands on one of those electric meters.
I totally agree that sharing a butchered down piece of meat between familys is a great deal. Might i suggest you get the other families to do the same but with a different meat i.e. chicken or pork.
You can then stock your freezer for a year
One idea i have been looking at is adding insulation board (used in construction) and applying it to the top, sides and door (not the evaporation coils)
Although a bit unsightly it will provide more insulation and in theory reduce the load on the cooling system.
great site by the way
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