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

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.

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.

Kilowatt-hr is the cumulative usage, which in fact is how electricity usage is billed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt_hour

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.

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. : )

If you don’t have a large freezer and you want a cheap, tasty dinner for $1.56/person (and still have leftovers for lunches) give this a try: http://www.diamondcutlife.org/my-cheapest-tastiest-healthiest-dinner-menu/

The kilowatt hour, also written kilowatt-hour (symbol kW·h, kW h or kWh) is a unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules.

Energy delivered by electric utilities is usually expressed and charged for in kilowatt hours.

Energy in kilowatt hours is the product of power in kilowatts and time in hours; it is not “kilowatts per hour”.

The SI (International System of Units) unit of energy is the joule (J), equal to one watt second (one watt is equal to one joule per second); one kilowatt hour is exactly 3.6 megajoules, which is the amount of energy expended (or dissipated) if work is done at a constant rate of one thousand watts for one hour.

I am in the market for a new fridge and found this government site originally linked from Consumer Reports, but now I don’t see the link, but I found it.

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=refrig.calculator

Plug your old model number into this calculator and it will show you how much a new, energy efficient, similarly sized model will save you (in my case about $100/year). It opened my eyes and made me step up my search for a new one at my local Sears Scratch and Dent, love that place!!
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!

I am in the market for a new fridge and found this government site originally linked from Consumer Reports, but now I don’t see the link, but I found it.

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=refrig.calculator

Plug your old model number into this calculator and it will show you how much a new, energy efficient, similarly sized model will save you (in my case about $100/year). It opened my eyes and made me step up my search for a new one at my local Sears Scratch and Dent, love that place!!

THe Kw/h unit of measure does exist and is used by your power company to calculate the amount of power you have used over a period of time.

Oh, and if you want to store meat for a year, renting space in a meat locker makes more sense. They’re kept much colder than a home freezer, and they don’t go through defrost cycles like a home freezer does.

We had a small chest freezer in the garage of our little California house, which we thought was worthwhile, but which we tended to lose/forget things in.

We love our upright freezer. I think it’s bigger than our fridge, and we can see almost everything at a glance. Well worth the money to us, just in the savings from grabbing veggie burgers, soup, chili, beans, bread, frozen veggies, or frozen pizza instead of yielding to temptation and heading out for supper.

The opposite is true in an air-conditioned house. Every watt you use costs 3-5 watts because your air conditioner works harder to cool the house after your refrigerator heats it.

We did lose power for 3 days in a big ice storm out here, but that was in December so nothing thawed. Our house temps were down to low 30s anyway. It did make us nervous, so we’d like to get a generator at some point.

Just put our first pyo strawberries in the freezer for next winter!