How Taking Inventory of your Freezer Saves You Money

One day not too long ago when the Tennessee sun wasn't beaming too bright, my husband and I were trying to decide what we were going to have for dinner.  On a hunt for some bacon, I began to pull things out of the deep freezer, knowing that if we had any it would be near the bottom.

You see, I had been meaning to organize and inventory our freezer for weeks, but hadn't gotten around to it.  Well, after a few minutes went by and more and more food began to appear on the boxes outside the freezer, my husband unknowingly approached asking me what I was doing, head down in the freezer.  I began saying, hold this...wait here's another, etc. etc.

Developing An Inventory

As we realized that most of the food was now in his hands or laying on a nearby box, we began to combine things that were individually frozen and putting like things together like beef, chicken, cheese, and vegetables.  We designated areas to place each in so we could find them without trouble.  I then decided to record the amounts of each item we had stored in the freezer in my Evernote app [read 5 Ways That Evernote Organized My Life].  This way both my husband and I would always have an up-to-date list of our freezer inventory at our fingertips.

So in literally 20 minutes we were able to organize our deep freezer and take an inventory of what was in it AND choose what we were going to have for dinner (note bacon wasn't included).  Win, Win, Win!

Organizing A Large Freezer

Now, our freezer is one of the medium sizes and didn't need to be defrosted, so if you have a large deep freezer, then it may take you a little longer to declutter, defrost and organize it.  She spent time defrosting and organizing her freezer too.

A few tips she shared are:

• Store less frequently used items on hard-to-reach shelves.
• Use bins to help separate like items and to decontainerize
• Use the built-in baskets to store grab-and-go items.                        

Whether your deep freezer is small, medium or large, I encourage you to take a few minutes this weekend to clean it out and inventory its contents. This will not only save you time, but it will also prevent you from spending unnecessary money on items you already have.

Until next time, happy decluttering!