Frugal Friday: Freezer Organization

Today's Frugal Friday idea was inspired by Trixie's post over at Farm Home Life. She talks about not buying groceries this week and eating from the freezer. She mentioned her over-the-refrigerator freezer, and that made me reminisce.

Before we moved into our new house, we had an over-the-refrigerator freezer. That freezer and I had a love/hate relationship. My toes, in particular, hated it. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it, I could open the door and something frozen would fall on my foot. Ow!

I battled that war for about a year or so until I came up with a great solution - besides wearing steel-toed shoes. :)

My other problem with the freezer was I never knew what was on the bottom of the pile or in the very back. I would get frustrated with taking everything out of the freezer to find one thing. And usually during an emptying episode I would find something that was well past its prime and had to be thrown away.

So what was my solution? Home improvement stores and Wal-Mart sell small, free-standing wire shelves. Their purpose is to expand storage capacity in cabinets, which is why I originally bought a couple.

One day I realized that I could use the same shelf in my freezer! Since the shelves are wire (metal) I didn't have to worry about them cracking etc.

The simple addition of a 12 in x 6 in shelf in the freezer offered tons of organization! I put my frozen meat underneath the shelf since the meat was the heaviest. On top I put frozen vegetables and some other miscellaneous items like cartons of ice cream. :) Next to the shelf I still had open space where I was able to put larger items. Honestly, it was like my freezer capacity doubled.

I could open the door, see 90% of what was in the freezer, and efficiently take out what I needed. I didn't have to worry about items spoiling or buying something I already had because I could see what was in there at a glance.

While the shelf probably cost about $5, I'm sure it saved us far more in the long run.

For more Frugal Friday ideas, click here.

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