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And it is 2 years of chicken that is so vastly superior that it isn't even the same meat as chicken bought in the super market.
It's work, though, to raise them and butcher them. Not everyone wants to do that.
We were raising chickens year-round. And we have had many episodes with predators wiping out our entire flocks. From our perspective, if we only deal with them for 10-weeks it is far less work.
We have the chicken-plucking machine so processing the birds is all done in one day.
I have an upright freezer - I know a chest freezer works better but I also know myself well enough to know that any savings would be offset by food lost within the depths of a chest freezer.
I like to be able to stock up on things while they are on sale, and I also like to batch cook bigger quantities at times and save them in individual portions. I have a teenage son, so he goes through a lot of toaster waffles, hot pockets and similar.
I haven't bothered to calculate whether it's truly a cost savings, but I know that it's a time savings because I can shop less often. As a single working mom, my time is my most valuable commodity!
We don't really freeze food, it loses its quality yet, we have 3 large refrigerators. HUge one built in kitchen one. Two large ones in garages. Built in one simply is not made for cooking wife, pots don't fit too well. Main garage one sides as one for weekly food supply - we go shopping Saturday am and stock what we need for week. Lots of fruits and veggies, they take space. 3rd one we had to buy because of the wedding 2 months ago, was filled with pastries and such. $40 g sale. DW now keeps cabbage for chickens in it, we have decent poultry farm.
Is it frugal - sort of. I wish, they had refers designed well enough to put in home cooking, not just a few pieces of Tupperware with some leftovers and two pizza slices.
My Ukrainian wife does this too. When I was single, I never put a pot of food into the fridge. Small containers, yes. But DW will make up a 5 quart pot of borsch and have it in the fridge all week. Good chow, for sure, but, yeah, most normal domestic refrigerators are not really set up to accommodate big old pots like that.
She always says that making a big pot is no more work than making a small pot, and it lasts longer.
Never owned a 2nd fridge......but I always considered the cost of buying/running the fridge.
from consumer reports:
The annual energy cost of a refrigerator built before 1990 is more than double that of a similarly sized model today, as you can see in our refrigerator ratings of more than 400 models. (The national average rate for residential electricity is about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour.) All that electricity adds up, accounting for up to 10 percent of your utility bill.
Never owned a 2nd fridge......but I always considered the cost of buying/running the fridge.
from consumer reports:
The annual energy cost of a refrigerator built before 1990 is more than double that of a similarly sized model today, as you can see in our refrigerator ratings of more than 400 models. (The national average rate for residential electricity is about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour.) All that electricity adds up, accounting for up to 10 percent of your utility bill.
Electric costs vary, but for the continental U.S. and a freezer or refrigerator made within the past few years $60/yr is a good starting estimate. I've recouped that cost many times over by buying sales.
They save money, but only if you label, date, and rotate the food you store. There are other tricks, such as learning how to wet-pack and using cardboard boxes as insulators in frost free units to limit freezer burn. If you garden, freezing is much superior to canning.
I'm going to say, that most people really don't do any of the above.
I'll go a step further. They aren't frugal, not in and of themselves. They allow frugal folks to scratch a frugal itch, but they aren't. I'd wager they're a borderline false economy.
I have chickens, I've raised meat birds. It isn't cheaper than buying chicken in the store. Sure, I enjoy it, the chicken tastes better, but that isn't frugal, at least not on the scale I do it. Really, no different than paying more for a restaurant's chicken because their recipe is better.
I hunt deer. The "sportsman's license" (combo hunt and fish license with deer tags) is $50. If I shoot a mature buck that tips the scales at 125 lbs, I get 50 lbs of meat off of him. That's before all the time and gas I spend getting there, doesn't account for my rifle, stands, etc...
I garden. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a few years eating $20 tomatoes.
All of those things warrant having a chest freezer. But, even if you get it "free," the things cost $50 a year to run. And I'm not convinced that you recoup any of that. Its just another gadget, no different than a slow-cooker or dehydrator or smoker.
And I don't buy the whole "stocking up on sale items." If you stock up on 6 months worth of frozen chicken, what are the chances you won't happen across a similar sale 2 or 3 months down the line? No, I think for most people they like the security of knowing they won't have to grocery shop, and knowing they got a good deal that they maximized, whether or not they realize those savings.
Most of the time when I've gone into someones second or third freezer, it's easily 1/3 filled with old stuff that they bought with the intention of eating and never did, for one reason or another. I'm not totally different; there are a few meals in there that my wife or I bought with the intention of eating for lunch or meal planning and never did. Periodically I put my foot down and make us purge some of it out but it remains a waste IMO.
I'm going to say, that most people really don't do any of the above.
I'll go a step further. They aren't frugal, not in and of themselves. They allow frugal folks to scratch a frugal itch, but they aren't. I'd wager they're a borderline false economy.
I have chickens, I've raised meat birds. It isn't cheaper than buying chicken in the store. Sure, I enjoy it, the chicken tastes better, but that isn't frugal, at least not on the scale I do it. Really, no different than paying more for a restaurant's chicken because their recipe is better.
I hunt deer. The "sportsman's license" (combo hunt and fish license with deer tags) is $50. If I shoot a mature buck that tips the scales at 125 lbs, I get 50 lbs of meat off of him. That's before all the time and gas I spend getting there, doesn't account for my rifle, stands, etc...
I garden. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a few years eating $20 tomatoes.
All of those things warrant having a chest freezer. But, even if you get it "free," the things cost $50 a year to run. And I'm not convinced that you recoup any of that. Its just another gadget, no different than a slow-cooker or dehydrator or smoker.
And I don't buy the whole "stocking up on sale items." If you stock up on 6 months worth of frozen chicken, what are the chances you won't happen across a similar sale 2 or 3 months down the line? No, I think for most people they like the security of knowing they won't have to grocery shop, and knowing they got a good deal that they maximized, whether or not they realize those savings.
Most of the time when I've gone into someones second or third freezer, it's easily 1/3 filled with old stuff that they bought with the intention of eating and never did, for one reason or another. I'm not totally different; there are a few meals in there that my wife or I bought with the intention of eating for lunch or meal planning and never did. Periodically I put my foot down and make us purge some of it out but it remains a waste IMO.
Excellent points. Much the same can be said for pantries though. I've had stuff in pantries that had to get tossed. Along the way I learned the shelf life of saltines and that pickles go mushy if kept too long. Some stuff in my freezer got tossed when I went through it after my wife died. Overall though, the savings have still been there.
Part of my savings is in time as well as money. Last week I made over 12 lbs of goulash, portioned it and froze it. That means homecooked lunch instead of junk food. I've never had to toss any of the previous batches I've made and frozen. Then there was the time I bought five rib eye primals at $4/lb and had rib eye for a couple of years. I've never seen a sale like that again.
Part of my savings is in time as well as money. Last week I made over 12 lbs of goulash, portioned it and froze it. That means homecooked lunch instead of junk food. I've never had to toss any of the previous batches I've made and frozen.
Do your noodles get mushy? I love goulash and would love to freeze it like that (I do freeze a lot of things), but I've always heard that freezing noodles is a no-no. (Potatoes, too)
I had an upright freezer in the garage, and I found that it became a storage facility for old bread. It cost more to run than it saved me, so I eventually just unplugged it and ignored it.
I think an extra freezer is frugal only if it really saves you money.
If you haven't got the budget to spend many thousands of dollars on meat or fish, than you'll never make it pay off. Also keep in mind that you have to keep that freezer running in the event of a prolonged blackout that lasts several days
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