Frozen archaeology: a hoarder's freezer

Everyone wants to reduce the amount that they spend on food. We spent over $400 on groceries last month and I feel like there's some room (pun intended) for us to lower that number a bit. But we already buy very little processed food. We shop the edge of the store, buy house-brand everything, and shop at the cheapest store in town. We buy in bulk. The freezer is full. So what are we doing wrong?

Maybe what we're doing wrong is being too much like my hoarder family. In the name of food allergies, finicky palates and frugality, their freezers (plural!) look like this:

click to enlarge the horror!

There is stuff in those freezers that has been there for YEARS. My parents never clean out the freezers and never defrost them. It may be frozen, but is it still edible? Is it even still safe?

But my life shouldn't be about them, it should be about me. Only last month did I start to look at my freezer with an eye for hoarding habits. Sure enough, I felt a need for the freezer to be FULL:

Why do I think I need to have a full freezer?

1. My frugal brain tells me it's cheaper to buy stuff on sale. But for me that's a myth because stuff gets freezer burn and spoils in my freezer typically before I dig deep enough to remember that it's there. When it's so full that I can't see what's in there, I end up buying extra because I think I'm out of something.

2. My starved eating disorder brain worries about not having the right food around when I want it. Just because it's not in my freezer doesn't mean I'm going to starve or be painfully deprived. I can always go out and get what I want.

3. My first world brain wants choices. Maybe today I'll want raisin bread and tomorrow I'll want wheat, and Monday I'll want white. But why should I worry about keeping a smorgasbord in my freezer when I live a few blocks from a grocery store?

4. My eco-friendly brain says that it's more energy efficient to keep a full freezer than an empty one. That only works if I don't end up throwing out spoiled food.

These beliefs are all myths for me. Maybe they're truths for you and that's okay, but for me they spell out one thing. It's time to use up what's in the freezer and not completely fill it up again! My freezer today:

better than last month! sorta

My sister-in-law keeps a list of the freezer's contents on the door. I'm not sure I'm diligent enough to keep up with the list. But making it this once might give me a better idea of what I have, and what I can use in our meals this week.

1.   6 qts frozen peaches (will go into jam tomorrow)

2.   1 pre-made lasagna (can keep this at work for emergencies)

3.   1 qt frozen grapes

4.   1 container fudge

5.   1 bag of coffee

6.   4 pounds of butter

7.   1 pt raspberries

8.   2 slices pizza

9.   frozen banana slices

10.  bag of green beans

11.  bag of carrots

12.  bag of stir fry veggies

13.  bag of mixed veggies

14.  bag of blueberries

15.  1 pound sliced cheese (freezer-burned, tossed out)

16.  ginger root

17.  parsley

18.  bag of pre-made raviolis

19.  oatmeal cookies

20.  25 cadbury eggs (they're seasonal!)

21.  a tray of yogurt starter

22.  flank steak

23.  hot dogs

24.  2 pork loins

25.  5 pounds hamburger

26.  raspberry ice cream

27.  3 pts of sofrito

28.  2 jars of strawberry jam

29.  1 jar of pear jam

30.  2 soy burgers

31.  1 chicken patty

32.  2 pounds of margerine

If that's what I can stuff into my freezer, then it's a crying shame how much food is going to waste in my family's freezers. My goal this month is to reduce the freezer contents by about half. Hopefully that will also help reduce our food bills. My ultimate goal is to be able to look at the freezer and not have to move things to know what is stored.

How do you keep your freezer organized? Does buying in bulk work for you or do you prefer an empty or half-full freezer?

Making it count

The hubs and I went over our expenses yesterday. We've been married since October 2010 and still haven't quite figured out how to make combining our finances work well for us.

The biggest problem is that I'm a spender. When I'm stressed I spend or indulge my eating disorder. As the eating disorder gets better, the spending and acquiring seems to get a little worse.

I want less junk and more experiences in my life. We both want a bigger financial cushion. I've always lived within my means but it's time to start to keep an eye on the money leaving my wallet as well as the junk coming and going from the house.

This blog's conjoined twin, The Lottery Project (because everything has to be a project, doesn't it?), is now my open diary of my spending. It's my attempt to make progress doing more of the things on my list of what I would do if I won the lottery, AKA, the things that would make me happy in life. If I'm going to spend money I should be spending it on the experiences I want to have, not on silly junk and e-books I'll only read once. I'll likely update that blog only a few times a month. This blog is still my focus; that one is mostly my ledger. But I think the accountability of posting my expenditures online will whip me into shape. I hope!

Item 132: I am such a couch couscous! okay, nobody remembers that commercial.

While I'm talking about wasting less, let's throw in today's decluttered item.We went through the cabinets a while back to find anything that had been sitting around too long. We ate through everything else and this was the only thing we didn't want. It may be July but it's easy to forget that food pantries need goods year-round and now is the perfect time to clear out your cabinets (when is it not a perfect time to clean out our cabinets?) This box was a 'gift' from a friend. I put it in the Summer food donation campaign box at our office.