I have many labeled items in my freezer too, thankfully. But when we inventoried and reorganized the freezer, we found at least 20 unlabeled containers. I've elected to thaw one per week and decide on thawing between eating, feeding to the dog, and composting. They've been continuously frozen so I'm not worried they're unsafe, just that they might be unpalatable. Today's turned out to be easy, one chicken spine that I added to the stock I was making (we spatchcock chickens regularly)
Obviously the most frugal move is to label things in the first place and use them in a timely manner, so of course we've made sure to put labels and markers in convenient locations
Anyone else working on eating down their stored food?
Eating down my freezer, one unlabeled container per week
byu/Beginning-Row5959 inFrugal
Posted by Beginning-Row5959
13 Comments
Hello fellow mystery meal eater! I have the same bad habit and am working on eating through all my mystery meals this season too so I can defrost my deep freezer, inventory everything, and rotate stock.
Last night was some pretty tasty lentils, lol!
Just moved. Took my whole pantry. Why did I buy some of these things?
So far ive only got rid of salad dressings that didn’t taste right.
Its been creative. Why is there so much ramen though? I dont even eat that
I’m eating through my freezer because I have the bad habit of just feeding the freezer when things go on sale, then going out to eat…LMBootyO
Congrats, I have multiple months worth of butcher box that I really need to work through
Same! We call it freezer roulette.
I need to do this so badly. Even the labeled stuff needs to be cycled through. My kids were just here, though, so the fridge is already full of random shit we need to get through first.
Someday, the pantry…
We’re working on this too. I also need to clean out the pantry of all expired food. It’s awful how much we’ve wasted.
Our resolution is to make a list of anything we throw out (that was purchased after January 1) just so we are more aware of it
Just be aware, your freezer should be full, else it’ll overwork trying to freeze air – the void where nothing is.
I am in the process of clearing out my freezer more fully so I don’t miss any random strange things. I am in a cold area so will just dump it all into a large tote bin on a cold day and sort it outside in the freezing cold. Lol.
I love this! I used to get a product delivery and would panic-blanch and then freeze the veggies, which I could take out for either a specific purpose or do to an Icebox Stew freezer cleanout. I got a chest freezer a few years ago and the game-changer for me was realizing you can use whiteboard marker on the lid (if it’s not a pebbled texture). So now I have the freezer inventory right on the lid and it’s magnificent. I have a little cup-thing that I stuck on the side of the freezer where I keep a marker and then a rag for erasing.
I put a coloured sticker dot on my food. The colour of the dot changes every 6 weeks or so. December January is a red dot. This makes it easier for me to rotate stock without trying to see the date.
White label for anything I need to label myself
Regularly. Most of the time I forget about buying masking tape and just shove containers in the freezer “oh I’ll remember what they are” (Spoiler alert: by the time I get around to using them, I might remember what they *might* be, or I might have no idea). Then I end up thawing a bunch of containers at once and eating whatever’s in them all week.
Ate a 9 year old ham with some great northern beans and onions. Pretty sure there is another one down there. I might get to it in the next 3-4 years.