Investing to save?

[naturalmommy]

My husband and I are talking about investing in an energy efficient upright freezer so we have the space to freeze meals ahead, turkeys when on sale/meats…bread etc….

Now, obviously, in this case we would have to do research on energy efficiency, cost and sales… etc…to see if its worth making this investment and we would pay outright for it instead of dropping a Credit card on it. (unless we are going to pay the whole balance off in the same month)

My question is this: for those of you who have spent money to buy something like that to in the long run “save money”- has it paid off for you? If so, How?

Our refrigerator freezer just isnt enough to hold the breads we like to buy from the outlet stores, the meats we like to get on sale (especially when Turkeys are .49cents a pound or less!)

We are talking about also getting a vacuum sealer…so we can do fruits and meats so they last longer in the deep freeze.

[wilbe95]

You are talking about a great investment for both items. The vacuum sealer will keep the food better and take up less space than storage containers. Plus you can package smaller items for lunches to freezer and that will save lots of money down the road. A freezer is very handy for when you do come across sale items and also to be able to purchase the larger amounts of meat then package into the sizes that you would use.

[naturalmommy]

@wilbe95 105511 wrote:

You are talking about a great investment for both items. The vacuum sealer will keep the food better and take up less space than storage containers. Plus you can package smaller items for lunches to freezer and that will save lots of money down the road. A freezer is very handy for when you do come across sale items and also to be able to purchase the larger amounts of meat then package into the sizes that you would use.

thanks for the words of encouragement. Im really glad to hear that its a great investment, and not just a high ticket item that we would be overspending on at the incorrect time.

We were torn at first because of the fact that the money spent on that, could potentially pay off something else… but I figured in order to save MORE money…. we need to do something else because our freezer limits stuff we can stock up on. I can only stock up on one or two items, and dont even ask about trying to store a turkey for more than a week. LOL

thanks again for your imput. it was much appreciated.

[mcnerd]

I did the same thing awhile back. Got rid of an extra fridge/freezer in the garage and bought a chest freezer. Bonus, electric bill dropped in half because the freezer was better on energy savings than the old frig.

I’ve always had/used a Food Saver and now I’m able to take advantage of sales because of the freezer space and the FoodSaver allows food to be frozen and storage MUCH longer than normal without worry of freezer burn.

[naturalmommy]

@mcnerd 105522 wrote:

I did the same thing awhile back. Got rid of an extra fridge/freezer in the garage and bought a chest freezer. Bonus, electric bill dropped in half because the freezer was better on energy savings than the old frig.

I’ve always had/used a Food Saver and now I’m able to take advantage of sales because of the freezer space and the FoodSaver allows food to be frozen and storage MUCH longer than normal without worry of freezer burn.

A friend of ours across the street was moving and gave us a fridge. We put it in our garage and it cost us a fortune. 1- it was old so it was not energy efficient. 2- we get 100+ degree temps 6-9 months out of the year, so in order for it to keep the food cool… it cost us a fortune in energy bills.

In jan 08, we had the salvation army come get it and that was the best decision we made. Our bills dropped BUT we missed the space we were able to use for those meats/breads… etc we were buying.

im going to look into the Freezer this week and get an idea of what we want to spend… and look into a food saver as well.

thank you,Mcnerd for your input as well. :109:

[HSLINKS]

I think buying certain items with CASH make sense.

BACKGROUND: When I got pregnant with Jake I had money saved for a Harley. This is a while ago but still it was a hunk of cash. We had 2 teens and 2 littles and Jake made 3 littles – riding motorcycle with 3 littles is impossible unless you have a side car (which cost almost as much as a bike) ..
So I bought a DW, I had the pregnancy ditz and brain was fried so DW took off some of the stress ..
TOOLS – lots of them, love my tools .. Since I invested in tools I can do most repairs etc at the house .. Beats the heck outta paying someone else to do what I can do and generally not as well certainly costs more ..

Ria

[mdowdy]

I am looking for a chest type freezer so this would be good information to have. To answer your question, I don’t see how it could not save you money. The chest types I have looked at run about 200-300 dollars. I am thinking it would pay for itself in about a years time at the most. I can’t tell you the number of sales I have missed because of not having the space. Or the amount of times by time I created the space for more by using up stuff in the freezer the sale had expired and I missed stocking up on some items.

[naturalmommy]

@HSLINKS 105565 wrote:

I think buying certain items with CASH make sense.

BACKGROUND: When I got pregnant with Jake I had money saved for a Harley. This is a while ago but still it was a hunk of cash. We had 2 teens and 2 littles and Jake made 3 littles – riding motorcycle with 3 littles is impossible unless you have a side car (which cost almost as much as a bike) ..
So I bought a DW, I had the pregnancy ditz and brain was fried so DW took off some of the stress ..
TOOLS – lots of them, love my tools .. Since I invested in tools I can do most repairs etc at the house .. Beats the heck outta paying someone else to do what I can do and generally not as well certainly costs more ..

Ria

I get what your saying… makes sense. You are right on the “money”.

@mdowdy 105578 wrote:

I am looking for a chest type freezer so this would be good information to have. To answer your question, I don’t see how it could not save you money. The chest types I have looked at run about 200-300 dollars. I am thinking it would pay for itself in about a years time at the most. I can’t tell you the number of sales I have missed because of not having the space. Or the amount of times by time I created the space for more by using up stuff in the freezer the sale had expired and I missed stocking up on some items.

My parents had a chest freezer, but you have to defrost it a lot. They are inexpensive… and That was my problem… missing out on sales because I had no where to store it.

Amazing.

thanks the both of you for your replies. :004:

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