I'm on an organizational journey, literally... it's going to take me some time to get it all done. There are all kinds of reasons to organize, to save time, to save money, to find things so you do not end up buying multiples, reduce stress when making meals and grocery lists just to mention a few. Join me on the journey, I'll be sharing some tips and some cute labels too that you can make yourself if you have a Cricut or other Vinyl cutting machine! Today I'm organizing my freezer space at home and later I'll do the same to our RV. This storage hack will definitely save me money, time and be less stressful when I'm making meals for my family!
To save money we've switched to buying meat in bulk, but finding it in the freezer has been a nightmare. I don't want to spend 20 minutes emptying the freezer shelves to find a specific cut of meat for a recipe either, that costs money for electricity keeping the door open too. In our RV it's worse, the refrigerator struggles to keep things at temperature without me opening the door and rummaging through the contents, the longer it's open the harder it has to work to get back to the right temperature. Plus I find I buy multiples of things because I do not know I already have something. That became clearly evident when I went through this process and found extra chicken and beef I did not realize was there! My solution... Organize it so that I can get what I need quickly, be able to make my grocery list with greater speed and save some money by not buying things I do not need. With some plastic bins to hold like items and Cricut White permanent vinyl I will be able to pull out a single bin to get what I need quickly and put it back in the freezer. Bonus! I will also be able to rotate the food easier so nothing ends up with freezer burn becoming inedible because I have not realized it was in the back.
Project time: excluding shopping for bins of course, this took a half hour
Steps & Materials:
Measure your freezer, depth, height and width, be sure to look out for shelving supports which usually stick out a bit affecting your width measurement.
Decide on how you want to organize the space! Here are two options to get you thinking:
Bins can hold like items: chicken, beef, veggies, etc.
Bins can hold one week of items, label each bin as Week 1, Week 2, etc.
Get some Bins: most any plastic bin that fits your size freezer should work, if you don't already have some to repurpose you can find them at the Dollar Stores, Walmart, Amazon, etc. Here is a link to the one's I purchased on Amazon if you want those, they are stackable which I like and have cut out handles so they won't take up space in the freezer.
Get some permanent vinyl in a color you know you can easily read, contrasting colors work best, if your bin is white use a dark colored vinyl, if it's clear use white or light gray, etc. The non permanent vinyl will peel off in the refrigerator and freezer but the permanent seems to hold well. Here is a link to the vinyl I used if it helps you.
Other supplies: cutting machine, cutting mat, weeding tool, strong transfer tape, and a scraper.
Design your label or use my design if you have Cricut Access (here is the link to mine): make sure to select fonts that weed easily, I prefer fatter fonts but my eyes are not what they used to be, just be sure it's not a super thin font since it needs to remain adhered while moving it in and out of the freezer. You can even have some fun with them, I merged some cut animal images with the labels so they would be cute with a farmhouse decor look. I did not place a bin on every shelf either, we often buy larger longer items so I have one shelf for those. And I have one drawer so I put one type of food in that one. I just slide my excess items on the side of the bin which I will use up first now that I know what I have.
Note: Before adding your labels double check that your bins will fit as you want. Then design/cut out the labels, weed out the material you are not transferring, and transfer the labels to the bins. Now you're ready to sort your freezer and putting items in the bins, if they have dates be sure to put older items in the front.
Staying organized is so much easier once you have a system you can work with, which is really the most important part of being organized, it must fit your needs, not anyone else. I hope this Freezer Organizer helps you out, or gives you ideas on things you can do to reduce your stress about meal preparation, saves you some money over time and if you are in an RV it may help to keep things colder!
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