Deep Freeze – Freezing Sale Items To Help Stretch Your Grocery Dollars

freezer-packed-countertopNow that I’m trying to limit my family’s Grocery spending to $450 a month, I’m looking for ways to get the most for my money.  I’ve already mentioned a few ways I’m doing this in a couple of previous posts (here & here).

But earlier today I realized that I had another tool at my disposal that I probably haven’t been using effectively enough.

Our Deep Freeze!

At lunch time today my daughter informed us that she wanted burritos.  My wife looked in the fridge and said we were out.  But that triggered my memory of buying  a bunch of burrito packs when they were on sale a month ago.  Sure enough we had a couple of more packages ready to go. In no time at all my kids were eating burritos (well one was the other one was feeding it to the dog).

This got me wondering, what else is in there?  I knew it was full of Hot Pockets (whenever my store puts them on sale for less than $2, I stock up.) And just last week, my in-laws gave some some free mystery meat (I’m never sure what they are handing out).

But when I took a deeper look I found many forgotten treasures.

  1. Tator Tots – These must have been on sale a while ago, because I have 3 bags of them.   This is good because they are one of our favorite side dishes.
  2. Broccoli – There was a time when my daughter ate broccoli like it was going out of style.  I must have stocked, because now she won’t touch it.  It’s still a popular side.
  3. Roasts (mostly pork) –  I’m just guessing but I think these came from my Mother-in-law.  As mentioned above she frequently gives us random frozen meat.
  4. Random stuff – There’s a boxed lasagna, ice cream, desserts, corn, apple sauce,  chicken breasts, and breast milk.

After surveying our new found booty, the Mrs & I have decided that we’re going to try to mine at least two meals a week out of the freezer.  So before sitting down to type this I cut up some potatoes, carrots, and onions, and combined them all together in our crock-pot.

Hopefully it will taste as good as it smells.

After a few weeks we should be ready to fill ‘er up once again.  Hopefully this time we’ll remember to keep better track of what’s in there and plan our meals accordingly.

For example this upcoming week we’ll have:

  • Monday – Tator Tot Hot Dish
  • Tuesday – Chicken & broccoli
  • Wednesday – Lasagna with some sort of Breast Milk dessert

On second thought maybe we’ll just have a nice side salad.

Now that you know how I use my freezer, how about you share some of your favorite itms to stock up on?

Until next time,

-DD

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