How do you keep your freezer organized?

[Iansmommy]

I have a heck of a time keeping my freezers organized. I have a chest freezer in the garage and by the time everyone is done rifling through it things are all over the place.

The same thing happens with my fridge freezer. Things just get shoved in and it never stays organized.

Whats everyones secret?

[geckoace]

i only have a tradition on-tp fridge freezer i put the shelf up as high as it can go and i keep ice tratys of ice and baby food and glass containers of baby food and bread and frzn waffles for DS

in the bottom i keep to wide plastic dollar store baskets in one i keep meat stading up to save space and the other non meat based dishes it keeps every thing from falling all over the place then i take the whole basket out when i come from grocery shopping and move the older stuff to the front

[LexTysMommy]

I have side by side freezer/fridge. Top shelf is bagged veggies. second shelf is frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets, fishsticks ( the quick easy dinner ), third shelf is leftovers. bottom container holds meat, shrimp, sausage, etc. on the door holds the icepacks, frozen girlscout cookies and opened bags that need to be used.

[justpeachy92]

My chest freezer has 2 baskets up top, in those I keep things that come in tubes like ground beef/turkey and sausage in one and the other basket is popcycles and frozen juice. There is one wire divider in the bottom, on one side my dh keeps his frozen water during the summer. He works outside so will take a couple gallons of frozen water with him so he has a cold drink as they melt. The other side I stack up meat keeping it divided the best I can by the type of meat it is. The freezer above the fridge is ice, frozen vegis, ice cream when we have it, bread and cheese. The shelves on the door have butter, cream cheese, and small containers of frozen leftovers.

[cab54]

You're s'pose to organize those??

I have a chest fr. in the garage also, and was out there last night rummaging (rifling) around, finding stuff to bring into the house freezer.

So, when I read your post, I sprayed coffee all over my keyboard.

Some of you guys are SOOOOO organized.

[Ceashels]

I use plastic bins as well. meats go in one, veggies in another. My stock gets stored in the upright freezer.

I will be relocating all veggies to the kitchen freezer as we tend not to make the trip to the basement for veggies... . That will change i hope.

[mommy4ever]

Hmmm..

I have a fridge freezer, small chest freezer, and an upright! ROFL.

Organized? Hmmm...not a chance!

The fridge freezer is left overs and what ever opened package of veggies, fries, etc that I"m using. Love the basket idea! Will have to try that.

The upright is meat and some of my garden rewards. it's only about 1/3 full. But totally disorganized. I also have baked goods in there, supply is low right now. Want to empty it so I can do a good defrost and sanitize it.

The chest freezer is apples and corn. Yup the WHOLE THING IS STUFFED FULL! of apples and corn...lol. I am working at using that up..lol. I'd like to unplug it until I can convince dh to go hunting and bring me home some deer meat...yummm.

[madhen]

You're s'pose to organize those??

I have a chest fr. in the garage also, and was out there last night rummaging (rifling) around, finding stuff to bring into the house freezer.

So, when I read your post, I sprayed coffee all over my keyboard.

Some of you guys are SOOOOO organized.

I have to admit, I thought the same thing.

Part of the fun of my freezer is digging around for something you remember putting in there and finding something you didn't realize you had! Wow, I didn't know I still had a bag of blueberries in there! Or, wow, I guess I DIDN'T eat the last leftover pizza. It's like a mini-Christmas every time I visit the fridge.

[CRS]

Egads, I wish I could figure it out. We have the normal top of the fridge freezer (crammed with in-use packages), a smaller chest freezer (crammed with sausage, veggies, and who knows what else), and a ginormous chest freezer (crammed with a couple of hogs, a deer, a steer, and other assorted forgotten things). I can never find what I'm looking for without much digging and cussing.

[dcompton]

What I aspire to is fridge freezer - frozen veggies, leftovers, opened packages. Very disorganized. Stuff it where it fits.

Upright - top two shelves chicken, third shelf pork, bottom beef.

Aspire to. What I actually have depends a lot on the sales. But my upright is only 7 cubic feet, so it's not hard to keep it pretty organized. Still, there are some surprises.

When I had a chest type, it was always Freezer Jungle. Never knew what was hiding down there in the frost. Sometimes when I found out it was scary.

[zakity]

I have two fridges (with freezers), an upright freezer, and a small chest freezer.

The fridge freezer in the house is a side-by-side. I store my flour, sugar, and all that stuff in there. It is supposed to be on one shelf, but it needs reorganized. One shelf is for things we will use this week for meals, one shelf is supposed to be for quickie meals, one self is supposed to be baking supplies. The door is open veggies, blue ice thingys, and butter that belongs in the house.

The garage fridge freezer is a over/under with the freezer on top. This is our bread freezer. All frozen bread products (bread, bagels, english muffins, etc). That is the only thing that belongs in there besides my good PMS chocolate. I keep it frozen so that it lasts longer.

The upright is organized by shelf. The top shelf is ice cream, overflow (if there is any) from the bread freezer, frozen milk, and it is overflow from the other shelves if any are too full. Next shelf is my "storage" shelf. All the cheese, the hashbrowns, meat that is packaged up for meals, etc goes on that shelf. The next shelf down is fruit and overflow from the self above. The bottom shelf is our "meat" shelf. Under the bottom shelf is a drawer. All our frozen veggies go in that drawer. The top shelf is our blue ice shelf. It also holds the overflow of ice cream. The next one down is overflow sticks of butter and hotdogs. The next one down is our "treat" shelf. It holds the one or two that is left out of a box and homemade popsicles. Well, only during the summer. The next shelf down is meat "tubes" and frozen juice. The bottom two shelves are sticks of butter.

The chest freezer has fruit and a partial gallon of milk in it right now. I am planning on putting a ton of applesauce in there and the grapes when they are ripe. When it get cold, the grapes will be turned into jam and the applesauce will get eaten and the freezer will be unplugged until we need it again.

When I had a huge chest freezer, I would put all the meat on the bottom like turkeys, hams, roasts, etc. It had metal "dividers" in it. I don't know if they came with it or not, but they were there when we moved in. Depending on the size of your freezer, you might be able to use like old baby gates or something. Boxes or even pieces of cardboard might work, but it also might interfere with airflow. I use the meat to raise stuff up so that the other stuff was high enough to reach. I tried to keep the meat seperated in the sections. Turkeys/chicken went under the veggies, roasts when under hasbrowns and quickie meals, etc. There was little to no digging because if I wanted a roast it was under the hashbrowns. I took the stuff out, grabbed the roast, and put the stuff back in it's section.

[BlessedMomof2]

We have a chest freezer. The basket on top has our lunch meats, cheeses, sausages or any other small sized packages. There is a "step" under the basket that I keep my freezer jam and any other items that can stack nicely. Then on the main side I keep all the other freezer items. I sort them out into the plastic grocery bags (example... frozen vegetables in one bag, chicken in another, beef in another, pig in another, fruits in another and so on and so forth) I don't really have it "organized" but this is the way I find easiest for us to be able to find the items we are needing.

[Laurie in Bradenton]

Okay so I'm one of those over organizers. I need a support group.
Over my chest deep freezer is a corkboard rescued from a trash pile.
In middle of said board is a 8 x 11 sheet of paper in red states STAY OUT OF FREEZER MOM. This helps!
Then all my freezer hints are hung on board.
On back of garage/house entry door which s next to freezer is my list of items in freezer. I coated the door with chalk board paint a quart was $7.00.
List looks like this:
Bottom 4 ice cream buckets of orange and lemon slices
Back left corner 1 bucket whole strawberries.
Front right corner 2 1 gallon jugs grapfefruit juice
Front left corner ziplock bags of ham boes and slices
Upper shelf back corner 3 ziplocks Hamburger 5# ach
Wire basket
6 packages hot dogs
3 packags bacon
2 ham slices
Top right corner 1 bucket assorted nuts

When I take out of add something it gets removed or added to the list.
All icecream buckets get marked on the top in black nonremvoable marker which hangs by string from hole punched in corkboard. Removing MOM's marker is punishable by slow death or defrost duty.
Defrost duty is helping mom unload, clean and reload freezer. Most choose slow death.
I try to rotate items out of freezer to house freezer where weeks meals re prepared from. As I plan the weekly meals I move needed items to house freezer. Which means a gaint bag of green beans may go to the house freezer and take 2 weeks to get finished off.
If I find I've got several bags of veggies with a cup of this or a 1/2 a cup of that I'll make veggie soup for DH and I to eat for lunch for few days.

Laurie in Bradenton

[nvmommyx6]

Our kitchen fridge is a side by side, I keep the most used items, ice cubes and the frozen home made waffles, breakfast sammiches and pancakes in that one!

The other fridge in my laundry room regular fridge/freezer on top, that is stacked with home made breads on one half, and frozen veggies on the other half

The 3rd is a full stand up freezer, beef on the top shelf, fowl on the 2nd shelf, pork on the third shelf and goat on the forth shelf!

The door shelves in all of these are a different jerry springer show all together!!! The door shelves I cannot keep organized because the most used stuff is on those for the kids breakfasts, juices and after school snack!!