Moving house guide: emptying the freezer

So on the theme of decrapification, ahem, maybe just instead making sure we don't throw lots out when we move, I want to empty our freezer.

Now we have a lot in our freezer. This whole move sort of happened accidentally. Now don't let me kid you, we will have had 3 months from deciding to buy a house to house move day, which realistically is plenty of time. But I hoard, and this includes food!

Our big chest freezer (a wonderful thing to allow you buy in bulk, prepare ahead, and save money by buying items reduced to clear) is FULL. I mean like properly seriously FULL. And of course, being little Miss Frugal, the thought of throwing any of that away makes me weak at the knees. It would be criminal.

So we are purging the freezer! This should happen once a year anyway, we are just 5 months late! The whole point in having such a large freezer was to save us money, but I am not sure we use stuff out of it as often as we put stuff in! Silly silly us! So here is my method for using it all  up!

1. Take an inventory. Yes, I know we should totally have one of these already, but we do now! Better still, Mr PTC helped me and it only took 10 minutes. I had a pre-printed sheet with many of the items listed, then space for items I had missed. Its all pretty coloured, and of course matches my 2013 Planner, and you can download you very own freezer inventory here.

2. Get a list of recipes. I went through my recipe binders pulling out recipes, writing them by category. So for example, I have several whole chickens so I had a category for 'chicken' meals.

3. Meal plan the coming weeks. Of course, you are all doing this already right? Yes, so am I {cough cough}. This new meal plan is going to be aimed at using all that freezer food up! So use that recipe list and the contents list, and have a tick sheet to say you have designated that item for that meal on your inventory. Make sure you include items that can be cooked in advance as freezer meals. So for example I have lots of minced beef which I will turn into chilli con carne, and freeze in single-person portions, as I know we will need ready meals in the run up to the move.

4. Cook eat and be merry. Now there is a clear meal plan there is of course no excuse not to empty the freezer!

So there you have it! The same could be applied to a really full larder/pantry. I don't have that problem, well except possibly for baking ingredients - but that would require a lot of cake in the next two months!

Thanks for stopping by,

Rose

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