Many families who stockpile have a place in their home where they can shelve and organize non-perishable foods. They also tend to have at least one chest freezer that they store frozen food in. Try these tips to help keep your chest freezer nice and organized.

Clear it Off
Unlike the freezer that is at the top of your refrigerator, a chest freezer is horizontal. Shut the door, and you end up with a flat space. It isn’t uncommon for people to try and use that space for storage. This is a terrible idea!

Before you can use the food you stored in the chest freezer, you have to take the time to clear it off. This extra work might be all its takes for someone to decide to order pizza and forget about cooking. Doing so causes you to spend money on food instead of using the food that you already paid for.

Use Plastic Bins
The Glowing Gazelles blog has an excellent tip for keeping a chest freezer organized. Use some plastic bins to keep everything separate and organized. Keep only one kind of food in each bin. For example, put beef in one bin, pork in another, and chicken in a third.

Once you start this organizational system is it important to stick to it. An organized freezer, with a separate bin for everything, makes it very easy for you to find the food you are planning to cook for dinner. It also makes it easy to move things around. Just take out a bin – and you can easily reach the one underneath it.

Label Everything
One of the biggest problems people face when they start storing a lot of food in a chest freezer is one of identification. What’s in that container, package, or sealable plastic bag? How long has it been in there?

A blog called The Kitchn points out the importance of labeling each and every thing that you store in your chest freezer. Use a marker to write on the container, package, or bag some important details about the food inside. What is the food? When was it frozen? Doing so will save you time later on when you start planning meals.

First In – First Out
Grocery stores have a practice called “first in – first out”. They line up products in the freezers, based on the date it will expire. Things that are going to expire the soonest go in front so they can be used up before they go bad.

Families who use a chest freezer to store lots of frozen food should use the same practice. It will help you prevent waste. If you have to throw away food because it went bad, it means you are wasting money.

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