How do you keep track of what's in your freezer?

[WannabeMathematician]

Do you remember? Have paper taped to the front? A white board? Have the joy of lucky dip every time you open the door?

I need help with our chest freezer.

I have the items in my freezer on a shared (with my husband) to-do list on my phone. The due dates are the item expiration dates and I set a default reminder for a couple of weeks before. (Yes, I know expiration dates are just a guideline, but it still helps to keep on top of things to have things dated)

I don’t do this for the front of the freezer items like the frozen fruit and veggies dd uses in her smoothies. Those cycle fast enough that they are not an issue.

I'm a list freak, I keep a running inventory as a note on my phone and update and delete items as I use them up or put new stuff in, so I always know what's in there. My lists are divided into mains, lunches and desserts

I have a chest freezer in the garage and an upright in kitchen.
The chest freezer is divided into three. One is fruit and veg. It's currently full as I grow my own.
Centre is meals, pizza and bread- home made or ready meals
The other side is raw meat and fish. Plus ice cream.
So I can see fairly well what's in there even if it's full.

I have used the carrier bag system but it makes it even harder to see what's there.
Tall chest freezer I just label the shelves bread, vegetarian meals, meat meals, veg, and a drawer of random bits. Half a tin of black beans, frozen herbs, chillis etc.

Thick pair of thermal gloves and a bloody good rummage. 🤦‍♀️
I did try keeping a list but forgot to keep updating in.
I do have a bit of a stock rotation sort out every couple of weeks.

Definitely a lucky dip. I found a tiny portion of home made baby food the other day. It has been in there at least three years...

I have a spreadsheet of joy.

I have been know to sit in our shed over the winter doing a freezer inventory. My family all laugh at me but I feed four of us healthily for less that £90 a week.

I don’t have a chest freezer but roughly once a month/few months we eat only from the freezer (with a few additions of course) for a week so that things don’t get forgotten about.

We have a small chest freezer in the shed and I batch cook. I box everything up in stackable plastic cartons and I have created a table which I just tick things off and we use them. I have another under-counter freezer in the kitchen which has veg, chicken breasts, fish etc and its fairly easy to see everything just sliding out the drawers.

I use an app Any List with categories. Freezer has basket sections of meat/fish/veg/left overs etc. I can add/remove items using Alexa. Mostly works!

I have read some of the posts above and stopped because it’s making me feel very inadequate. People with strict marking up rules, actual ‘systems’ in place and eating game rather than the remains of some curry from months ago…

OP I fall very much into the ‘lucky dip’ category but I can share a top tip from my friend. When she wants to have a freezer clear out she takes everything out, cooks / heats it up as necessary and presents it as a special ‘buffet’ to her kids. It’s like a treat for them and always well received. Worth a try maybe?

We have 3 chest freezers as we had a raw fed dog and I got fed up of her food getting mixed up with ours. I made partitions for each base out of left over laminate flooring or heavy duty cardboard so everything is divided on the base and strong bags are placed on top. I also keep note of what goes in and cross off what goes out on lists stuck on each freezer.

Whiteboard in kitchen where all to do jobs are as well, just wipe it off when I remove something.

We use a paper list

I have meat, fish , chicken , veg etc all in their own drawers

Easy.

Once a year, usually mid December I panic that I won't have any space in it for Christmas, so I take everything out, spend ages wondering what's that bit of brown sludge that's lurking in a freezer bag, and what's that slab of something else, lovingly shoved in a Tupperware container. I then decide that they will have to be eaten anyway, because I hate waste, and proceed to defrost everything that's not quite identifiable. As a result we spend the next week carefully avoiding what turns out to be lentil shepherds pie and Chinese braising sauce and after a week, and a weird Ukrainian Cheesecake, until, full of remorse, we do throw out the lot. Meanwhile there is no space in the freezer because some sad bought two tubs of ice cream, so those need eating before Christmas.

I use keep notes on my phone, as it goes in item and number of portions gets added to list, as I allocate on my weekly meal plan I adjust remaining portions/tick off the list. It's a pain to do the initial list of what you have, but so much easier and stops me buying duplicates or forgetting about things hidden in the bottom of a drawer as I try to run the list down fully every so often.

I have never been great at freezer management, tbh.

Usually the freezer has been used as storage for stuff I don't want to throw out before I give up some months later and throw it out anyway.

In tried a whiteboard thing and that did work. But now I have a standard two nights a week 'freezer surprise' meal and the act of rummaging around means that I now have a mental idea of what is what and keep on top of it that way.

Mind you I have no idea what happened to the pork chops I am SURE I put in a few weeks ago....

I got rid of my chest freezer for an upright with nice label-able drawers, honestly.

Before that, I relied on the fact that I live/work abroad, so visit the UK for a few weeks twice a year.

In the month before travelling, I do a daily freezer dive & pull out dinner. The only shopping done is for necessities to go with, eg. pasta to use up bolognese, rice to put with a curry made from all the frozen veg.

This is necessary because we live in a country where power cuts are a big thing, so it's good to completely empty & switch off the freezer before buggering off for 3 weeks!

Added advantage that the grocery savings get spent in Duty Free .

I laminated an A4 sheet, and stuck it on the side using magnets. Works like a white board. Two columns, one for meals (with how many portions) and one for ingredients.

I've tried organising it, and doing categories and sub categories, but it's not a big freezer and it's often full. Sometimes I need to move things around to fit. And sometimes DP will put stuff in a different place. Then I can't see everything, so then I forget it's there.

List on the side of the fridge-freezer, meal planner on the front, shopping list note pad with the shopping bags on the top. Easy to keep on top of.

Chest freezer is out in the garage, so not easy to root around in; I keep a notebook in the kitchen with a list of contents.
As a PP has said, it needs to be kept up to date.

Thanks to this thread I have just ordered a bunch of freezer trays and organisers. :)

I have 6 drawers :

1. gluten free stuff
2. Non gf chips / potato products / onion rings etc
3. ice cream / ice lollies / ice trays
4. fish fingers / burgers / kievs type things
5. salmon , haddock , mince ( stuff that needs defrosting )
6. frozen veg . all very organised .

Load shedding? 😁