Fridge freezer

[RedRobyn2021]

We got ours second hand 6 years ago and now it's not keeping everything cold enough in this heat to keep it fresh

We don't have a great deal of money

An E rating fridge is only £300 which we could afford but I'm worried about spending this and paying out substantially more in electric

Please can I have some guidance? Should I try to make it work with the old one for a bit longer and see if we can come up with more money?

We are having another baby in December so this is going to cost us as well

Have you vacuumed the vents recently? In the last year, we've replaced our ancient (approx 25 YO) fridge freezer but before that it had a couple of 'wobbles' where the temperature wasn't staying low enough and in both cases, a good vacuum of the vents sorted it out and it lived on.

In the end we only replaced it because it was hugely inefficient compared with current models and due to the increase in the cost of electricity, a new one would pay for itself in a couple of years. If it hadn't been for this, I'd have kept going with it as I was curious as to how long 'the fridge that would never die' would actually last.

But do have a look at the different efficiency ratings - they should all have a stated 'kWh per year' and you can use this to calculate the annual running cost and the number of years it would take for a more efficient, more expensive model to work out cheaper.

But assuming vacuuming doesn't work and you do need a new one, could you get interest free credit (either from the retailer, Klarna, or using a 0% credit card) to spread the cost?

@Bjorkdidit we probably could! I just hate owing money - the mortgage is bad enough!

Ok will look into better ratings

I might try with the vacuum thank you, it is really old though I'm not sure how long the guy before us had it but it wasn't really new when we bought it put it that way 😂

Hey, our fridge freezer was 25 years old and still working, just very expensive to run (four times more than the new one we bought!). I'd be surprised if yours was anywhere near as old as that.

Good luck with the vacuum. It was always hot weather when our old one struggled too.

I agree with @Bjorkdidit and to do some maths based on the kWh amount your electricity tarrif costs vs different fridge freezers. You can work out then if the increased cost of a higher rated one will be worth it or not.

I totally understand not wanting to buy on credit and it sounds like you'll make savings on your current fridge freezer anyway (running costs and food not spoiling), which is another way to look at it rather than spending more than you'd like to make greater savings.