Help with freezer organisation

[TheFridayFeeling]

How do you all organise your freezers please?
Do you put items for particular meals together? Put stuff anywhere/wherever it fits? Date order?
I have 2 tall standing freezers so it’s not a space issue! (14 drawers/7 drawers in each) and I started out all organised like;
Drawer1: bread products-bagels/crumpets etc.
Drawer2: potato products-chips
Drawer3: meat- bacon, beef, chicken etc
Drawer 4: fish products
Drawer5: vegetables
etc. etc.
BUT it just doesn’t work and I still seem to play Tetris every week with it
What is the best way to keep on top of it and organise things in there?
I even tried labelling each drawer but things change so often it became very time consuming. I also tried using large clear freezer bags (decanting lots of smaller bags of same thing into 1 big bag) also tried containers but they seem to take up so much more room when it’s drawers
I really need to get on top of it as apart from my dried goods and a tall fridge it pretty much holds all our food so there’s got to be a better way I can do this rather than the pain in the backside it’s become?

I don't tend to use my freezer in all honesty. I just have 3 draws. Meats all in one. Chips in another and veg/lollies in the other.

my mums freezer was a tall one. so I arranged it as meat and fish at the bottom/back of the freezer so better chance to survive any accidents. veg towards front. I would also half the stuff so you have half your fish in one freezer and half in another in case you get a husband leaving the freezer door open.

I will be the owner of two freezers soon and still have only six drawers (undercounter and fridge freezer bottom half. ) (ok I own two freezers now but one is off waiting to be fpacked up and brought downstairs)

Ah good point @BlackeyedSusan I didn’t think of splitting it but wondering if that’ll make it harder?
Although definitely not worried about DH or DS going in there as they actively avoid anything food related and have never touched them yet
Thought it would make my life much easier working FT too, not having to go out shopping every week and just having 3-6 months worth in and we have access to generators so the freezer thing seemed the best solution as I haven’t got much storage space in my kitchen at all
I’ve only just experimented with bulk freezing milk, butter and cheese, why did I not know this before 😬

@MasksGlovesSoapScrubs - where do you keep all your supplies and what do you do about meat/fish/veg/potato/fruit etc.?

[quote TheFridayFeeling]@MasksGlovesSoapScrubs - where do you keep all your supplies and what do you do about meat/fish/veg/potato/fruit etc.?[/quote]
I mainly buy fresh meat/fish etc. So that isn't an issue. Don't usually eat chips so if we do I just make them myself.

I got a second small freezer in lockdown as fresh stuff wouldn't last between deliveries. I try to have one that we eat from and inethat we "shop" from, so when peas get opened I move to the main freezer and get a replacement for the second freezer. Doesn't work when they too full though! I don't have all of one type of thig in just one freezer in case one breaks. Would rather lose half of reach type of thing than all of one and none of another. Both have 3 draws, so roughly veg and breads; meat and meals; lollies, puddings and fruit.

If it's nit working you've got too much in them!

@DennisTMenace
That’s sounds a great way to do it, I’m off to copy 😂

@AriettyHomily I thought you were supposed to keep them really full, as in they’re more efficient

Bottom drawer - veg and some bags of leftover cooked meat to use in Chinese stir fries etc

2nd drawer - raw meat and fish

Bottom shelf - boxes stacked - fish fingers, snack stuff etc - already boxed from supermarket

Next shelf up - Spillover takeaway containers, icecream, 6 round ceramic containers with individual portions of shepherd's pie/lasagna/fruit crumble, bag of oven chips, bag of meatballs, DD's ice pack for should injury (frequent usage)

Next shelf - Individual portions of meals or leftovers in plastic takeaway containers washed and reused (great for portion control and to stack) - I can fit 24 of those and a smaller square container stacked 4 high on that shelf.

Top shelf - small containers of sauces, herbs etc; plastic bottles (mostly 250ml and 500 ml cream containers and 1x1 litre milk carton) of sauces and stocks; half a pack of bagels.

Bottom shelf on door - pastry, cookie dough, 2 leftover scones, bag of crumble mix

Middle door shelf - bags of herbs from garden, sliced lemons and limes, frozen breadcrumbs

Top shelf on door - frozen fruit (some bagged from shop, some pulped and frozen in icecube trays then bagged at home), individual icecreams

I have the smaller one in my kitchen as my "in-use" and the larger one in the utility as my "storecupboard"

So in the "in-use" keep 1-2 weeks of food (depends on freezer/family size!) e.g, toast bread, frozen peas, frozen chips, fish fingers, ice lollies, 3 meals chicken thighs, 1 meal sausages, 1 meal mince etc etc. I would sort that one by type.

Rest in the storecupboard one. That one I'd very roughly order by date added rather than type. i.e. Stick masking tape label "OCt 20" on outside of freezer draw. Fill it up. When you start the second draw, label it "Dec 20" or whatever. Try to use from oldest draw first.

You could bring the items across from your store freezer when you do your weekly meal plan, or just replace stuff as you use it up . Tweak frequency of buying if you're always running out of mince but have an old draw full of pork steaks.

Thanks @BiddyPop - you can fit 28 meals on one shelf?? I’m doing something wrong then!
What containers are they please?

I use takeaway containers, washed out and reused. So each holds a single portion, they are the same size and stack well. They are just under twice as long as they are wide. So I can put 3 separate stacks lengthways (from the back to the front), but the widthways stack to fill the rest of the space on the back comes too far forward to fit another in front of it, so that's why I have smaller snack/lunch sized ones.

So it's not that I have 28 meals for the family, I have 28 portions of combinations of different sauces and some cooked rice and a few of those are smaller lunch or snack sized ones.

So it's more like I have roughly 7 family meals if it is properly stocked. But mostly it's quite mixed up stuff, and only 1 portion of anything at the moment, so I need to restock properly. But it's handy to deal with changing numbers (DD decides to stay late at school, DH has a late meeting, or someone extra turns up that we didn't expect). It allows me to freeze just a single leftover portion of a dinner when we've all eaten more than expected in a large pot of spag bol or whatever. And if I have 3 different curries, I can take out a single portion of each and put them all in the middle for sharing with fresh cooked rice.

Thanks @chromis and @BiddyPop great help and given me more to think about
I’m definitely going to try one as extras/store and one that is ‘in use’ as that will half my time straight away (having to open both freezers if I wanted for example chips and chicken)

Also love the 3 x curry idea @BiddyPop!

Top shelf - ice cream / cakes
1/2 drawer ice, other 1/2 draw fruit
1st drawer - bread type stuff
2nd drawer - meat
3rd drawer - veg
4th drawer - leftovers
5th drawer - fish

One drawer for vegetables - mainly peas & sweetcorn; a few cooked side dishes like red cabbage, cauliflower cheese etc
One for fruit - apples, gooseberries and blackberries from the garden, cherries & mango slices from the shop
One for fish & chicken - including individually packaged salmon and cod/haddock/other white fish fillets and chicken breasts
One for soup cartons, milk and a bit of cheese
One for homemade meals, sauces in Tupperware, chilli, curry etc
One for ice cream and ice lollies (but I might run this down now)
Main freezer has one of everything in use, plus “meals for one” like small boxes of bolognese, a couple of sausages, pizza etc to grab after school/work and a few lunch things like falafels and spring rolls. And vodka.

I have

in my kitchen freezer:
one small drawer for kids’ stuff - meatballs, fish fingers, lollies etc
one small drawer small items - butter, frozen herbs and spices etc
one large drawer for everything else that’s either large or frequent use - bread, frozen veg, frozen onions, spare milk, ice cream

Then in the small freezer in the utility I have
one drawer for meat and fish
one for batch cooked stuff (in takeaway containers so they stack well)
one for bread, bagels, stuffed pasta and misc

The idea is that the kitchen freezer is for things I may need to grab last minute whereas the utility freezer is for stuff I will take out to defrost in advance. (Although sometimes I do forget that stuff exists...)

@AliceLutherNeeMorgan you have vodka in your freezer 😲 never heard of that before?
Agree with the ice cream drawer, I’ve started to run it down as summer is well and truly behind us 😢