I bought an upright freezer

We just got a new to us upright also and I am abnormally excited. I'm sorry your ex us spiteful. I hope you get a great fireplace a d some comfy chairs too.

Enjoy it!
I love having a freezer...because I hate going to the grocery store.
When I was single I purchased a small chest type one so that I could purchase meat on sale.

We have a garden and put lots of vegetables in the freezer.

YES!!! We have two extra freezers, an upright and a chest freezer. It’s really nice to be able to buy stuff when it’s on sale or in season when it’s cheaper and be able to freeze for later. The trick is to have it organized in a way that makes it easy to rotate what you have in there so the oldest stuff gets used up first. I saw a really cool upright freezer at Costco that had drawers instead of shelves. SO smart! It would make it so much easier to get at the stuff at the back with drawers, IMO.

I got an upright a couple years ago. I ordered some fabric bins to use as drawers and corral similar things. So easy and organized compared to a chest freezer. You might know you have something in a chest freezer but if I had to pull everything out I couldn't be bothered.

All uprights are frost free now.

Yay!

If they can fit on your shelves, the Container Store multipurpose bins are fabulous for freezer organization. I recently saw that Target is carrying a similar product. link

I just got an upright freezer last winter and it’s wonderful, even though it’s only the two of us. But maybe because it is just the two of us. I can buy meat at Costco and break it down into smaller portions to freeze. I can make a batch of something and freeze half, I can buy a package of buns, use two, and freeze the rest. I love the freedom.

I have These bins to keep everything organized. I have 4 of the 16x9.2x6.2 bins and have one for meats, one for treats, one for “bag meals” that I’ve frozen in 1 quart bags, and one for miscellaneous items. It definitely makes life easier!

Not at all, really. Modern freezer seal really well, so the frost is at a minimum.

I also keep a piece of strong Gorilla tape on the door of my upright freezer. Years ago, I had something tumble loose and knock the door loose. That was a MESS. So now I just make sure that tape is pulled tight to secure the door. There might even be actual 'door lock/latch' type of things for the freezer. My chest freezer does have a key/lock. My upright does not.

Plug in - I had my electrician install a special outlet for my freezers. Then I put that plug type on my deep freeze. You plug it in to the special receptacle, then twist it. It will not accidentally come out. And someone can't unplug the freezer to use the outlet for something else and forget to plug it back in. You would be surprised how many times I have heard that happening. Then you find a freezer full of rotted food!

I love seeing you move forward with your new and improved life!

I just use a lot of clear plastic bins on the shelves, easy to pull out. One each for chicken, pork, beef, salmon, other fish, turkey, etc. one larger misc bin that holds things like shrimp and larger cuts of meat. New goes to the back (or bottom) of the bins. So whatever is up front or on top is the freshest. 

We keep frozen veggies in one drawer, frozen fruit in the other. 

eta: Have had an issue with freezer burn once, the items were over 2 years old and not vacuum sealed, just in the usual grocery store packaging. 

basket1lady It is also just the two of us and we use it much the same as you. A meal for us is one chicken breast total, so we buy the packages (on sale most of the time) and freeze in single meal portions. We also make many meals (spaghetti, stew, sweet potato tacos, etc) and meat mixtures (burgers, Tex-med meat) in bulk and eat one and freeze the rest in single meal quantities. Works perfectly. Tonight we are making a Tex-max stir fry and all that has to be done is reheat the meat and cook the cabbage, all in one pot. It saves not only prep time, but cooking and clean-up as well. Highly recommend it. 

Yes, we got some little plastic self adhesive freezer/refrigerator child locks for our older garage fridge when I noticed the seal wasn’t holding the door closed very tightly anymore. DH found them at the hardware store and I want to say it wasn’t more than $5-10. Worth very penny.

We had a contractor unplug our big upright freezer several years ago while doing some work in our garage, and then just pushed the freezer back without plugging it back in when he left. The whole thing defrosted and two weeks went by before we figured out what had happened. What a huge, expensive STINKY mess. 🤬 We lost over $1500 worth of frozen food. Thankfully insurance covered some of it and the company that sent out the contractor paid us for the rest but it was still a big inconvenience. Some of what we lost was wild game and you can’t just replace that easily or inexpensively by going to the grocery store or meat market.

We really should get some acrylic fridge bins for our big upright. It would make it so much easier to organize. I bought. Bunch for my studio to hold my thin dies and Stampin Up sets but those wouldn’t be a good size for what we have in our freezer. I’d need bigger/wider bins for that.

Another option would be to have it on a dedicated circuit so nothing else can trip it. I read it so,where (let’s be real, probably here!) so we had that done before we moved in, and when I read horror stories like these I am so glad!