That’s £58.33 a month to spend on other essentials around the house…and it won’t cost you anything to make the saving.
According to the iFreeze, iSave initiative Brits waste hundreds of pounds wasting food every year, when it could be put into the freezer. Instead, we’re storing the strangest things in the freezer instead – do any of these items have a home in your freezer?
- Clothes (4%)
- Money (3%)
- Medicine (3%)
- Make-up (2%)
- Remote control (1%)
- Wallet/purse (1%)
- Credit card (1%)
- House keys (1%)
It seems that anyone who’s younger than 55 years of age is not as freezer savvy as they should be. One in five women, for example, think that food can only be frozen for a couple of weeks, then have to be thrown away.
Geography and freezing
Where we live plays a crucial part in our freezer behaviour, too. Londoners are the most wasteful, admitting that the main reason they throw food out of the freezer is because they can’t remember how long it has been there. Northern Irelanders are the most likely (100%) to have a freezer, and the Welsh are less freezer savvy – one-fifth keep clothes in their freezers.
What we can and should be freezing
The following lists food that Brits didn’t know they could freeze:
- Eggs
- Herbs
- Fruit
- Sauces
- Cake
- Milk
- Cooked meat
- Water
- Vegetables
Six top tips for freezing
- Keep portion sizes small – when freezing food, do so in realistic portions so that you can take out exactly what you need, without having to defrost a whole bag. For example, when buying a pack of frozen chicken breasts, freeze the chicken breasts in individual freezer bags so you can just cook just the one when you need to.
- Frozen veg is healthy – if you’re struggling to keep fresh vegetables from going off, buy frozen veg, or freeze your fresh veg in portions.
- Bananas and berries – Over-ripe bananas are not the most attractive to eat, but if you pop them into a bag in the freezer, you can use them for smoothies straight from the freezer or use a batch to bake banana bread. Buy berries cheap (when they have been reduced in store because they’re going past their use-by date and freeze them in small portions then use them to make smoothies or to sprinkle on yogurt or ice-cream.
- Bread keeps brilliantly in the freezer, and will last a lot longer in the warmer months than storing in the bread bin. If toast is on the menu for breakfast in the morning, just pop it out before bed, and it will thaw and be ready to toast by morning. If you have a fancy toaster, you can actually toast it from frozen.
- Cooked meat – no more worrying about wasting the last of a a good roast; pop it in the freezer and bring it out again when you’re ready to eat it, or use it for another dish.
- As you can see, storing food in the freezer is a great way to make your food (and money) go a long way. Can you afford not to?
