Source: https://www.tmz.com/2026/10/06/andrew-tate-extreme-porn-allegations/
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With apologies to the unfortunate sea creature referenced in court filings re: Andrew Tate, there's a Dean Martin parody which absolutely demands a moment: "That's a Moray [eel]"
Hi fellow frugalites, a few words about inclusiveness. Many of us strike a different balance between savings in terms of money, time, effort, and learning curve. We all have different circumstances, and that's OK.
Take food, for example.
Sometimes a young adult who's working long hours and who didn't get taught how to cook when they were growing up, needs to get their food budget in check. For that individual, frugality may mean shifting from food delivery and fast food to frozen foods from Trader Joe's. Yes, there could be thriftier ways to put together a meal--yet that change is a real savings which fits that individual's short term priorities.
On another extreme, there are people who wake up on a Saturday morning and head to the backyard garden to harvest tomatoes, bell peppers, Welsh onion, and parsley before making a breakfast omelet; and before they head outdoors on a September morning, they check the long range forecast to estimate when to do a fall planting of arugula. That was me today. Of course, am well aware that many people don't have a backyard to raise a garden. And among those who do have the backyard, a lot of people aren't fortunate enough to live in a mild climate where fall vegetable planting is a thing. My solution may not be your solution.
Whether or not winter vegetable gardening is a life option is obvious. Other life options may be less so.
With that in mind, for some people who come to this forum an initial investment in kitchen equipment is worth it because it saves money in the long run. They can afford the initial expense and that lets them DIY something they'd otherwise get retail.
For instance, I have a cast iron grill and a hamburger press. I buy ground beef patties in 10 lb boxes and store them in a deep freezer, so a smash burger costs my family about $1.25 each.
Is that really so different from someone who buys a home cappuccino machine in order to enjoy one of life's little pleasures without paying Starbucks prices?
Opening this discussion because two essentially similar posts this week got wildly different receptions. I feel really bad for the new forum member who wrote this post about DIY pizza half a week after my post about bread machines which also uses DIY pizza as an example. Granted, I don't own a dedicated pizza oven so the upfront cost was less. Yet much of the ridicule the other Redditor got was about using a bread machine to make pizza dough.
There's a real case to be made for a small appliance which makes dough after two minutes of measuring ingredients and pushing a button. Not everyone has time and energy to knead pizza dough by hand. Not everyone is ready to take on that learning curve. Some people enjoy the time delay program which lets them come home from work to fresh warm dough ready to bake. Those might not be your individual priorities, yet that can add up to restaurant quality pizza at far less than restaurant cost, and the right tools can make the change convenient enough to become a weekly routine. Let's respect the people who decide that's the right tradeoff for them.
(edited to fix a link)
Ever thought through the incel narrative that a typical woman university student has 100+ sexual partners before she graduates and all of them are Chad? Or that the incels' narrative about a former 80/20 rule has become a 99%/1% rule?
Let's work this out as a remedial math word problem. How many partners would a college Chad have to have per day to stay on schedule? Round upwards as necessary.
A typical university has a 13 week semester and 2 terms per academic year. That works out to >! 728 days. Chad would have at least 10,000 partners in this time frame. !<
Suppose Chad's bed is busy 7 days a week throughout the term, including finals week and holidays. The dude still needs to copulate with >! at least 13.7 women per day !< to stay on schedule.
Assuming half an hour per shagging (25 minutes plus a quick shower) and a take-a-number machine to streamline the process, that's >! 7 hours of bouncy-bouncy daily !< with no breaks. in addition to sleep, classes, homework, and a work-study job at the library.
So apparently, >! Chad's 'hunter eyes' are caused by dark circles from chronic sleep deprivation. !<
Here's something which can be a way to beat inflation: bread machines. Bought my first one in 1992 when they were the hot new thing. This replacement arrived on Saturday.
If you're curious about this option and want thoughts from an old timer, here goes.
One of these machines can pay for itself pretty quickly when it's used well. For instance, save the cost of a pizzeria. It takes about 20 minutes of hands-on time to prep two doughs, then bake a pizza with garlic sticks. A medium pizza costs my family $5. That's not per person; it's per pizza. A batch of garlic bread costs us less than $1. We freeze what we don't eat the same day.
The markup on baked goods really is substantial, especially when you get into specialty items.
Bread machines are useful for almost anything in the broad baking category of yeast breads. This of course starts with sandwich bread. It also goes the full range from cinnamon rolls to coffee cake to braided challah to soft pretzels. A savvy bread machine owner basically has a 'cheat code' potluck events because it's possible to walk into an event with a tray of something impressive such as chocolate chip brioche while spending less than $5.
The machine handles most of the labor. The user measures ingredients, programs the device, then comes back do final prep before popping a project in the oven and taking credit. Depending on the recipe there are a few moderate priced pieces of equipment to acquire such as a pizza cutter and a pizza stone, or a dough cutter and brioche tins and a baking tray. Most of these accessory items are one time purchases that last forever.
Two years ago I wrote the frugal guide to bread machines in this sub's wiki. What follows is revised since then.
A key step to making a bread machine cost effective is to purchase yeast and flour in volume. The average supermarket baking aisle is not the place to go. To get these ingredients at a good unit price, look for bread yeast in 1 lb to 2 lb bags and shop for flour in 25 lb to 50 lb bags. Costco and Winco sell in these quantities. Smart 'N Final sells flour but not yeast in these quantities. If you can't find a bulk vendor locally then check prices online. You'll want bread flour for loaf breads, all purpose flour for most other projects.
Yes, there's a learning curve--but people fear baking more than they should. Most of the tricks are as follows:
You could use a bread machine to do the entire start to finish baking in the machine. If you do, then you'll get a somewhat funky shaped bread loaf and you'll have to make a cut in the bottom to get the mixing paddle out. This might be all you ever use it for, and that's OK. It's all I did with my first bread machine.
Most of the interesting projects involve programming a bread machine to the 'dough' setting, then coming back and doing finishing work once the dough is ready. The machine takes care of kneading and proofing at a controlled temperature setting of about 100 F (38 C). You don't need to be in the room or even at home while this is running.
Although sourdoughs are wonderful breads, sourdoughs and bread machines aren't a perfect matchup because bread machine programs are designed to run with standardized commercial yeasts rather than sourdough yeasts. You might think of a commercial yeast as a greyhound and a sourdough as a lovable mutt from the pound: they're both the same species but one will run faster. When baking sourdough with a bread machine, you'll usually be best off using the knead or the dough setting only, then allowing extra time for proofing before baking. It's possible to do this whole process in a bread machine without a conventional oven: instead of running a single bread program, run "dough," then use a time delay of several hours, then run a separate "bake" program.
Many bread machines have a delay timer setting. This is enormously useful on recipes which don't have perishable ingredients. (So no eggs, milk, or butter--but anything else). Program the machine at bedtime to wake up to fresh bread or dough; program the machine in the morning to return from work ready to go.
A conventional oven needs to be calibrated. Instructions for that are in the owner's manual. If you don't have the manual to yours then search the make and model online to download the PDF. After you calibrate it once you won't need to again for at least a year.
Unless you own a convection oven, your oven will be hottest at the back and at the bottom. Most baking projects get best results by setting the racks to the middle position. To adjust that height, then just open the door while the oven is off and at room temperature. slide out a rack, choose your desired height, and slide it back in at a guide. The major exception to the middle rack rule is French bread: for that, the dough itself will be on a middle rack but you'll also have a tin of water beneath the dough on a rack at the bottom position to release steam.
A conventional oven does heat up a space, especially in an open plan residence, so plan projects according to the weather. In warm seasons I typically bake at sunrise. This just takes a little planning and isn't difficult once it becomes a habit.
Dough doesn't stick to wet surfaces. Handle unbaked dough with wet hands. If you'll be handling a dough extensively (such as twisting pretzels) then keep a small bowl of water near the work space to re-wet your hands as necessary.
Keep a kitchen towel handy. Although wet hands are great for handling dough, most oven mitts require dry hands.
The interior dough bin of a bread machine has a nonstick coating. Don't let this surface get scratched. Once more: don't let this surface get scratched. Metal implements must never touch this surface.
Good oven mitts are worth owning. I keep a pair of Ove Gloves on a hook on the kitchen wall.
All sweet baking projects which call for vanilla extract or chocolate chips are improved by doubling the vanilla extract/chocolate chips. This unwritten rule has never steered me wrong.
If your prep work is going to involve anything which might cause a mess such as spreading a filling etc., then start with an extra kitchen towel and spread it across the work space before work begins. Then if a cloud of confectioner's sugar settles it will just take three seconds to pick up the kitchen towel for the laundry instead of fussing to clean the counter.
When using baking trays, it's useful to shield the bottom of your project from burning by having a small air gap. Some baking trays are constructed in two layers with a built-in air gap. If yours aren't, then you can improvise an air gap by stacking two trays on top of each other and handling them as a single tray.
When using a non-convection oven, you will need to 'turn' the project once to achieve an even bake. To do this, read the recommended baking time, divide by two, and set a timer on your phone to notify you at the halfway point. Then use oven mitts, open the oven door briefly, and rotate your project 180 degrees: front to back, back to front. If you happen to be using more than one tray and both racks, then in addition to the back-to-front rotation also change the bottom tray to the top rack and the top tray to the bottom rack. Close the oven door as soon as this quick operation is done and restart your timer.
When you're ready to bake a project, a conventional oven takes time to warm up. Most modern ovens will beep when they reach the programmed temperature. The thing to do is start the oven before taking dough out of the bread machine; the oven usually reaches baking temperature in about the time it takes to prep a project.
If you are finishing a loaf bread in the oven, you may want to give it a wash and/or a topping. You'll need a small bowl and a pastry brush for this. An egg wash is usually made from the separated yolk or the white of an egg, plus 1 tablespoon of water. Stir first, then brush onto the dough. Optionally sprinkle about a tablespoon of topping such as rolled oats or wheat bran before baking. For a richer effect, melt about two tablespoons of butter and brush that over the dough. Then optionally, sprinkle salt or grated cheese before baking.
Many baking projects may over-bake if they remain in a hot baking dish/baking implement after they're removed from the oven. Check your recipe. If necessary, have an appropriate surface such as a tray ready.
To prevent most baking projects from drying out as they cool, have a clean kitchen towel and set it over the finished item(s). Ignore this guideline if the top would be messy or sticky such as focaccia or pizza.
Most baked goods stay fresh in a freezer up to 3 months with proper storage. Freezer grade Ziploc bags in various sizes are useful. Be sure to label and date them with a Sharpie.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
Slightly used bread machines turn up on the secondhand market all the time for under $20. If that's right for you, then you can count on downloading a PDF copy of the owner's manual.
Most of the programmable features on a bread machine amount to marketing hype. The two features I really rely on are the dough setting and the time delay feature. This latest machine also has a jam setting and a yogurt setting, yet I don't expect to need either unless my Instant Pot reaches the end of its lifespan.
I buy my bread machines new due to medical dietary restrictions. If you go this route, then the most important thing I've learned in recent years is some bread machines now have a flimsy plastic hinge on the lid. What really made the current purchase decision was the decision to get a model that has a steel bolt for its hinge pivot pin.
The dough pan and the paddle need to be washed after each use. You don't want to let these get damaged: a replacement dough pan can run $30. Preventing damage can be tricky if non-bakers in the family are forgetful, such as if a dirty bread machine pan is in the sink and somebody drops a dirty fork into it: that would scratch the nonstick surface. Unfortunately, turning the bread machine pan upside down doesn't solve this problem because a steel sink can also scratch the nonstick surface. Two diplomatic solutions to this dilemma would be either washing the pan and paddle by hand immediately after use, or else setting a dirty pan aside temporarily on a counter with a kitchen towel spread over the top to discourage absentminded interference.
Here's hoping you find this guide useful. It sums up the information I wish someone had been available when I bought my first bread machine.
Ten years ago when we bought our house, it was a mess of a property. In addition to knee-high weeds, a shrub blocked the view of oncoming traffic from the driveway. A Bradford pear tree had reverted to a bramble. Two other shade trees had been planted too close to the driveway and were cracking the pavement. An orange tree and a dogwood tree had both been pruned incompetently and both were dying. Invasive exotic species were taking over the backyard, the geraniums were in a spot where they died back in midsummer, etc.
Practically every plant in the yard needed to be chopped down or dug up and replaced.
One of the things we picked up was a $6 jar of rooting hormone. Dollar for dollar, it's been one of our smartest purchases. Rooting hormone is used to propagate plants. That is, to start new plants from cuttings. Although it's possible to propagate plants without rooting hormone, the success rate is higher with it.
In particular, other gardeners often give away cuttings for free. Or they'll swap cuttings for other cuttings or for a loaf of banana bread. It costs far less to fill in a yard this way than buying from plant nurseries.
Posting a few example.
The Sedum hedge that wraps around our front patio started out as a few cuttings from one plant a neighbor owned. At upper right in that photo is a potted jade plant, also propagated from a cutting.
A rosemary plant, started from a cutting last August. It's in a 5 gallon container now and will be strong enough to go into the ground this fall.
A dragonfruit cactus, one of several in our yard. Those plants produced $200 worth of dragonfruit this season.
Our pomegranate tree is almost ready for harvest. It's producing $50 worth of fruit this year.
Three of the newest cuttings: two Tradescantia zebrina (common name 'wandering Jew') and one Xerosicyos danguyi (common name silver dollar succulent vine). We use old string to tie these to barbecue skewers or chopsticks until they get established. These make good holiday gifts when they're grown in decorative pots.
Our jar of rooting hormone still has a bit left after ten years of service.
This isn't everything we've propagated, but it's enough to convey the gist. Between the savings from propagating plants instead of paying garden center prices and the value of fruits hand herbs they've procuded, we've gotten four figures of savings over ten years.
So I've decided to recaption this old chestnut because it keeps circulating unironically and smooth brained dudes keep taking it seriously.
The meme was strange. The conversation was stranger.
Two points here: a unit issue, then a shopping issue.
Unit issue
Here's a quirk about US customary units: a fluid ounce isn't a dry ounce. One is a measure of volume while the other is a measure of weight. In a recent post, someone tried to run a price comparison which treated these two different types of units as simple addition. While it's well-intentioned to crunch numbers and run price comparisons, a unit error causes a calculation error.
Both units are called "ounces" so it's really easy to make that mistake. Writing this up as a separate post because it's worth clarifying this difference and how to deal with it.
The way to solve this type of issue is to look up the weight per fluid ounce separately for each item whose price has been given in fluid ounces, and then add up an ingredient list as a weight calculation.
For instance, the weight of 1 fluid oz of heavy cream is 30 g. These conversions can be Googled. This demonstration will go ahead and convert to metric.
So a sample recipe price comparison might run:
Total weight 614 g, total price $7.85
That's 21 grams more than the other user thought they were making from scratch when they added fluid ounces together with dry weight ounces on the same column.
The comparison product was a 15 oz jar of alfredo sauce. I also happen to have a 15 oz jar of alfredo sauce in the pantry which might be from a different manufacturer. This turns out to be a dry weight measurement even though it's a jarred sauce because 15 oz is 425 g. A price comparison could then calculate the cost of the recipe as a ratio of those two weights, against the price of that brand of alfredo sauce. You could run that ratio as an exercise; I'll move along because that isn't the end point of this post.
It's possible to make a reasoned argument that jarred pasta sauce is an apples to oranges comparison against the from-scratch recipe. The #1 ingredient on Bertolli alfredo sauce is water. Its fourth and fifth ingredients are soybean oil and modified food starch. Several people pointed out this difference in the other discussion.
Moving on, there's an additional point to be made about sourcing ingredients.
The importance of sourcing ingredients
Ran a check at the local Costco Business Center for those same three ingredients. The prices are significantly different.
My local Costco Business Center sells those same ingredients at the following rates:
Total weight 614 g, total price: $3.04
Personally, when I make alfredo sauce from scratch it isn't nearly that much and the recipe is different. The quantities of these purchases are also different: these unit prices are for a half gallon of heavy cream, 2 lbs of parmesan, and 4 lbs of butter. I happen to be able to store those quantities (see my recent post about deep freezers). The reason we have jarred alfredo sauce at the moment is because it's time to lose ten pounds and I don't want to keep a half gallon of heavy cream in the house right now. We do keep the parmesan and the butter in the deep freezer.
Converting back to dry weight ounces, the jarred alfredo sauce at $2.99 comes to $0.20/oz; the DIY alfredo sauce with Costco Business Center ingredients comes to $0.14/oz. That's a savings of 40% and the end result is arguably a better sauce.
So the second point here is how on certain ingredients it really does make sense to shop from a store that sells in bulk quantities if that's a feasible option. If you have the space and equipment to shop bulk ingredients, then see whether your local restaurant supply store will well to the general public. I find they have particular advantages compared to retail supermarkets in cured meats and specialty cheeses.
Pictured:
Photo 1: blueberry coconut pancakes, cantaloupe, and a pickled egg.
Photo 2: potato salad with potato skin, plain yogurt, hard boiled egg, celery, bell pepper, fresh parsley and chives.
In the last day this forum had a post from someone asking how people eat on $40 - $50 a week, and another post from someone else asking whether eating frugally is at odds with healthy eating. Those are meaningful questions. It's hard to answer well in threaded discussion so here's hoping a post will be useful. We average $50/week per person in a family of 2 adults.
Up front: someone will probably see the photo and holler, "Pancakes aren't healthy!" If that's your reaction then please read the whole post before commenting.
TIPS (explanations below)
Most people have four years or so to forget ninth grade health class before they're actually shopping and cooking on their own. A profitable industry exists to fill that gap, and it leverages people's confusion with marketing.
Whatever foods get hyped in a particular year can be expected to rise in price. For instance, twenty years ago most kale was used as a garnish in restaurants. Then in the 2010s kale got hyped as a superfood and suddenly it went from a cheap vegetable most people ignored to The Next Big Thing. Pretty soon, bagged kale chips were sold for $$$ at Whole Foods. Ten years later cauliflower went from another inexpensive overlooked vegetable to the trendy superfood, and the general public discovered what backyard gardeners had known for decades: cauliflower can be grown in pretty colors. Cue the next price rise.
As you may have surmised from tip #1, "superfood' is a buzzword which signals hype. The term has no fixed meaning in food science. It's often used to designate a food that's more nutritious than other choices in the same category, but the difference in nutrition may be nominal and the designation ignores price. This year's hype is focused on cabbage. Yes, cabbage. While writing this post I ran a search for the term "cabbage superfood" and found an article about cabbage in the fashion magazine Vogue (which of course calls it a superfood). This is apt to excite people who don't know that cabbage is literally the same species (Brassica oleracea) as broccoli, kale, collard greens, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower. Yes, two of those other veggies recently spent their own time in the limelight.
An informed consumer reads that Vogue calls cabbage a superfood and expects the price of cabbage to soar while its sibling veggies are affordable. Shop accordingly.
In particular, be wary of prepackaged processed versions of cabbage which are apt to appear on health food shelves this cycle. The more processed a food is, the more expensive and less nutritious the end result usually turns out to be. This is how the hype cycle operates. It depends on consumers who never research the topic independently.
This is why brushing up on classroom nutrition information is a really good idea. This forum limits outgoing links, so three quick tips.
Shifting focus slightly, it's also useful to cook from scratch and to modify recipes based on an understanding of nutrition.
Starting in reverse order from this post's photos, potato salad is a summer staple that can vary substantially in its nutritional value. Most of the nutritional value of potatoes is in the skin, so one way to improve a potato salad's nutrition is to not peel the skin. Wash the skin, remove any potato eyes and blemishes, but otherwise keep the skin. Another way to improve the nutritional value is to substitute plain yogurt for mayonnaise. (I happen to make my own yogurt, but store bought yogurt will do). The culinary purpose is to have a binder. Yogurt also adds a touch of acidity so you can eliminate vinegar. The next modifications focus on making potato salad more of a salad. Standard recipes often call for just celery, which isn't a nutrient dense vegetable. The main culinary purpose is 'something crunchy' so adding more crunchiness helps. I happen to grow my own celery, bell peppers, parsley, and chives which not everyone can do, but parsley and chives are compact enough to grow on a windowsill garden. A good general rule for kitchen gardening (if you can do it) is buy the cheap vegetables and grow the premium ones. Potatoes sold for $2 a 5 lb bag this week at my local supermarket. I can't compete with that price, so the potatoes I buy and the premium things I grow. To round out the recipe, this potato salad also has salt and pepper, worchestershire sauce, garlic granules, and a hard boiled egg. Chill after mixing and it keeps in the fridge for up to a week. This will be part of today's lunch at our house.
Circling around to the pancakes (OMG pancakes aren't healthy), my personal recipe of blueberry pancakes for two calls for:
After cooking:
The three modification principles which operate are use real fruit, add fiber, and reduce sugar & fat.
Blueberry pancake mix uses fake blueberries, which aren't even dried blueberries but are nuggets of something with food coloring designed to to look and taste something like blueberries.
I've discovered through trial and error that the wheat bran in pancakes doesn't offend anybody in our household. Only 3% of Americans eat the USDA recommended minimum of fiber, so a little extra fiber goes into our recipes wherever feasible.
The real hack with these pancakes is powdered sugar. What hits the palate is what's on the surface. So it's possible to make a breakfast pancake with no sugar at all in the batter and a fraction of the usual syrup, which subjectively feels as sweet as standard pancakes with a little powdered sugar and a sifting wand. So, yeah, this does have refined sugar but nutritious eating doesn't have to be perfect. There's the cantaloupe and the egg to round things out. Our family likes to make Sunday breakfast a little special. Those photos are from 1 1/2 meals; here's hoping two recipes convey the gist.
A lot of home cooking such as diced cantaloupe and hard boiled eggs can be prepped on the weekends, then served quickly during the week. It's a process of understanding how nutrition works, disregarding hype, breaking down different recipes one by one to improve the nutritional value without breaking the bank, and then front loading prep work onto non-busy days.
Beautiful virgins, here he is! Hurry now and maybe you could marry a racist entitled ass who doesn't respect you for anything other than your body and who expects you to be economically dependent on him. What a catch. /s
Found on Instagram. If you behave like a dumbass you of course get treated as one.
Now that you've chosen your deep freezer, it's time to the most out of it.
The situation you don't want to find yourself in is bringing home loaves of sandwich bread on $0.50 discount, forgetting a loaf when it's half eaten, then buying another $0.50 off loaf, etc. until you load up your storage with freezer burned bread while you pass up good loss leader specials because "we don't have the space." This may or may not be a gaffe my family made with our first deep freezer. Excuse me while I look away and try to whistle innocently.
In other words, planning matters. So does proper storage.
You're most likely to save real money by owning a deep freezer by going into it with a plan, and by price comparing the cost savings of different possible uses in advance.
There are several routes to saving money with a deep freezer. These could include:
Choosing priorities
Each family's priorities in stocking a deep freezer involve some balance of money savings, time management, and quality optimization.
To discuss those priorities in reverse order, quality optimization could mean affording a luxury. Suppose your family enjoys shrimp once a month but the supermarket price would be out of reach, but the per-pound price of a 3 lb bag of wholesale shrimp is within your budget. If affording a few luxuries is one of your priorities with a deep freezer, then discuss this with other family members early on and decide how much space and budget to devote there. Although it might take up a small part of the space, the enjoyment and quality of life could be well worth it--especially if your family is downsizing on its overall budget.
Time management could mean a range of things from Sunday meal prep to reducing the number of shopping trips for food to simply not needing to cook. The time and fuel to make a single shopping run can be significant for people who live in rural areas. It's best to figure out how big a factor time management is before your deep freezer fills up, because if time management is a practical priority then your family may have to pass up on certain types of tempting bargains which would involve long preparation times.
Money savings is the obvious factor at a frugality forum so listing this last but not least. Perhaps the most important concept here is the different options for deep freezer storage are in competition with each other in terms not just of dollars saved, but also in terms of money saved per volume of storage space and also in terms of turnover time. Different bulk purchases can save different amounts of money.
For example, a reference site lists the average cost of a pound of shredded mozzarella cheese at $7/lb (as of February 2026). I can bulk buy shredded mozzarella cheese at $2/lb. That savings of $5/lb is a good bargain in a family that's going to use mozzarella cheese on a regular basis. If your family stops baking lasagnas and pizzas from scratch during the dog days of summer, then an efficient use plan would use up mozzarella cheese during the cooler months, and optimize that freezer space for something else in midsummer.
A second example I'm ashamed to admit is bulk carrots. I once talked myself into buying 25 lbs of carrots for $10. Yes, the price was fantastic. But that was a whole lot more carrots than a two person household could eat fresh, the prep work and packing work was a real pain, it took up a lot of space, eating all those carrots took along time, and in the end it didn't save much money. We would have been better off using that freezer space for other purposes. Now we buy frozen carrots prepackaged and buy fresh carrots in 2 lb bags. That's really all we can justify.
Portioning and repackaging
With many of the above strategies it's going to be necessary to break down bulk purchases or batch cooking into smaller portions before freezing. That involves setting aside time and equipment for the purpose.
Whichever method you choose, one important step is to label items with the contents and the date. Nobody likes to do the labeling, but it's even worse to reach into the back of a deep freezer later on and discover a forgotten package of mystery meat. What is it? How old is it? What will you do with the mystery? The best path forward is to not create mysteries in the first place. Ten seconds of documentation when you first package something up, can help ensure you make the most of your stored foods afterwards. So keep a Sharpie handy (or some other chosen method) and make it a strict policy to label everything before stuff goes in the freezer.
For most people who buy and store bulk purchases as ingredients, you're going to be breaking up large amounts into smaller portions before freezing. Based on the size of your family and the portion size different people would eat, figure out how much is the right amount to thaw at a given time. Are you more likely to use a pound of ground beef for Hamburger Helper or do you grill individual hamburger patties? If it's patties, then how big are your burgers? Decide how much of an ingredient you'll use at a time and break down bulk packages into smaller storage portions accordingly.
For many people who store ingredients, the choice is going to be between vacuum seal packaging or Ziploc freezer bags. Compare equipment prices, storage plans, and packaging time when making this decision. My experience has been that vacuum sealing is more expensive up front and more work to do, but lasts longer. So vacuum sealing is suited to packing up after a productive fishing trip to enjoy trout and bass over the winter. Ziploc freezer bags are more convenient but less reliable for long term storage. So, for instance, if your family are fans of chicken thighs and a loss leader special will get eaten up within a month, then you might as well go with the easier option of Ziploc storage in that situation. I tend to double bag individual portions before putting them away in a gallon size Ziploc. For instance, we'll put an individual chicken thigh inside a regular sandwich bag, then fill a gallon size freezer grade Ziploc with sandwich bags of chicken. That prevents the individual portions from freezing together. Another way of separating individual portions is by buying a box of deli paper sheets. The two separation methods have their own tradeoffs: deli sheets are more eco-friendly, but double bagging provides an extra layer of protection against freezer burn.
Pro tips:
For people who love cheese: there's a solution to the 'soggy cheese' problem which can be caused by freezing and thawing. When thawing a piece of frozen cheese, add a paper towel to the package. The paper towel absorbs excess moisture so the cheese retains its normal texture as it thaws.
Although it's true that bread and most other baked goods freeze well, the bread clip that holds bags of sandwich bread, hamburger buns, and hot dog buns is not an airtight sealing system. Freezer storage that isn't airtight is apt to cause freezer burn. So if freezer burn becomes a problem, then the solution is either to re-bag items inside a Ziploc freezer bag or else to buy reusable Tupperware-style containers. Specialty bread loaf size freezer containers are available online.
A deep freezer also opens up a middle ground between batch cooking and starting meals from scratch: prepping ingredients. Doughs such as pie crust dough and cookie dough can be prepared in advance in volume and then thawed for baking. Onions can be caramelized in one large batch and then thawed for individual use. If you find that a certain step slows down your home cooking routine, then research whether that ingredient freezes well and plan accordingly.
Seasonal price changes affect more than the obvious Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas ham. For instance, demand for eggs soars in winter so the price of eggs in December may be several multiples of the price of eggs in July. You may find it worth your while to buy other fluctuating price items such as nuts at harvest time, to freeze them for use later in the year.
If you have a large upright deep freezer and it's difficult to keep everything organized and in reach, then consider buying plastic organizer bins, of the type people buy to organize cabinets. My family has one bin for cheeses, another for poultry, etc. It saves wear and tear on the individual packages to pull out a whole bin and reach for the desired item.
Apologies for the US-centric nature of this guide. Here's hoping most of the suggestions are useful internationally.
If you've been thinking of dealing with the rising cost of food by buying a deep freezer, then this guide is for you. I've owned and used deep freezers in two different residences for nearly 20 years. We'll discuss deep freezer types, use cases, and different strategies for saving money by using a deep freezer. This is a two part guide. Storage strategies will be discussed in part 2.
Upright or chest freezer?
Let's start by acknowledging the elephant in the room: there's a popular video on YouTube which has nearly 3 million views that's made by an engineer and it sings the praises of chest freezers. After watching it, a lot of people consider only a chest freezer. While there's no arguing against the physics--chest freezers are more energy efficient--there are also additional factors which are also worth considering.
After all, you probably own an upright refrigerator instead of a chest refrigerator. The same engineering argument could be made for all food cooling devices from camp coolers to kitchen refrigerators: chest orientation is more energy efficient. Yet when was the last time you met anyone who keeps a chest refrigerator in their kitchen?
Your use case is a significant matter in choosing which type of deep freezer to get.
The blog whatdoesitcost(dot)net ran a hypothetical energy cost comparison between chest freezers and upright freezers. Assuming an energy cost of US $0.20 per kilowatt hour, a medium sized chest freezer would cost $5.80/month to run and an upright freezer with equal capacity would cost $9.20/month to run.
So an average chest freezer saves $3.40 per month on the energy bill. Yes, that's a savings. Yet it's a small enough savings that other factors may outweigh it.
What follows is an analysis of those other factors.
TL;DR A chest freezer is probably right for you if you store large quantities of a limited number of items, if you own a large house, and if you don't suffer back or shoulder problems. In other situations the upright might be the better option.
Weedsy analysis of deep freezer types
For this comparison I looked up two deep freezer models both made by Frigidaire and both with almost identical storage capacity: a 19.8 cubic foot chest freezer and a 20 cubic foot upright freezer.
This isn't an endorsement of Frigidaire or or either specific model. Rather, this comparison points out that the chest model takes up roughly twice as much floor space for the same amount of storage.
The closest I was able to find to the footprint of an upright freezer in a chest freezer design was another model that has height 33.25", width 30.31", depth 22.1" and only a 7 cubic foot storage capacity. Notice, using a chest freezer that's only a couple of inches smaller in footprint than an upright model cuts down the usable storage space not by half but by nearly two-thirds. That's a surface to volume dilemma: both chest freezers are the same height, but the smaller model still needs the same thickness of insulation to do its job, so the insulation and the electronic components take up a greater percentage of the smaller appliance's volume, leaving proportionately less space for food.
So if you own a large house with plenty of extra room, then you probably don't need to care about the floor space a freezer takes up. Yet if you live in a smaller residence where floor space is at a premium, then estimate whether your savings in food from a much larger deep freezer would outweigh a slightly higher electric bill.
It's worth mentioning that the cost of the 19.8 cubic foot chest freezer and the cost of the 20 cubic foot upright freezer were within $40 of each other on the day I checked (August 2026). If retail price is the most important factor in your purchase decision, then you'll likely find either chest freezers or upright freezers are in the same ballpark for the same storage capacity, although on any given day a sale price or a floor model discount might nudge the advantage in one direction or the other.
Also, in addition to measuring the footprint of your available space for a deep freezer it can also be important to measure the width of your access to get the appliance in and out. This won't matter if you plan to store your freezer in a garage, but if you intend to keep it in a kitchen or a laundry room then measure the width and height of the doors which your deep freezer would need to pass through when it comes into the house.
Chest freezers are better at storing a lot of the same thing.
Chest freezers are suited to storing large quantities of fewer things. That makes them a practical option for households that intend to shop wholesale and buy a 40 lb box of frozen chicken breasts, or who buy 1/4 cow from a farmer, or who go deer hunting. Or maybe you have a large family and you buy ice cream in 5 gallon tubs. Chest freezers are built for those situations.
Upright freezers are better at storing a variety of things.
Let's say your bulk purchases include 5 lb bricks of several types of cheese, or you're expecting a new baby and you want to batch cook a month's worth of meals before delivery. The more different things you intend to be storing in quantities of 10 lbs or less, then the more it makes sense to prioritize the refrigerator-like convenience of an upright freezer.
There's no absolute right or wrong with this type of consideration. It's more about what use you intend to put a deep freezer to.
Upright freezers are more ergonomic for people who have back and shoulder problems.
The consideration here is that in order to get something out of a chest freezer, you could be leaning over and down. You might also be lifting from that posture, because if the 5 gallon tub of ice cream is underneath 40 lbs of chicken parts, then storing both items in a chest freezer could mean lifting 40 lbs while you're leaning forward each time you get ice cream. If you've got a bad lower back or a torn rotator cuff, then weigh that consideration before deciding which model is best for you. All else being equal, the comfort factor might be worth the price of a cup of coffee.
Other items can be stored on top of an upright freezer, but not on top of a chest freezer.
This can be a consideration if you happen to live in a space that's on the small end for considering a deep freezer at all. Addressing this from personal experience, when my husband and I first got together we lived in a 1 bedroom apartment with 550 square feet of space and a galley kitchen. We measured the space and decided we were able to fit a small 4 cubic foot upright deep freezer by letting it double as a microwave stand. That was really the only way we could have a deep freezer in a living space that small without either giving up the microwave or giving up a significant share of our kitchen counter. For a difference in operating cost of a couple of dollars a month, that tradeoff was worth it.
None of the above is intended to be disrespectful of chest freezer owners. Chest freezers have several use cases and are more energy efficient. The point is that upright freezers (like upright refrigerators) also have their own use cases which can be advantageous enough to outweigh a slightly greater operation cost.
This post is for home bakers in this forum. It would be savvy to stock up on baking flour now in August.
Weedsy stuff
The flour currently on retail shelves is made from last year's harvest. Store shelf prices right now aren't affected yet by the new prices on this year's harvest. That's been working its way through the commodities markets and wholesale buyers. You can expect higher prices next month.
How much will retail prices jump? Commodities market prices on wheat futures have risen by 35% to 40% compared to last year. Although retail prices may not leap by as much when this year's wheat crop comes out of the mills and reaches store shelves, you can give your expectations a rough calibration based on the commodities numbers. Expect a sticker shock.
This particular forum limits outgoing links, so by way of verification here's a link to a USDA report on the wheat outlook published in mid-July. The lede on the PDF downloadable there includes the statement, "overall U.S. wheat production forecast down 23 percent year over year, all classes of wheat are showing declines."
It goes on to specify crop reductions for specific categories. Particularly hard hit is the type of wheat used to make all purpose flour. Quoting:
> "Hard Red Winter (HRW) wheat, usually the largest class of U.S. production, is forecast to have its smallest crop since 1957/58."
Some other types of wheat such as durum (used to make pasta) are impacted less severely. Averaging across all wheat varieties, in 2026 the United States has had its worst wheat harvest in more than 50 years. Basically, there wasn't enough fertilizer available earlier this year due to supply chain issues. So fewer acres got planted than usual, the wheat which did get planted didn't get as much fertilizer as usual, and then a drought hit the Midwest.
Unfortunately, the international situation can't be expected to fully compensate for a US shortfall this severe. Two of the other top ten wheat exporting countries--Russia and Ukraine--are both expected to export less wheat this year due to wartime impacts on production. Together, the US, Russia, and Ukraine accounted for about 30% of last year's international wheat exports.
So what does this mean to you as a consumer?
If you're a home baker, the price of all purpose flour and high gluten bread flour on store shelves right now is the lowest it's going to be until a better wheat harvest comes in. That would be 6 to 12 months in the future. So if you're a savvy shopper, estimate your use and your storage capacity and stock up accordingly.
If you aren't a home baker, then you are likely to see product reformulations and shrinkflation on wheat-based products in the near future. You can mitigate the impact on your food costs by changing your cooking habits. It would be savvy to try new potato dishes, to do more stir fried meals with rice on the side, or to make tamales.
To be clear, I'm not Chicken Little and the sky is not falling. That said, it's useful to be a step ahead of the game when a significant agricultural event is getting ready to hit the retail market. A year ago I kind of kicked myself for not posting a heads up when bird flu caused farmers to cull flocks and the price of eggs jumped for a while. The price of eggs has since come back down as the supply returned to normal. This wheat shortage isn't the end of the world. Yet if you've wanted to teach yourself how to make pad Thai then this is an apt time to pick up the new skill.
All the best to you and yours. Shop smart.
(edit)
In response to questions, the two principal factors with storing flour are whole wheat vs. white flour and protecting flour from vermin.
While whole wheat flour is more nutritious than white flour, the wheat germ in whole wheat contains oils that have a shelf life at room temperature of 6 to 12 months. That shelf life can be extended by storing it frozen.
White flour has a longer shelf life. Some baking enthusiasts say they taste a difference after more than 1-2 years, yet many people consider all purpose flour and high gluten bread flour to have basically indefinite storage times.
So while I don't advocate hoarding, all purpose flour and high gluten bread flour ought to be good at room temperature until a better harvest comes in. If you stock up on whole wheat flour this month, then you might want to divide your supply into two parts and freeze the half you don't use right away.
A bigger issue is keeping your flour safe from rodents and insects. Food safe 5 gallon buckets are your friends. If you know someone who works in a commercial kitchen such as a restaurant or a cafeteria, then you may be able to get used 5 gallon buckets for free. Clean them out, dry them thoroughly, and perhaps add a plastic liner before storing flour. Then keep your flour buckets in a cool dry closet or cabinet.
In the last two days, incels have been cherry picking conversations from this forum in an attempt to accuse this community of promoting suicide. They're barking up the wrong tree.
This post was written after serious consideration. See notes at the end regarding precautions.
If you are in crisis, you can use the Hide function to close this post and not see it again. Help is available internationally at https://lifeline-intl.findahelpline.com/.
The New York Times has run a report which identifies the incels(dot)is owners as also the owners of a site that sells suicide kits.
Quoting the paywalled article:
> "Marquis and Serge have vowed to fight any efforts to take down the [suicide kit] site. They have experience running websites with dark content: They operate several online forums for “incels,” [emphasis added] or involuntary celibates, men who believe that women will never have sex with them because of their looks or social status. Many on those sites openly discuss a fatalistic outlook, including thoughts of self-harm.
> "The two men have worked to shield the suicide site and to frustrate efforts to learn who is behind it. The servers have been moved from country to country. Marquis and Serge use multiple aliases and have removed nearly every trace of their real identities from the internet. Still, The Times found them, thousands of miles apart, in a city in Alabama and the capital of Uruguay."
Nonpaywalled, the British tabloid Daily Mail has run an exposé on Lamarcus Small, the Huntsville, Alabama man who co-owns the two sites and who goes by the screen name "Marquis" on incels.is.
Also, a nonpaywalled video report by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Here's an additional 2022 report by WBUR, a public radio station in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 2021, The New York Times identified 45 deaths connected with that suicide site internationally. In 2023, Daily Mail 50 deaths associated with that site in the UK alone. British Broadcasting Corporation blames the site for hundreds of deaths.
Ten days ago, incels.is users acknowledged Lamarcus Small as the owner of the site they're using.
Notes -
This post doesn't advocate suicide or self-harm. This post is flagged with a content warning, contains instructions near the top for hiding its content, and links to crisis intervention resources.
This post neither names nor links to the suicide site. It links to the Internet Wayback Machine rehosting for its one reference of an incels(dot)is post.
The real name mentioned above is already a public figure who has been the subject of news reports in multiple established news organizations. This post adds no new information or allegations to what is already publicly available.
The purpose of this post is to set the record straight and warn young men who identify as incels what lurks at the bottom of their virtual community. The hope here is to urge vulnerable young people to seek healthier communities elsewhere.
We have a really tiny backyard and the HOA requires us to grow most things in containers, but we've still managed to grow a fair share of our fruits and vegetables.
Today's harvest includes
Using some of this to make savory crepes for tonight's dinner (along with ham, cheese, and a couple of store bought vegetables). The lemons are becoming lemonade. The berries will go into yogurt with tomorrow's breakfast, and a few of the veggies will go into egg salad for tomorrow's lunch. The okra needed harvesting so it's going to get frozen today and then get used the next time we make gumbo.
It's light exercise to raise this food, so gardening also saves the cost of a gym membership.