Freezer Freaks: 5 Weird Things I Freeze To Save Money

Guest Post From The Daily Green's Jeff Yeager

It's official: I've become my grandmother. I realized it the other morning when I opened the door to our freezer.

That icy vault was packed to the brim. But -- in the finest tradition of my Grandma Yeager -- it wasn't filled so much with leftovers, like you'd find in most household freezers. You see, my Grams had a few deep frozen secrets. She knew about weird stuff; weird stuff you can deep-six in the freezer and maybe save some money in the process.

* Candles: Keep your wax candles in the freezer and they'll burn longer. It's especially good for slim table tapers that normally burn very fast.

* Batteries: A number of studies have shown that storing batteries in the freezer helps them retain their charge longer. This is less true for alkaline batteries (freezing extends their shelf life by only about 5%) than it is for NiMH and Nicad batteries often used in electronics. Keeping NiMH batteries in the freezer can boost battery life by 90%.

* Wine Cubes: Lots of people already keep alcohol in the freezer, when you have a little leftover wine from dinner, pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze it. "Wine cubes" are perfect to use in making stock and other cooking.

* Wooden Voodoo Mask: A carved wooden mask I picked up at Mardi Gras last year is showing the telltale pinholes of a woodworm infestation. As they know in the furniture refinishing business, placing a wooden item in the deep freezer for a couple of weeks will kill woodworms and their eggs.

* Pantyhose: Like Grandma Yeager, I don't wear them, but my wife sure does. She swears that if she keeps her pantyhose in the freezer, they're less likely to run and they last longer. (I just can't imagine how she gets up enough courage to slide into an icy pair every morning.)

And you wonder why I have issues?

Also from The Daily Green:

• 10 Weird Things in My Freezer
• 17 Things You Didn't Know You Could Rent
• 15 Things You Can Easily Repair
• 10 Surprising Uses for Vodka
• 8 Products Designed to Fail Early

Comments

[FrTown]

11:04 AM on 03/11/2010

Here is another money saving and useful idea. If you use tomato paste a lot (or you like Italian food like me) you can freeze the remaining of an open tomato can after transferring it into a small glass jar. You wouldn't have to worry about mold growing on it, and you can just scoop it like ice cream when you need it.

[NitramNos]

09:40 AM on 03/11/2010

Freeze over-ripe bananas and make banana bread later. I'm not going to be freezing my wine, though...

[hulagirrrl]

02:22 AM on 03/12/2010

or cut the banana in pieces before freezing, then use them in a blender with a little juice like orange or whatever, and if you have other fruits, makes refreshing drinks and the frozen banana makes it cold.

[cgr]

09:37 AM on 03/11/2010

My own tip I discovered experimenting: avocados don't keep well, so when they're on sale I buy a bunch, make guacamole, put it in ice cube trays and freeze is. As soon (!) as it's frozen, I dump the cubes into a gallon freezer bag and keep in freezer. A cube or two as needed, a few minutes at room temp or a few seconds in the microwave, and it's just like freshly made.

We also use a LOT of onions and green peppers in cooking, so we buy onion sets and pepper plants for our veggie garden. When harvested, I chop them and freeze them in freezer bags. A handful, so handy for scrambled eggs, chili, spaghetti, whatever, without chopping every time..

[Thorne1972]

09:30 AM on 03/11/2010

The sweet leaf can be frozen also, to keep from drying out and helps maintain potency. Ha Ha Ha

[sixyfivepercentwater]

09:01 AM on 03/11/2010

Teabaggers can be frozen. Then when you want a rally, you just roll them out in a line and as they thaw they complain about something or other, wave a few confusing signs, and when it's over you can roll them back up and freeze them again. They can actually be hauled around the country in refrigerator trucks that way.

[sixyfivepercentwater]

08:58 AM on 03/11/2010

So the chicken breasts are next to the voodoo mask while the woodworm eggs are being killed? Yum.

None of this - except the voodoo mask - is news. And none of it is very interesting. Even the basic premise, that of saving money, is just a little bit diminished by the cost of a new freezer to fit all these things into.

[mbarankin]

05:48 AM on 03/11/2010

Please be accurate with your statements including numbers. From what I've seen (posted elsewhere on the internet), freezing NiMH batteries does indeed slow their discharge rate, allowing them to RETAIN up to 90% of their energy where they would otherwise discharge at room temp over 1-2 mo's.
Your claim that it "can boost battery life up to 90%" makes it sound like the batteries somehow have nearly double the energy or last twice as long because they were frozen; when really they just didn't lose the energy they otherwise would have sitting at room temperature for a long period of time...
In other words, using the frozen battery a month later gives almost the same amount of energy as using a room temp. battery when it is brand new (or freshly recharged!).

[brooklyncitizen]

11:05 PM on 03/10/2010

Wooden Voodoo Mask.

this is especially helpful.

[Souris9]

11:23 AM on 03/11/2010

Because surely it wouldn't work on other wooden items!!

Nope. Only people with Wooden Vodou masks can use this tip.

[fireincarmation]

11:02 PM on 03/10/2010

This would have been a much more useful article if you had cited your sources, so I could verify these claims.

[sixyfivepercentwater]

08:59 AM on 03/11/2010

If you need sources, you can find them. Might be a better idea to ask why you so desperately need sources and verification. This isn't the gate between east and west Berlin, you know.

[lastep]

10:56 PM on 03/10/2010

the title lol. underwater freezers? is that an oxymoron............come on lackeys, you can do better than that

[ella129]

10:48 PM on 03/10/2010

I live in South Korea right now, which has a very strict recycling policy. Outside my apartment there is a little trash shed with bags for paper, plastic, styrofoam, glass, etc. and also big bins for unrecyclable trash and for compost. All food waste goes into the compost bin, but I couldn't get it out fast enough to avoid stinkiness, so I keep it all in a bag in the freezer. Once a week I take out my big, frozen block of compost.

[lastep]

10:58 PM on 03/10/2010

yes it is much easier to convince the rest of the world that we need biometric ID cards than here in the USA where we have the right to protect ourselves from government......with a firearm

[longfeltwant]

11:53 PM on 03/10/2010

Exactly. Also, the price of tea in China has been skyrocketing recently.

[Rosewren]

09:48 PM on 03/10/2010

Another great thing to freeze is your hot peppers for your salsa. Chop and put in freezer bag and flatten it out. When you want to make your salsa just break off a chunk and stick back in the freezer. Freeze your yeast packets for bread. Yeast keeps forever in the freezer.

[susankhbelen]

12:48 PM on 03/11/2010

in the SW you can get all the frozen 'red and green' you want a the store.
In the fall they roast chiles outside the grocery stores. You buy a bag 9about 15 lbs) and take it home to remove seeds and skin and then freeze your own.
yumm......one of the great smells of autumn here!

[susankhbelen]

09:29 PM on 03/10/2010

I freeze cilantro in a bit of water in ice cube trays.
I also freeze lemon juice.
When these are in season they are free. Not so in the winter.
I also freeze fresh ginger and microplane what I need as needed.
We freeze our dark chocolate on the theory that we will eat less....hahaha!
I freeze milk and butter when they go on sale too.
Yep, I am my grandma and my mom. Which, all in all, isn't that bad.

[scarletxoxoxo]

09:19 PM on 03/10/2010

I wonder if babies can freeze. I'd hate to waste my lunch.

[InedaName]

08:39 PM on 03/10/2010

I think I picked up this tip from a cooking show. When I buy fresh ginger, I freeze it in a freezer bag whole; I don't cut it into pieces or even peel it. Whenever a recipe calls for ginger, I just grate what I need right into the dish with my microplane, skin and all. It works fine, I always have ginger, and it never goes bad on me.

[staceyann dolenti]

04:29 PM on 03/11/2010

And the big bonus to freezing all of these items is that it will make your freezer more efficent.
Staceyann Dolenti