Freezer Organisation

My freezer has been a little project of mine for some time.  We bought a new fridge a few months back, and while I just love the french door fridge, the freezer drawer was something I was struggling with.  It looks like one big drawer from the outside, but inside it is actually broken into an upper and lower level.  The lower drawer was like a big bottomless pit, no matter how hard I tried to line things up and straighten it, it was a mess again within days.  So, today I will share with you how my freezer drawers have ended up looking like this:

My lower freezer drawer

My upper freezer drawer.

As per usual, when I am having an organising dilemma, I popped into Howard's Storage World.  I told the sales assistant what my issue was, and she suggested that I try these great containers, my receipt reads 'Mimi Wide Separator', and cost $9.95 each (they don't appear to be on the website.)

Thankfully, they fit perfectly (I hadn't measured before going to the shop).  They have been a really big part of solving my freezer problems!  You can see in the photo above that I have 2 of these side-by-side at the front of the drawer, and then I can also still easily fit tubs of ice-cream down the back of the lower drawer, plus ice bricks, frozen water bottles, roast meats, etc.

The dividers are just perfect for bread.  So, you can see that in this one I can fit 2 loaves of bread, plus there is room to fit my frozen pastry packets along the side, as well as frozen spinach slotting nicely in at the end.

The second one seemed to be storing bags of frozen goods, but was still not ideal, as I couldn't see what I had at a glance.  Things were still getting buried way down below.  So, I decided to pop back to Howards and see what freezer-safe containers I could find.

I had recently bought some of the Tupperware Antarctica containers for my freezer, but I couldn't see through the lids nor the containers to see what was inside, so I knew I needed to find something else.  BTW - it breaks my heart to admit that Tupperware didn't suit :(

Anyway, after a quick consultation with the sales assistant, I decided that Decor 'tellfresh' containers were going to be my best option.  So, I made my FIRST EVER purchase of a Decor container!  And I have been pleasantly surprised with them :)  I bought 3 x tall 1.75 litre containers, which fit perfectly side-by-side in the big freezer divider.  I love that I can look down through the lids and easily see what is inside.

I was so pleased with this, that I went onto the Decor website, which you can see here and found containers that would fit into the spaces I had in the top freezer drawer.  I found these rectangle 1 litre containers, which I can fit 4 of beside my ice box.  Again, I can see what is in them, plus they are microwave reheateable too.

I still have some Tupperware containers in there, which I will swap over once I use the food in them.

They also have a little labelling system, whereby you can write the contents and date onto these little plastic inserts and slide it on the side of the container for future reference.  Very cool!

Finally, the other side of my top drawer is where I store most of my meat.  I take my meat when I get home from grocery shopping and put it into snap lock bags (date and label them), and lie them flat in the freezer until they are frozen (so that they stay nice and slim) and then I add them to my vertical stack of meat.  Then I can easily flip through and see what I have when I do my meal planning each week.

I also have a little container pictured here with frozen muffins, cupcakes, etc, which are great to grab to add to our lunch boxes during the week.

So, that is my freezer!  Obviously, my solutions won't suit every freezer, but hopefully you can see the things that I considered and the items that have best helped me to stay nice and organised in the freezer.  I think having an organised freezer is so important, as it can save you so much money if you know exactly what you have and you use it before it gets lost somewhere down there :)