This is post #3 in the Frugal Food: Freezer series. Be sure to check out post #1 “Frugal Food: Foods You Can’t Freeze” and post #2 “Frugal Foods: How to Package Food for the Freezer“.
While storing food longer than the times listed in the guide below won’t affect food safety it will affect taste, nutrients and texture of the foods so it’s recommended that you label all foods in your freezer with the name of the item and the date it was placed into the freezer.
I personally prefer and upright style freezer as it’s easier to organize and find things and there’s less chance that items will get buried at the bottom of the freezer never to been seen for years. Remember, it’s not frugal to freeze food if you leave it in there so long that’s inedible!
| Fruits and Vegetables | 1 year |
|---|---|
| Butter, salted | 1 year |
| Butter, unsalted | 3 months |
| Cheese | 3months |
| Milk | up to 6 weeks |
| Margarine | 6 months |
| Egg, whites | 3 months |
| Egg, yolks mixed with 1/2tsp salt per yolk | 3 months |
| Fish, uncooked | 2 months |
| Shellfish | 2 to 4 months |
| Beef, uncooked, roast | 6 to 12 months |
| Beef, uncooked, steak | 6 to 12 months |
| Beef, uncooked, ground | 3 months |
| Lamb, uncooked | 6 to 9 months |
| Pork, uncooked, roast or chops | 3 to 6 months |
| Poultry, uncooked, pieces | 6 months |
| Poultry, uncooked, whole | 1 year |
| Beans, Lentils or Rice, cooked | 3 to 6 months |
| Casseroles | 3 months |
| Cooked meats | 2 months |
| Soups and Stews | 4 months |
| Breads, yeast, baked or unbaked | 8 months |
| Cakes, Cookies, Sweet Breads, Muffins | 4 months |
| Pastry Crust, unbaked | 2 months |
Over the next few weeks 
The Brita pitcher is something we’ve used in my home for years. Instead of buying cases of bottled water we use the Brita water filtration pitcher to filter tap water for drinking water. This saves us money (we estimate over $200 in yearly savings over buying bottled water) and it means a lot fewer plastic bottles that need to be recycled or worse, that would end up in a landfill.
Last and certainly not least is the Bissell Little Green carpet and upholstery cleaner. The Bissell Little Green is made with PVC free tanks and hose, parts manufactured from 100% post consumer recycled materials and the carton contains a minimum of 75% recycled materials. The cleaning formulas contain no heavy metals or optical brighteners and are phosphate and dye free.
I’m pretty excited. This will be my first trip to SXSW interactive after watching the twitter stream jealously the last two years. I’ve been reading assorted posts and guides on how to make the most out of my week in Austin. I’ve been trying to maintain a flexible schedule while still making plans to meet with friends, colleagues and sponsors. I think I will need more hours in a day to just meet everyone in person that I want to meet. It truly will be like my twitter stream is coming to life. I’ll finally get to meet, in person, all of the amazing friends I’ve gotten to know over the past two years on twitter.
I realize that many people are used to only seeing the quarter face avatar I use all over the web and don’t really know what I look like so I’ve posted some recent photos of myself here.
