Decommissioning the Freezer

Remember this post  about purging the freezer last year? (Yeah, same photo). I went to sleep last night or woke up this morning thinking that we probably don't really need the extra freezer space that much. At least not enough to justify the extra space in the garage AND the cost to keep it running.

Now that I'm looking at the photo from last year when I cleaned it out, I'm really embarrassed to say that a LOT of the same things were still in there. Let me just tell you what wasn't in there and you'll get the idea. The butter, parm and 2 of the containers on the door were not in there. Everything else you see on the door was (the berries had been used up or pitched from last year and we did bag up our crop from this summer-hopefully we'll use them)

In the main part of the freezer, the hot dogs, ham, pierogies and the bags of frozen homemade pasta sauce were used. Also that yellow bag of something was probably eaten. Everything else was still in the freezer today. I pitched it all. Yikes!

Aside from the 50 lbs. of grass-fed ground beef that we stored for about 6 months, this freezer is not worth the cost. I'll make room in my kitchen freezer.

I will give you an update as to the energy savings-if there is one. If I regret this decision, I feel fine about finding a new, smaller, more efficient appliance.

The Perils of Decluttering- Another Camcorder Update

I purged my camcorder a while back because the door was broken and I didn't feel like investing the time, money and energy to get it fixed. A few months later, Mark asked about it. OOps, but he was ok with my explanation (see above). I think I purged it sometime in the early spring of 2010.

I was sorting through a file box where I keep some important papers, household receipts, insurance policies and apparently, warranties. Can you tell where I'm going with this?

It turns out, I likely wouldn't have had to pay anything to have the camera repaired since it was still under the extended warranty that I bought with it. I wasted $50.00 on a warranty that I could have used and didn't. I probably could have even gotten a refund (prorated) for the unused warranty but didn't discover it until the warranty had expired.

When I think about it, I still wouldn't have wanted to spend the time and energy to fix the camera but I would have and most likely would have tried to sell the camera afterward. Those tapes are cumbersome and now that the kids are older, I really don't video tape that much. Most phones, ipods and Mark's ipad has video capability so I'm only regretting my error a little.

What's the lesson? Declutter so you know what you have. Would I rather have never remembered I had purchased an extended warranty? Maybe, but I think I learned something.

Have a good weekend.