Monday, August 25, 2008

Frozen

Since last week, I did a roundup of current freezer prices and evaluated what we would use such an appliance for. We decided to go with the larger 7 foot model as I plan to keep different flours subject to spoilage and various nuts in there. Stock will be a staple freezer item as will bread, tomato sauce, and ice cream.

Based on my findings, we could get the cheapest 7 foot model at Leon's for $288. However, the brand name, Wood's, was not one either of us were familiar with. For an additional $11 a Frigidaire model at The Brick could be had for $299 and the same model was at Futureshop for $329.

So we went ahead and purchased the Frigidaire 7.2 cubic foot chest freezer from Futureshop even though it was more expensive.



Why go with the place that had the highest price? Here's where things get interesting. Futureshop offers a price match/beat on items advertised at competitors. They beat the price by 10% of the difference of the two items. So the Futureshop price becomes $296. It gets even better as I had $100 in gift cards in my wallet since Christmas that I used to bring the price down to $244 with tax.

When Trent over at The Simple Dollar purchased a freezer he went through an interesting analysis that looked at the total lifetime cost of the item to determine how much they need to save each month to make the purchase worthwhile. The calculation uses the average lifetime of a freezer of 8 years, factors in electricity usage, and the initial cost of the item. I went through this calculation as well for our purchase:

Initial Cost: $244

Electricity usage assuming the freezer will last 8 years it works to be a total of $279 KwH/year x 8 years x 14.45 cents/KwH = $322.52

Monthly Cost = $566.52 / 8 / 12 = $5.90 per month*

What this means is that we need to save more than $5.90 each month through use of the freezer to have made the purchase a worthwhile one. If we eat out one less time a month as a result of having something in the freezer we can re-heat, then the freezer will more than pay for itself. This does not seem an unreasonable scenario and I look forward to creating delicious food I can quickly and easily reheat.

There may be an additional cost associated with transporting the freezer. We can have Futureshop deliver it for $50 or rent a van from U-haul for about $30 taxes included. We will also explore the possibility of using our landlord's truck for free.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for doing the freezer expose, even if it wasn't because of my request (although a man can dream, can't he?). Lots of different factors to consider, and you've been fairly exhaustive in your analysis, but there's something I thought you might go into greater detail about.

You do mention that by freezing leftovers from cooking large amounts of food in advance, you can save the moolah. However, looking at the pic of your fridge freezer, the bulk (or at least half) of the foodstuffs occupying the current freezable space is frozen stuff purchased from the store.

Do you think you'll be buying larger quantities of pre-frozen foods if deals should appear, or will the current volume likely remain constant? Be sure to follow-up on the initial results in a couple o' months.

/I got the idea when I realized the refrigerator was cold

JG said...

You make an excellent point Schaef. This is something I never really thought about. I suspect that we will be purchasing a higher portion of pre-frozen items. This is because there are many things Pam eats that we simply don't have room for. For reference, here is a list of items we came up with that we would be using the freezer for:
ice cream
fudgesicles
frozen corn, spinach, broccoli, and other veggies
cooked beans and rice
assorted meats
bread
fruit
canned concentrate juices
quiche
pizza dough
chicken nuggets
fries
hash browns
perogies
hot dogs
breakfast buritos
home made pizza pockets
nuts
certain flours
water bottles
home made vegetable stock
soups
sauces

I think there is a good mix there of home made items and pre-frozen. While that amounts to additional grocery costs, I think that the savings from not eating out, will make up for it.

Anonymous said...

Have them chuck in delivery for free as part of the sale... else walk out. Then you could try again with a different supervisor or just buy it anyways.... doesnt' hurt to ask, they delivered my TV for free

JG said...

We ended up getting the loan of our landlord's truck and delivered to the apartment that way.