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Restocking Our Fridge For Less

As many of you know, hurricane Irene was a total jerk to our neck of the woods. Not only did it knock trees into nearby homes, cars, poles, and roads, it also took the power out for a nice long time. Three days for us. But that was nothing compared to some other areas of our neighborhood (where it was out for over seven days), and other parts of Richmond (which didn’t get it back for close to two weeks). There was even a contest for the last person to get their power back on a local website.

Irene Tree On Powerlines

So yes, three power-less days were annoying, but it could have been waaay worse. The only thing it really ended up affecting was our fridge. Yup, everything spoiled. So we lost every last container of salad dressing and mustard and soy sauce and cream cheese and every other item that you take for granted because you don’t usually buy them all at once (you know, you tend to amass them over time so you’re not met with the harsh reality that you just spent $200 on condiments). Yikes.

So yup, this is a post about the state of our fridge. Because it’s house related and save-a-buck related and just something I wanted to blather on about. I actually get a surprising amount of requests for couponing updates (and you’ll see how those tie in momentarily). The good news is that we didn’t lose everything. There were some items in the fridge that didn’t absolutely need to be cold to survive, like:

  • various containers of berries and other fruit
  • some veggies
  • sandwich wraps
  • wheat flatbread
  • garlic
  • soda
  • chocolate

So during our day-three clean out when the power came back on we were able to pull them out alive. But everything else had to go.

Fridge Before

The weirdest casualty was a container of biscuits that actually popped open on its own from the lack of refrigeration. It was very Twilight Zone.

Fridge Busted Pillsbury Rol

Melted ice cream sammies = sad ice-cream loving hubby. Especially because they weren’t just melted, they were curdled and rank. So no amount of refreezing was gonna save them.

Fridge Melted Cookie

But let’s rewind. Before the hurricane we saw a tip on TV about freezing ziplock bags of water so you could transfer them from your freezer to your fridge to keep things colder (much like a giant cooler) to hopefully save food if the power is out for an extended amount of time. Wellllll, that was a bust. We diligently filled five or six ziplock bags with water (leaving enough unfilled space for them to expand, as directed) and placed them in the freezer. We didn’t immediately want to transfer them over when we lost power around 4pm (didn’t want to open the fridge/freezer just yet), so we went to bed in our interior rooms (explained here) while the hurricane continued to loiter over our fair city for another eight hours and decided to make the switch in the morning.

Kitchen Bed

I don’t know what went wrong, but by morning there was a big old wet spot in front of the freezer. You can even see the towel shoved next to the fridge in the picture above. The bags that were supposed to be ice that we could transfer to the fridge had already melted completely and were now leaking out of the fridge and onto the floor. Booo! At least two of them inexplicably punctured themselves or something during the freezing and unfreezing process (although we left lots of room for them to expand when frozen). So looking back, we wish we had never seen that tip since it made for a mess that we wouldn’t have even had to deal with had we skipped it. Oh well, it was worth a try. And it might work better for someone who could transfer them faster (when they were still ice) although I wonder if they would melt and drip out of the fridge side instead of the freezer side in that case. Hmm. Maybe our fridge just doesn’t hold cold air as well as others do, so ice melts quickly and doesn’t really make much of a difference in a power-outage situation.

There was one rescue mission that went on about 15 hours into the blackout though. In order to stop the leaking situation we realized we had to toss open the doors to the freezer and grab those bags of water and toss them into the sink (to keep them from continuing to leak/drip)…

Fridge Melted Ice Bag

… so although it’s totally not ideal to open any fridge doors without power (keep that cold air in, baby!) we knew we had to get in there for a sec. So we figured while we were at it we should probably quickly reach in to save a few things on the fridge side by packing a cooler and bringing them to Grammy and Tom Tom’s house (where they miraculously never lost power at all, and sweetly offered up half a shelf of their fridge). In hyper-speed, before slamming the doors shut we grabbed:

  • 12 organic yogurt cups
  • organic whole milk (Clara’s) and organic skim milk (ours)
  • a pack o’ cheese sticks
  • a package of strawberries and blueberries
  • 2 laughing cow cheese wheels

All of those items made sense since Clara eats/drinks them a lot so we would have had to rebuy them right away if we didn’t save them… except for the laughing cow cheese. I have no idea why I panicked and grabbed that. Total auto-pilot grab-the-dairy madness. But at least we saved a few things (which would probably have set us back about $30 if we had to rebuy it all).

So when the power came back on during day three (I heard angels singing) we gave everything a little bit of time to firm back up thanks to the cold and bravely opened the doors. Yuck. It was staaaanky in there. So we held our breath and walked things directly out to the garbage pail outside (which stunk to high heaven until the trash truck came a few days later). But we were able to save the few items that I mentioned in my first little list o’ bullets since they didn’t need cold air to not spoil (we just kept them in the fridge for added lifespan or because we didn’t have a breadbox, etc). But everything else was done-zo. Even the bagged salad was slimy and gross. And the giant tub of yogurt. I can’t talk about that. Scarred for life. Note: after snapping this picture we realized we could compost/recycle some of the stuff in the trash so out it came and into our compost/recycle bins it went (must have been in shock from the smell at first and couldn’t think straight).

Fridge Trash Can

It was about this time that we realized just how much stuff we would have to rebuy. Boo.

Fridge Empty With Clara

But John was smart about it. As we tossed things he suggested that we write them down, so we ended up with a shopping list to remind us of all the take-for-granted, perpetually-stocked stuff that we’d probably completely forget to rebuy until we reached for it and didn’t find it (like ketchup, salad dressing, hummus, syrup, butter, etc).

Fridge Johns List

It was handy to see all the stuff that we needed to rebuy but also kind of a buzz kill in that how-much-is-this-gonna-cost-us way. Then I decided it could become a fun little self-imposed coupon challenge since I seem to have hit a plateau with my couponing adventures (I can save around $40-55 on a big shopping trip, but can’t seem to get past that since we buy a lot of produce/organic stuff and refuse to buy stuff just because we have a coupon for it if we don’t actually need it just to see the “you saved X amount” number go higher on the receipt). But I started thinking… maybe all these common household items that we only buy occasionally could be the coupon jackpot?

There are a heckova lot more coupons for ketchup, mayo, and salad dressing than organic ground turkey and kale, so I figured that my challenge would be this: to try to save as much as possible by hunting down coupons for as many of those items as I could. Of course this big coupon idea set me back a few days while John kept saying “we need to go shopping, woman” and I kept saying “give me time to hunt coupons, man” and we just ate stuff from the pantry like pasta and cereal along with the few things we saved by bringing them to Grammy’s house (yogurt, milk, fruit, etc). Sure I had a little stockpile of coupons already laying around from before Irene, but this was before I knew my entire fridge would get wiped out (so none of them were for staples that we already had and later lost).

Coupons Pack And List

Then we went to the beach for the weekend so that bought me a bit more time (I reasoned with John that going shopping for a big haul before leaving town for a holiday weekend might not be that smart). But even on our mini beach vacay I bought the Sunday paper and got a few coupon inserts from John’s mom after she clipped her own stuff and went online to all of the coupon sites that I occasionally peruse (you can read more about those here in this initial couponing post from a while back).

When I got back home I printed and clipped to my heart’s content and even digitally loaded my Kroger card with virtual coupons that I could use when they scanned it at the store (more on that here). So when we finally hit The K-rogue (that’s how $herdog says Kroger), I was armed and dangerous coupon-riddled. Note: I have no idea why it took me over a week to get my act together and write this post up. Maybe it’s the same defect that made me inexplicably grab the laughing cow cheese?

Fridge Coupons

Happily, we came home with a ton of stuff (we didn’t even have enough reusable bags for all of it!)…

Fridge Grocery Bags On Floo

It actually felt pretty good. The fridge went from almost completely empty to looks-like-normal-full for $257.40. It’s definitely not nothing. And if you watch those pro coupon shows (where they get 1K worth of food for three dollars) it’s downright sad. But we actually expected it to be a lot worse I think. Some of our normal grocery shopping trips can top $200 when we’re running pretty low on stuff (we usually go every two weeks or so, to avoid impulse buys that can add up when you go more frequently). And we were almost starting from zero this time (we had filled almost an entire trash can with spoiled food), so we expected that we’d have to buy a lot more than usual (and spend a lot more than usual too).

The only sad thing. I still only saved $47.51.

Fridge Receipt Totals

Can’t a girl catch a break and save over fifty five bucks for once, K-rogue? Oh well, $47.51 is still money saved. And it definitely would have hurt more to see a total that started with a three at the register (it was originally over $300 but thanks to the coupons it came down near $250). And there’s always next time. At least the fridge is full again and my wraps won’t go hummus-less while my salads go dressing-less. And the fridge itself has never looked cleaner. We scrubbed that baby to the bone when she was empty.

Of course I got a few catalinas at the checkout (not all ones that I’ll actually use, but we’re definitely suckers for yogurt, so…). The cycle continues.

Fridge Catalinas

And you know we love a good after picture or two, so behold… the freshly stocked fridge:

Fridge After Far

Fridge After Close Alt

Fridge After Shelf 2 Yogurt

Fridge After Shelf 1 Hummus

Fridge After Door Shelves

All in all, it was a nice little fridge makeover. Now I’m off to call my insurance company because someone mentioned that some of them might reimburse you for food that spoils in natural disasters like hurricanes. That would be pretty nice. Update: just realized our deductible is much higher than $250, so never mind.

Fridge After Close

Anyone else doing any fridge cleaning or restocking? Or hitting a coupon plateau? Better yet, have you broken through it and ache to tell me your secrets? Please do.

Psst- Check out this initial post all about couponing for specific deets about how I save money/use coupons – and check out a ton of awesome tips in the comment section while you’re at it. I’m totally JV but there are lots of varsity couponers out there.

Psssst- We announced this week’s giveaway winners. Click here to see if you’re one of them.

Comments

  1. jenn says

    Living on the Gulf (or pretty darn close), I have lived through some pretty bad hurricanes.

    For future reference – though hopefully you won’t need it – I have learned to bag items BEFOREHAND. Bag items you want to save to take in a cooler on your way out of town or to take to a friend with electricity. Bag everything else so that you can take it out quickly without as much mess. It also slightly contains the smell.

    Much easier to clean up.

    Reply

  2. Bella Daylight says

    Hello,
    so first of all: Oh dear good I totally forgot to account that your groceries may have gotten spoiled so that reaally sucks :( lots of money wasted. :( so sorry for you guys.

    Secondly: You don’t have to keep Ketchup in the Fridge. It says that on the packaging but you really don’t. I always buy Heinz Ketchup which you also have in america I think and it never spoiled outside the fridge. I have a bottle here that’s been open for like 2 months ( I don’t eat all that much ketchup) and is still fine. Besides it’s not just heinz ketchup. Every brand I ever bought was like this. Okay this might be the longest I ever talked about ketchup. Sorry for that haha Sometimes I just start rambling…

    Thirdly:
    I am really jealous that you can save 47!!! Dollars on Groceries. I am more than happy if I can save like 5 bucks when I go grocery shopping for 70 Euros (I think that’s about 7 dollars saved for a 95 dollar purchase). I do have to admit that I never buy groceries for 200 bucks though. I only have one shelf in our communal fridge and 1 box in the freezer so not that much space. But there aren’t very many coupons here. Though my 2 closest supermarkets usually have one waregroup cheaper on weekends or wednesdays like 25 percent off. This weekend it’S organic food. MAN am I looking forward to that because like you I pay a lot of attention to what I buy and where it comes from. E.g. most fruit and Vegetables are imported from like spain or greece or italy or sometimes even South Africa or hold you breath: NEW SEALAND. I do buy things from Italy if very necessary Spain or Greece. But NEW SEALAND??? That is 27 hours by flight from where I live. WHO WOULD BUY THAT? I am shocked and appaled by that.
    The problem with the cheaper ware groups is just that it often is something I don’t really have any use for like Idk meat or whine because I am a vegetarian and I don’t really drink. The problem is just that groceries are very expensive here. Especially fruit and veggies which really sucks. So I think if I had to rebuy everything you lost it would have been like at least 350 Euros probably (477 dollars I tipped that into a machine so that’S why it’S such a weird sum)

    Reply

  3. Lauren says

    I spy with my little eye…coca cola and whipped cream! This is such a releif because whenever I’m at the grocery store (or anywhere for that matter – Value Village, Home Sense, garage sales, etc) I find myself thinking: “What would John and Sherry buy?” Surely they don’t drink diet coke I tell myself, they’re inspirational organic health nuts. I even found myself stocking up on – and LOVING – a bunch of Mrs. Myers cleaning products because little Miss. Sherry says she loves it. But truth be told you are still humans who slip up and sip on Coke from time-to-time rather than green tea, while sucking back your whipped cream. Phew! Love you guys! :)

    Reply

  4. Lori says

    Just realized we have the same frig. lol. I actually didn’t notice until the pic with adorable Ms. Clara. Here’s hoping you are able to save more than $50 one day!

    Reply

  7. Jen says

    I just wanted to say that some insurance companies cover the grocery losses incurred during an event like Irene, you may want to check into it.

    Reply

  8. Courtney says

    I didn’t read through all the comments but just in case someone else didn’t mention it I wanted to let you know.

    Sometimes the insurance covers your food spoilage WITHOUT a deductible. My insurance company does up to $500.00 without one. So you would totally be covered in that case.

    Reply

  9. angel says

    It’s probably been mentioned in the 100’s of comments but just in case…

    Mambosprouts.com is awesome for healthier coupons!

    Kale chips are amazing! There are recipes all over the web.

    Also, we make hummus (not kidding) 4-5 times a week. Super duper easy. Our 4 year old knows the basic recipe by heart and we add all sorts of things to it: roasted red pepper, salsa, jalapenos, spices, etc. Food processor- garbanzo beans, tahini paste, garlic, lemon, salt- YUM!

    Reply

  11. Jill says

    I didn’t read through all 407 comments (gasp!) so I apologize if this has already been said. Buuuuutttt, have you thought about trying a different grocery store besides Kroger? Or go to more than one store? Surely yall have a Harris Teeter up there? They do super doubles and triples, yo!!! That’s where it is at, my homey. (Not sure why I just went all gangsta on this comment… maybe it was $herdog references?)

    Reply

  12. Melanie says

    OMG, you’re hillarious! Your posts are laugh out loud – tinkle in your pants funny. So cute. I love your fridge. We’ve kept our tiny, inherited, ugly almond coloured fridge because we love that it’s small. We’ve had to live on a very tight grocery budget ($100/week for a family of four making as much from scratch as possible) and I absolutely love seeing our fridge empty out by Friday. Maybe it makes me feel a little less consumer-y or something, but I LOVE the challenge of using what you have and buying what you need.

    Reply

  13. Bonny says

    Instead of using ziploc bags as icecubes, use old milk jugs full of water… that way you won’t have a huge leak… works best though if you have a deep freeze to keep them in. We use them as icepacks also when we go camping, and as long as the jugs were cleaned and sanitized before filling you also have fresh cold drinking water to use while camping (we go into the bush alot, so this is handy!)

    Reply

  14. Cara says

    I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong with the bags of water in the freezer strategy. I live in Central Florida, so we prepare for hurricanes alot and even if we don’t get hit, we often lose power from the wind and rain. (Its an old town with lots of oak trees and above ground power lines.) We have used that trick quite successfully for years… Now I’m worried about whether our new side by side fridge/freezer will be a problem.

    Reply

  16. Alli says

    Hey Just an FYI incase power goes out again or fridge breaks down (hoping neither happen) Organic milk typically does not need to be refrigerated because it is processed differently from nonorganic milk, which is also why it lasts longer. This is how it is sold in Europe, American typically don’t like the idea of buying unrefrigerated milk… but in a pinch with limited shelf space its something to consider

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=experts-organic-milk-lasts-longer

    =)

    Reply

  17. NatalieM. says

    Some one might have already said this but I over heard in a mom’s group that their home owners insurance kicked back some money to them for they lost in their fridge. No questions asked.

    Reply

  18. Heather S says

    Okay, my comment is on a different note, seeing the pillsbury explosion made me think…Save the Box Tops for Education. Even though Clara isn’t in school yet, you can clip them and send them or drop them off at the school. It’s amazing just how much the schools can earn from boxtops. (they are on more that just food too, like ziplocks, tissues, etc.)

    Reply

  19. Jill Overholt says

    Just for future reference, add syrup to your list of foods that does not have to be refrigerated-it’s just sugar and water.

    Reply

  20. Brittany says

    Wow. Your fride looks beautiful! As someone who went through hurricane Katrina, we weren’t allowed access to our homes for a few months…so our fridge clean-out was slighly different. Most people just dragged the whole thing out to the street and prayed it wouldn’t pop open and spill hazardous waste on the way out the door. I’m sure it was a hassle, but you ended up pretty lucky in the long run.

    Reply

  23. Shelly says

    I there…I giggled when I read about your refrigerated dough explosion. I am a food scientist and wanted to let you know after the tubes are filled they are allowed to proof in a warmer room to allow for expansion before moved into a cooler to stop the proofing (expansion)…well when they get warm the proofing continues! (Just think of it like yeast in home-made bread.)

    Reply

  24. Amy says

    Hi Sherry!
    Love your blog btw. We just got a new fridge and can totally understand your excitement about re-stocking. They are the best shopping trips, tho they are exy, they still can be super exciting. I live in Aus so Irene didn’t head this way tho I hope you and all ur fam are safe. Oh and Australia doesn’t hav a coupon system, well not a good one anyway, scandal I know! Wish they would implement one here. Thanks again, u guys are fab!

    Reply

  26. Crystal Corona says

    I am sure someone said this.. but your freezer shouldn’t have thawed that fast. I am in Virginia and I lost power for almost 18 hours and my freezer was open once to take a few things out to a safe place (my cousins house near by) and when I came back I came back to a still frozen freezer. I left some ice in the tray to see if it would melt. I also left a few things I didn’t mind loosing like an almost empty bin of ice cream too and it stayed fully frozen too. I also learned from my neighbor on my way out that fridge freezers should stay frozen for up to 24 hours. BUT mine isn’t a side by side. Maybe that makes a difference. That stinks about your loss though. Nice try on the couponing too. LOVE YOU GUYS!

    Reply

  28. Emily says

    Couponong seems only to work if you buy what i call processed or packaged foods. I never buy frozen meals, or salad dressings, etc. If you buy mainly on the edge of the grocery store seems you can really only find sales, not coupons. Thoughts?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I find coupons for organic eggs and milk! And even things like fresh edamame and pistachios! Sometimes you have to look a little harder or sign up on people’s sites/mailing lists though.

      xo,
      s

    • Kristin says

      Couponing always seems to be associated with unhealthy foods but I found that couponing helps me save money so I can afford to buy the more healthy foods that I might not normally get. Lately, since I have a one year old that I wish I could spend all my time with and work full time, I mainly only coupon for things like bath/cleaning products and staples like pasta (there are so many coupons for whole grain pasta) peanut butter, bread and other basic staples. Most of these items I can get for so low a price that I don’t have to be stingy about buying full priced healthy items. And it’s true there are a lot of coupons for things that are healthy. You don’t have to just buy pop tarts to be a couponer.
      You should be totally proud of that savings! Good Job.

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw thanks Kristin! I love that attitude! I bet we buy more organic produce and stuff because we’re able to get those staples for less as well. Smart way to look at it!

      xo,
      s

  30. Nicole Marie says

    I don’t know if anyone mentioned this yet, but I just heard some sucky news – Kroger will no longer be allowing doubling and tripling of coupons. I knew once all the extreme couponing shows came out, it was just a matter of time before grocery stores wised up. I’m so sad about it too! Kroger is my store!

    Reply

  33. Jill says

    Have you ever thought about making your own hummus? A can of chickpeas, fresh garlic, lemon and tahini paste are a lot cheaper than the pre-made stuff. Not to mention it’s preservative free!

    Reply

  34. Rachel says

    On a kitchen related note, I am about to toss my pots and pans because they are lined with something to make them non-stick and that something is now coming off and leaking into my food! Eek! I remember you once made a post about buying new pots–what kind are they and are they still holding up? Thanks!

    Reply

  35. Christyn says

    Sorry to see all of that yummy food in the garbage! If you are willing to entertain the ice thing again, you might want to try using empty plastic juice/water containers. They don’t pop holes and leak all over. I also find them nice to pop in the cooler when I make a run to the grocery store in the sweltering heat of the summer! And they come in a variety of sizes!

    Reply

  37. erin says

    It’s funny you saved the Laughing Cow cheese. that stuff doesn’t need to be refrigerated, my grocery store sells it off the shelf, room temperature.

    I’m from chi-town, and although we don’t get hurricanes but we had THREE nasty storms that knocked out power all over Chicago THREE times. I even had two free days off of work due to no power. so we are used to it here. likely I live in a town that buried our power lines in the 50s when they developed the town. the surrounding towns are older and don’t have that. it took weeks for some towns to have power only to have another storm knock it out again!!

    Reply

  38. Heather says

    I dont know if you did this already, but did you send in that list of lost food items/value $ to your insurance company? Your insurance may take care of it. Ours does (USAA) and a few others (from friends who have had hurricane losses when I lived in FL) should, too. Something to check into.

    Reply

  40. Erica in SF says

    Probably someone mentioned this, but some electric companies will reimburse you for food lost from an outage. Ours does. Also we stock our freezer with large plastic water bottles (reuse old ones and don’t fill em up all the way.) Holds up better than plastic bags and you could use it for anything in an emergency. Course we don’t get many hurricanes out west…you’ve even had more earthquakes than we lately!

    Reply

  41. Lindsay says

    When my husband and I were living in DC for a year, our power went out for two days and we lost everything…except what fit into our big ice chest, which we proceeded to fill with snow. :) Thanks for sharing the link to the coupon sites again also.

    Reply

  42. Allison says

    Love your website! Not sure if someone already told you but you don’t need to refrigerate ketchup and mustard. That’s why restaurants will leave them on the table.

    Reply

  43. KarenH. says

    I offer a suggestion to tweak the ziploc baggie of frozen water trick. Do that, but place the baggies in a plastic tub or dutch oven or someyhing else that will contain the water if the bags leak. And just count on them to keep your freezer stuff cold.

    Reply

  44. leen says

    Love your website! I have gotten many ideas from it. I saw that you buy Horizon milk, and i used to also. But, I typed it in google one day to see if I could find a coupon. Well sometimes google auto fills and they had one that said Horizon Milk Scam, so of course I had to read it. Well from what I read they basically said that it wasn’t really organic and Horizon is owned by Deans food which is apparently not the greatest comapany. After reading some of the articles I was really ticked off that I was feeding my daughter something that I thought was good for her. I just thought I would let you know:)

    Reply

  45. Nicole says

    This is probably weird, but there are two cans with red tops on the door of your fridge that look like whipped cream… is that what those are? That’s a lot of whipped cream. :)

    Reply

  49. Annette says

    In Germany, Couponing is nowhere close to what it is in the States.
    We mostly have reward programs, some only for one story, some spanning a couple of stores. Some of them will give out extra-point coupons for certain stores.

    Just this week we bought a (for us) rather expensive table and a bench for our dining room and we we’re lucky to do this (by accident) at a time where a 10x reward-points coupon was active. That gave us 10% rebate (which is a lot, the regular rewards program will give you 1%). So yey!

    Reply

  50. Cristina says

    Watching your bin, a question came to my mind:
    which system do you have in Us for garbage? don’t you have separate collection of rubbish? (paper, plastic, glass etc)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We actually noted that after we took that picture we realized some of that stuff could be composted/recycled (must have been in shock from the smell at first and couldn’t think straight- haha). In our county you don’t have to separate recylables, so glass/paper/plastic/metal/cardboard all go into the same bin. Then there’s the regular garbage full of non-recyclables, and some folks choose to compost too (we have a bin out back that we made).

      xo,
      s

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