Freezer hoarding

What's with this- my husband won't let me- rubbish; 1'm so glad I live alone and do as I please. I pick a multitude of blackberries every year and can easily fill two shelves in my freezer - enough to last the whole year until next picking season so I really need to get another small chest freezer for the garage for overspill. I give half away as I love picking them more than eating! In another compartment I keep frozen veg, chips, fish, sausages, stuff on offer etc. but I don't eat a lot of meat. The last one has stuff I have cooked and frozen portions of . That leaves very little room for ice cream/desserts etc. I also make loads of my own juices when I'm trying to lose weight so I really must get that other freezer soon....and that's for one person.

Tomatoes, aubergine s, cauliflower, broccoli, fennel, pumpkin,apricots,blackcurrants, raspberries, peaches, plums, greengages, cherries, mostly from our gardens. Packet s of Herby tomato sauce and spicy tomato sauce, all homemade plus other veggie and fruity prepared stuff, loads of veggie soups. Emergency bread. Pastry cases, stock, gravies, pesto, egg whites, ice cream, mostly homemade. Lots of meats and fish bought when on offer or 'garden sheep' from a neighbour. Prepared main meals and puddings. Crumble mix. Garlic butter for snails from snail farm in the garden. Puff pastry. Wines in small containers for cooking.

Just the two of us. I have a chest freezer, an American fridge and a fridge freezer in the gite. They are all full to bursting and overflow is in friend's freezer.

I just love this way of life, growing,gathering and processing and cooking. So different from before. It means we eat extremely well throughout the winter and I can always rustle up a meal for friends, or take something to theirs.

I already have garden lamb leg and shoulder, cauliflower puree, canapes, spicy pumpkin soup, some cheese, raspberries for a tart in freezer for New Year's Eve dinner for 14. Carrots, potatoes, brocolli and parsnips will come in from the garden that morning. Sauces/preserves in fridge. chocolate mousse on the day. Guests bringing cheeses and wines, oh and homemade cassis, framboise and limoncello

Only Need to buy bread and cream. Sorted.

You are not a hoarder. In the 70's my husband compared my shoe collection to Imelda Marcos. I had 5 pair. Sometimes men just get something in their head - who knows why?

Don't you have a say in the matter if your freezer (or two/three) is switched on?
You are an adult and an EQUAL partnership in the marriage. Please don't feel you have to do as your H says as he sounds far too controlling. The days of a husband ruling the roost and a wife meekly obeying have long gone.
Switch that spare freezer on and fill it...

Just a thought. Is he worried about the running costs of a freezer. These days, they are very economical to run, and if you have something stored in the freezer, it saves getting out the car (petrol costs + general wear and tear) plus the cost of whatever it is you go out to buy...?It's a win win, this forward planning, saves a lot of money!

Well said SLUTTYGRAN. I wholeheartedly agree. A woman after my own heart.

Oh dear - the phrase ‘DH won’t let me’ made my blood run cold! I used to have one of those, he wouldn’t let me have control of anything in the house, or my own money, the food I ate, or the clothes I wore.
Maybe that’s a subject for a different thread, but if it starts with a freezer, where could it lead?
Now, very happily alone, I have my little freezer full of all the treats I went without for years. Prawns, ice cream, chicken fillets, and I hoard all I want to - mmmmm!
Time to start thinking of lunch!

I think your husband is being a bit irrational about this. I don"t see how having food in the freezer as anything other than practical common sense. Apart from enabling you to plan ahead with your daily meals and menus, it's also useful in bad wintry weather when you might not be able to get out as easily. I would switch it on if it was me, even if it meant a bit of confrontation. Then cook him some really boring things till he gets fed up of them. More ways than one to skin a cat!!

sorry my point was maybe he just needs to feel he has still got control over something...my OH is semi retired and although he keeps busy sometimes he's prowling looking for things to do.Hence going shopping, something he's never done in almost 43 years

Right! After reading through these comments I need a freezer clear out

It used to be considered a virtue to have stocks of food put by. Families starved in the winter if a woman was too feckless to preserve fruit, cure bacon, dry herbs, and store pulses and grains, apples and potatoes and vegetables for the months when nothing was available.

Now if you do the same thing you are called a hoarder! It is al of a piece with the way shopscut down on inventory and do last-minute ordering for their stocks and expect wholesellers to deliver at the drop of a hat. The wholesellers are doing the same thing to manufacturers so everyone is rushing about fulfilling urgent orders.

The result is that whenever there is a transport crisis or the roads are snow-blocked, the shops soon have empty shelves. That makes hoarders virtuous again - they can feed their hungry neighbours if necessary. The fable of the ant and the butterfly has a lot of truth.

Ignore anyone who says you shouldn't have a full freezer. They are butterflis. Three cheers for the ants (and for the bees who store honey when they can, for when they can't)!

I agree, Charlie girl. Sounds a bit controlling to me.

Typical male comment! I get accused of being a hoarder but I totally ignore it. When DH wants something I am always able to put my hands on it...if I wasn't a "hoarder" as he puts it, he wouldn't have everything to hand. God forbid that I would let him do the shopping!! I have a 4 drawer freezer with all the "quick" foods and vegetables that I have blanched. The shed houses another 4 drawer freezer with all the homemade foods I have cooked and an emergency loaf of bread. I have just purchased a table top fridge which fits neatly into my cupboard and I keep all the drinks in it, so that I have room in the large fridge for daily perishables. Everything is dated and used in order. Its about managing day to day living without the stress! If I left this to my husband we would be throwing away food, or indeed having none at all!!

There are huge advantages with living alone. I have a substantial fridge freezer and an average size chest freezer. Here is only me but both are well used. I cook when I feel like it, I bake too, and also keep frozen chips uncooked meats and fish. No one ever complained that I hoard. I used to live 20 miles from the nearest decent sized supermarket, but I now have at least 3 within a five minute drive and still use both freezers. I could cope with several weeks of being snowed in and not starve. Don't be bullied by your DH or anyone else. You are an adult person after all.

My freezer does not hold much and I wouldn't mind a small extra one and I live alone (and am definitely not a hoarder).
Hoarding is an anxiety disorder and whether you are one depends on how you feel if anyone tries to throw away some of the food, eg. because it had been there too long. Apart from the annoyance that anyone would feel if someone tried to manage them, would you feel real heightened anxiety? If you filled the small freezer would you want more space? Have you had a previous problem with collecting anything besides food? Do you have problems generally getting rid of things? How would you feel if you were asked to do something other than your usual shopping trip for food?
Hoarding can be relatively mild to an extreme where it becomes a social disorder. My cousin is a hoarder but he and his wife manage to keep it to the living room and the spare bedroom. The kitchen is spotless. It is the way they choose to live and I have learned not to say that I would like to buy something unless I am prepared to spend the next 5 hours relentlessly hunting for it however many times I say that I am not that bothered.
If you are a hoarder, someone trying to take control of that will just make the anxiety worse and he needs to be made to understand that. No one should have the right to tell you that you can't switch on a freezer and eke out permission.

Definitely doesn't sound like hoarding to me.

I wish I had the room to have a drawer freezer or more freezer space, as I only have a half and half fridge freezer with the freezer being slightly smaller. I think you can really see what you have in those drawers much better.

Recently I needed to change my fridge freezer as it was frosting up. The new styles are ridiculously small with their curved edges so I actually get much less in them now. This was a real problem as no room to store all the garden produce.

In my mind it is common sense to be able to stock your freezer up, whether this is garden produce, home cooking or reduced products in store.

Your husband must be living in the ICE AGE ...

Oh Stansgran - you're doing fine. He just needs to be a bit more flexible.

Carry on Stansgran - no need for self-doubt. I have three drawers full of vegetables, ready-meals, fish, sausages, runner-beans from the summer etc. Plus three drawers in my DH's fridge-freezer (same kitchen - he just likes to keep his snacks separate as he can never find them in the main fridge).

I'm the same as cornergran a tiny freezer below the fridge . Not even 3 full drawers as the bottom one is half depth. No room for anything much really . Peas, a loaf, ice cream, cornettos ( DGD1's favourite treat) a couple of portions of bolognese, fish fingers and it's just about full . Don't have the room for anything bigger. Miss my huge one in previous house .

What is the point of having it empty indeed?
This is a disturbing picture and only Stansgran can tell,us if there are any mitigating circumstances.
The contents you quote stansgran sound eminently practical to me and when there are just the two of you batch cooking/baking makes excellent sense, so I cannot imagine what he is thinking of. I also keep enough in the way of ingredients (eg mince, sliced onions) to knock up a quick shepherds pie or lasagne if I know someone is coming, and I keep a small sliced loaf, a bag of oven chips and some sausages as back up. A boned chicken or a small whole one if reduced or on offer is another standby.
I had to smile though as DD1 has just defrosted and cleaned out my (big) fridge jettisoning vast quantities of (frankly) disposable stuff. She cast longing eyes on my identical freezer- they match and stand side by side to give the equivalent of one of those American monsters - but I defended it saying that I needed to live off my hump for a while as my circumstances will be quite severely “stretched” living on my own pension alone. Remarks about enough to withstand a nuclear Winter were IGNORED.

Ask your DH what was the point of spending all that money on a freezer only to have it standing empty!! He comes across as a bit controlling, whether he is or is not.

I forgot rhe leg of lamb!

paddyann add snacks and drinks
Is that for you? (four DGC all at the same time ) you may need and chocolate!

Both good for you now, apparently, as long as it's red wine and dark chocolate.

Well, if DH made me turn off the freezer(s) I would make him do the meal planning, food shopping and all the cooking (and the washing up too).

He does keep hinting that the freezer in the garage is superfluous to requirements but I tell him that, in that case, he will have to dig up all his fruit bushes.

I think I'd probably bop him over the head with the proverbial frozen leg of lamb
Always an essential item to keep in the freezer

The phrase "Dh won't let me turn it on" left me

My thoughts exactly phoenix. If my DH ever tried telling me I wasn't allowed to turn on a freezer, I think I'd probably bop him over the head with the proverbial frozen leg of lamb.