Declutter Freezer {15 Minute Mission}

Today's mission is to declutter your freezer, or if you have more than one freezer in your home, each of your freezers.


Depending on the size of your freezer(s) and how much food you have stored in them, this may take you more than 15 minutes, but if so, make sure to work on it in 15 minute segments.

This mission is designed to be done while working through the Refrigerator & Freezer Organization Challenge here on the site.

Doing this mission, while it may take you some time, is simple.

Choose one freezer at a time, and if needed, work on only one shelf or drawer at a time, or one freezer box at a time, if you've got a chest freezer for example, and begin looking at each item to get rid of any old or questionable food.

If you haven't been labeling your food with a date and what it is this may be a bit frustrating for you, but hopefully from now on you'll begin to label things so you can know with more certainty how long it has been in there.

Assuming there have been no power outages which caused your food to unfreeze and then refreeze (which would make the food unsafe to eat) frozen food doesn't go "bad" typically. However, after a certain amount of time frozen food can taste "freezer burnt" and not taste very good.

To help you decide when frozen food is past its prime and should be discarded from your freezer I've created a printable freezer storage times cheat sheet you can use.

Go ahead and print out your cheat sheet (which you can then place either in your household notebook, or close to your freezer for later reference) and familiarize yourself with it before you begin this mission, because you don't want any food you have frozen, but want to keep, to get too warm and reach an unsafe temperature while you work.

If you feel like during this mission you'd also like to clean and/or defrost your freezer that is perfectly fine, although again, that will take more than 15 minutes. But if you want to do that also make sure you've got coolers or other freezers ready to hold any food you want to stay frozen so that it doesn't reach an unsafe temperature.

The final tip for doing this mission is that, depending on the amount of food you decide to toss from your freezer, it may make sense to do this mission the day before or the day of your trash pick up for your home. That way this food does not sit in your trash too long and start to get gross.

To get you inspired to tackle this mission in your own home below I've shown before and after photos from readers who've already done this mission. It really does make a big difference in your kitchen, or wherever else you keep your freezers.

It will also help you know what you actually have available to eat so you end up eating the food you've bough before it goes bad in the future, which is a great use of resources and saves you money!

Top photo courtesy of a reader, Holly, and before and after photos from another reader, Missy

Waited Until Trash Day To Clear Out Freezer

Crystal from Crystal's Ramblings shared her before and after pictures.

She was smart and waited to throw out her food on trash day. Good idea Crystal, because then the old food doesn't sit there getting yucky before it gets taken away!

Here's another reader, Brandy's, before and after photos. She explained that before this mission that her freezer was a place where she'd shove food in "and hope nothing falls out later!" Now she has "a bin for meats on the bottom, with room for more and then ice tray and packs next to it on the top. I have room for fries and extra boxes/bags of food, with a bin to hold the kids ice pops and small ice packs for lunches, and then a bin for frozen veggies. Hopefully the next shopping trip will result in everything having a spot, but would really love to have a deep freezer though."

Trashed Quite A Bit Of Old Food!

Ferris from The Hamman Family Blog shared her before and after pics from this challenge, shown above.

She stated, "Armed with a bucket of soapy water and a bunch of towels I dug right in... I took everything out. Anything that was past its use by date... TRASH! Reorganized. It looks so nice now! I felt instantly better."

As you can see from the picture of the trash bag of freezer food she got rid of quite a bit of old food.

That's completely awesome because it really made everything left in the freezer much easier to find.

Here's another before and after photo, this one from another reader, Cathy, who also got rid of a lot of older food.

Threw Out Everything Out Of Date & Made An Inventory

Bec from 2012 - The Year Of Challenges shared her before and after pictures when she took this week's challenge.

She explained: I took everything out, threw out anything out of date . . . cleaned out the shelves and then put everything back in.

Whilst I put it back in I wrote an inventory. I wrote in in pencil and put it in a plastic sleeve and stuck it on the fridge around the side (so it's out of sight).

I'm not sure if it looks any neater but it has organisation!"

If you don't want to start an inventory form scratch I've created a free printable freezer inventory form you can use for this organizational task. It's actually the declutter mission for tomorrow anyway! ;)

Once you've decluttered this area of your home make sure to check out these ideas for how to organize your freezer to bring some order to what's left, so you can find everything easily and know what you've got to eat before it gets too old.

Finally, just a bit more inspiration for you. Here's another set of before and after photo from a reader, Barbara who also did this mission.

Want To Do More Decluttering Missions? Get Started With Declutter 365 Today!

Once you declutter one type of item in your home I bet you'll want to declutter some more. After all, decluttering gives you a great reward for even a small investment of time and energy.

The Declutter 365 system is designed to help you declutter, over the course of a year, your entire house, with just 15 minutes of decluttering each day!

Hundreds of thousands of people use this proven system to get rid of their clutter, and bring peace and calm back to their homes.

Declutter 365 works to guide you to clear the clutter without overwhelm, focusing on just one small area at a time, and without making a huge mess in the process, so you see consistent forward progress without all that "messy middle" that makes it even harder to function in your home than before you started.

In addition to building a daily decluttering habit, the Declutter 365 program, along with the accompanying 52 Week Organized Home Challenge, teaches you the skills, habits, routines, and mindsets necessary to maintain the clutter free and organized state of your home from now on, so it'll never be as messy and cluttered as it is right now, ever again.

If you haven't already, make sure to get your copy of this year's Declutter 365 annual calendar here (it's FREE!), find today's date, and do 15 minutes of decluttering on the day's mission. Then, repeat again tomorrow, and again and again. Over the course of the next year, if you do this 15 minutes per day, you'll declutter your whole house!

Get This Pantry & Food Decluttering Checklist + 32 Other Decluttering Checklists For Your Home

Right now you're decluttering your pantry and other food storage areas, and there's a lot of stuff to declutter in this space.

Get your 1 page pantry and food decluttering checklist, plus 32 other decluttering checklists, to help you declutter your entire home here.

I've done the hard work of breaking down these tasks into smaller more manageable steps for you, so you don't get overwhelmed or worry you're forgetting a task, and you can go at the pace you want, whether that's fast or slow.

In addition, you can tackle these decluttering tasks in whatever order you want when you use these checklists!

Related Pages You May Enjoy

Getting Clutter Free 15 Minutes At A Time Hall Of Fame

Getting Rid Of Food & Pantry Clutter Hall Of Fame

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