Being a family of 5 and sometimes 6 or 7 when my step children lived with us, we went through allot of food. The kitchen is definitely the main hub of the house and we all like to cook and eat. Therefore, we have two refrigerators. “Big Fridge” and “Little Fridge”. Big Fridge held all the main things, gallons of milk, all condiments, meats, cheeses, veggies. Little Fridge held beverages mostly and sometimes the oversized jars of pickles or the like, you know, Costco size jars.
One sleepless night a few weeks ago, I lay in bed, unable to sleep and I realize there is this constant hum of what sounded like an overworking appliance. Early the next morning I came downstairs to realize it was Little Fridge. It must have been running this hard for a long time. One because our electricity bill is HUGE and two, because it really is always overstuffed.
I immediately pulled everything out and shut off the power. Silence. I didn’t realize how noisy it’s always been. Then I realized I had to make room in Big Fridge for the surplus foods. OK, so this is to become my day’s project. Purging, cleaning, reorganizing for most of the morning and the Big Fridge is full but organized and Clean!
Funny thing is, we’re fine without Little Fridge, we don’t need the extra extravagant space. Unless we end up in a situation where we have money to burn, we really don’t need to have two appliances doing double duty. Explaining this to my family wasn’t easy, we all became attached to Little Fridge. But really it just made us lazy. We didn’t have to dig for something, nor eat up a left over before we opened up something new. At the end of a large meal, we’d just pop the large stock pot (now 1/4 full) into Little Fridge out of convenience and not transfer the food into a small container.
I’ll have to see the effect this has on our PG&E bill, I’m sure it will be noticeable, maybe not huge, but it’s a start.
