It will be a long time before I'll be able to eat another hamburger

Remember that I said we were going to use our economic stimulus check to buy a 1/4 of a cow from a local farm that specializes in hormone-free grass-fed beef? I was so excited to tell you about the great deal we got on this and how we found a freezer to store it in for a steal off of Craigslist.

However, that was not to be.

Oh, we bought the meat alright--all $614 worth of it. And we bought the freezer, too. We were thrilled with the whole experience and were looking forward to lots of great hamburgers and roasts and steaks over the next number of months.

We didn't get a chance to eat any before we went on vacation, but I couldn't wait to get back and get cooking. I had visions of all these various dishes I could make and all the great grilling we could do. Since we've cut back on our meat consumption for years in an effort to keep our grocery budget low, this high-quality meat was going to be a real treat.

We arrived home from our week-long excursion to Arkansas refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to get back to real-life. As we were unpacking our bags, I went to throw something into the recycle bin in the garage.

I noticed a somewhat-strange smell when I opened the garage door and went to investigate.

You guessed what it was... our whole entire freezer full of meat was off and completely thawed! Not only that but it was room temperature and wreaked of spoiling meat!

Apparently, it rained while we were gone and the electric outlet our freezer was plugged into was shut off as a safety mechanism. (We didn't know that our garage outlet did this or we sure as ever wouldn't have hooked our freezer full of meat up to it!)

Gratefully, since we had just purchased the freezer, it wasn't also full of other things, too. Had it been a few weeks later, I very likely could have had it full to the brim with food in addition to the meat. It was still quite a big disappointment, though, not to mention being disgusting.

I'll spare you the details, but let's just say it will be a very long time before I'll be able to eat another hamburger again. So much for our bright idea of buying meat in bulk.

Note: It looks like we're going to be able to recoup about $140 from our renter's insurance, but since our deductible is $500, that's all the recourse we've been able to drum up. Oh well, at least it was our economic stimulus check and not money we'd worked hard to set aside for this purchase.

Comments

[Cherilyn]

Crystal, I am so sorry to hear about this. It's incredible that you can be so optimistic about it though. God bless you guys!

[jan]

Oh I am so sorry! I was so excited for you getting to buy the cow! Things will work out.

[Cindy]

Oh no! How disappointing! And I know what one package of rotten meat smells like... I can only imagine what a whole freezer-full smells like.

[The Frugal Momma]

What a bummer, especially since the insurance won't help to get it all back. I'd consider lowering the deductible. It's just as bad when you realize that you had your son get something out of the freezer in the basement & he didn't push the door all the way closed, ewwww. Thankfully, that time the freezer was almost empty because I was going to defrost it.

[A Classic Tale]

How horrible. I am so sorry. We had the same issue but our freezer was full of wild huckleberries, raspberries and blueberries. They didn't cost anything as we picked them ourselves but rather tons of picking hours lost. But cleaning up spoiled berries sounds better than to spoiled meat!!!! yuck!

[Krista]

My heart goes out to you! I know how much you were looking forward to enjoying the beef.

[Sherry]

Ugh! I'm so sorry, Crystal. Praying that you might be able to get some more money back and replace what was lost.

[Jessica]

Have you checked on the warrantee from your freezer? Some warantees give you money back for spoiled foods if the freezer stops working.

[Alisha]

Booooooooooo...Wow, that stinks! What a terrible thing to come home to. I wanted you to know that I am adoring you from afar over here imagining all that you must have had to go through the last few days. You are precious.

[Sheila]

I am in tears myself today. I went into the garage and low and beyond the door on the freezer was left open. I am thinking my 3 year old went out there and well...she's 3. I keep telling myself "God never gives us more than we can handle". You're in my thoughts today. {{hugs}}

[Kristina]

This happened to a friend of mine but luckily, they discovered it when the meat was still cool -- completely thawed but cool. She ended up having to fry up all of her hamburger to refreeze and cutting up and canning all of the roasts and steaks! They were so sick about it!

[Heidi]

That stinks, literally and figuratively!

[Erica]

I am so sorry that this happened to you! Our freezer door was left open for some reason and I had hundreds of oz. of frozen breastmilk in there and I was totally freaking out.

[Heidi @ Today's Daily Dose]

I'm so sorry to hear about that! And ewww!

Just wanted to mention that you might want to think through the insurance claim. Sometimes your insurance goes up so much that it wasn't worth it to make a claim. Of course, renter's insurance is pretty cheap, but...you might want to check it out anyway.

[Hannelore]

Oh, my goodness! That's awful. I'm so sorry! On the bright side, I once heard of someone who had a freezer full of prepared meals and her teenage daughter left the freezer open and ruined them all! At least you hadn't made anything with the meat. God will provide in another way.

[Kelly]

OH MY GOSH!! This has happened to me before! I feel your pain! Completely stocked freezer-- gone! :o(

[Amber (BGH)]

OH NO!!! I'm cringing and bummed out for you - all that meat! How disappointing!

[Sarah]

Yep! This happened to my sister. She and her Hubby bought half a cow and even helped take care of her before she was butchered. Then a hurricane hit and they lost power for days. Thankfully, they caught it in time and threw a HUGE block party using their gas grill. Guess what was on the menu...BEEF!

[Emily]

See if anyone in your area feeds their dogs raw food. You can probably find a Yahoo group of locals who do this.

Depending on how spoiled the meat is, somebody there might be willing (even overjoyed!) to take it off your hands. Dog stomachs are far more acidic than humans', so they are able to digest spoiled meat without getting sick. (That's why they can bury stuff and dig it up later and eat it.)

On the raw feeding Yahoo group in my area, people are always looking for situations like this to get lots of meat that isn't fit for human consumption, but is still safe for their dogs.

Just a thought to prevent being wasteful and to get rid of the meat easily.

[Carrie]

Oh, MAN! This is just so frustrating. I'm so sorry to hear it.

I've also been contemplating buying a deep freeze and have been worried about power outages. What with midwestern thunderstorms and snowstorms and very old infrastructure in our area, they seem to happen pretty regularly.

[Marsha]

This happened to me years ago, although not with as much expensive food in the freezer. Now whenever we're going to be gone more than a day or two, I have a trusted neighbor and friend check the house for me--the freezer being one thing on the list. She also collects the mail so I don't have to stop it. A few years ago, she discovered that our hot water heater had burst and had the mess cleaned up and a new one installed before we got home from vacation. What a great friend! And of course I keep an eye on her house when she's gone.

[Danielle]

Boy does that stink!, in more ways than one. I am soo sorry that happened to you!

[Ruby]

Crystal,
First of all, I am very sorry this happened to you. This triggered a question, though, and I'm interested in your take on it. Your ins deductible is $500, but you are only getting $140 from them. Why does it make good financial sense to report it then? It seems to me you are out another $360 doing this. I have always thought if the deductible-even auto ins-was higher than the claim, it didn't make sense to do it. Thanks in advance for your input!

***************
Money Saving Mom here: Out another $360? No, I must have not explained myself clearly. We are reporting $640 as a loss ($614 for the meat, and the rest was for bread, blueberries, and cheese I had in there--all great deals that I'm so sad to lose! Oh well!). We are "paying" for the initial $500 and our insurance is reimbursing us for the loss over $500. So instead of losing $640, we're only losing $500 and getting reimbursed for $140 of it. Make sense? Plus, we've maxed out our deductible so if anything else happens while we're renting this year, they will cover it entirely.

Getting reimbursed $140 is definitely worth something in my book and was worth a few phonecalls to get. Plus, our insurance agent has promised us this won't in anyway affect our rates. This is why you have insurance, after all!

Hope that makes more sense!

[Jennifer]

I can totally relate, unfortunately. Our dog attempted to get something off the top of our freezer in our garage last spring and caught the electrical cord in the process and unplugged the freezer in our garage. My husband and kids are big hunters so we had it full of venison, fish, and then a boat load of blueberries from a friend who owns a blueberry farm. We also had some ducks, geese, and fish waiting to be brought to the taxidermist. It stunk SO bad. I am guessing it had been unplugged for about 6 days from when we remembered finding the mess of everything being pulled off the top of the freezer by the dog. GRRR!

[Shannon]

Oh no!!! I am so sorry this happened to you! You have such a great attitude about it, I could learn a lot from you! Here's hoping you get some kind of windfall to balance this all out.

[Tina]

This has happened to me too, but fortunately we caught the freezer in time, and it had only been a few hours and we were able to save everything, and alos able to purge out the old. What disturbs me a bit, is the price you paid for 1/4 beef? I know you indicated you bought hormone-free, etc, but that is alot for a 1/4 beef. We usually raise most of our own pork and poultry, or by local, and butcher ourselves, but we do usually buy beef, and have never paid more than $700 for a 1/2 beef, including all the processing and wrapping.

[Karen]

I've never commented before but I enjoy your blog so much.

I am heartbroken for you on the loss of your meat. What a mess, on top of the financial pain it caused.

One reason I like your blog is that your positive attitude shines through, even during hard times like this. Keep up the good work!

[DeDe]

I am SO SORRY!!!!!!!!!! I feel so bad for you! :(

hugs!

[Michelle]

I'm so sorry! That's awful!!!!

[Martha]

I'm not sure I would've even thought to file a claim. I once came home from a business trip and lightning had gotten my phone and TV. It was right after that that I got renter's insurance and have had it ever since. I am soooooo sorry you had to come home from vacation to this. So sad. :(

[Melodie]

This didn't happen to me. It was someone I knew. A hurricane hit the area, and after caring for her own property damage, my friend decided to check the home of a vacationing friend. Not too much damage, but she didn't expect what she saw when she went into the kitchen. The freezer was moving. Literally. It was covered with maggots inside and out because of all the spoiled meat inside. Cleaning up that kind of mess for a friend is what I would call real sacrificial love!

[Jess]

oh no that's horrible! I'm so sorry that happened!

[Lauren]

How awful! I have learned so much about frugal grocery shopping from your blog, and I have been contemplating getting a freezer but I am afraid of the same thing happening- losing power and losing all the food. You seem so calm in the face of such a thing happening... I would be through the roof!
I'm sure in some way you will recoup this loss... things always seem to happen that way.

[Courtney]

I am not sure where you live but you might look into a Meat CSA. You don't have to worry about having so much meat in your freezer so you don't incur such a loss.

Sorry for this to happen to you.

[The Diaper Diaries]

Wow, what a huge bummer. I am so sorry that happened. Hopefully you aren't ruined from meat forever :)

[Tara]

I'm so sorry that happened. Just remember all the fun you had last week as a family on vacation. Maybe that will ease some the trouble you are having now.

We bought a 1/4 cow a few months ago and we live in NW Florida about 30 from the Gulf of Mexico. I can't tell you how concerned I have been since hurricane season started. I don't normally worry about that, but with a freezer full of meat and food I am nervous of our power being out for a week (typical outage for us if hit). Hopefully we could borrow my FIL's generator.

[Patti]

Crystal, I am sorry, too, to read about this! We have lost power from ice storms and lost the freezer contents (not rotten, though) so I kinda know how you feel. Even though it is heartbreaking, with your skills and positive attitude, you will have that freezer filled again in no time.

One thing I have done is to put cleaned milk cartons filled with water (which freeze)between my foods so that if the power goes off, we have a little more help to keep the food cold. We take these ice filled cartons in our cooler when camping or going on a picnic -they provide both ice and fresh water. You can freeze smaller bottles of water,too - great for school or work lunches. And it helps save energy as your freezer works best when it is full.

[Rachel]

I am so sorry Crystal! How heart breaking! I'll be praying for you!

[Katie]

We just had this happen to us too. Except we had two freezers that went out and both full of organic meat, organic milk, and organic berries. It was about $2000 worth of food. A very sad day!

[Tasha Via]

That is so sad=( I can't imagine how I'd feel after finding that in my garage!

[CC]

I got back from vacation last week only to discover I had accidentally turned off our fridge and freezer too! I was trying to save money by using the circuit breaker to turn off most of the house. But I guess I went overboard. Had to throw away all the meat in our freezer too (luckily though we didn't have a cow inside!!).

[Iva]

Oh no! I'm sorry this happened to you.

[Brandy McClarin]

What an unfortunate turn of events! I know we've had similar situations at our house during hurricane season (we're in Tampa)when the power goes out. I think it's fantastic, though, that you can remain optimistic and say at least it was the stimulus check......best of luck next time!!!

[Natalie]

I can completly sympathize with you! Our freezer somehow came unplugged from the wall while we were on vacation. The freezer had been plugged into that wall for over a year so we have no idea how it came unplugged! We lost everything in our freezer too!

[Sheri]

I'm very sorry that happened! I was so excited to have just got a large freezer for my garage. I'm rethinking it's location now.

[Amy]

Ughhhh! Nothing worse than bad meat, except cleaning up said meat. Gag.

My first job out of college was on a cattle farm where a perk was all the free meat you wanted from their freezer. Now imagine that you are the first woman to ever peek in said freezer and that it has been 'maintained' by a bunch of single cowboys and is kept in a barn with iffy power supply. Not so much of a perk after all.

[grnmtngirl]

Crystal,

Just wanted to share our condolences. On the bright side we'll look forward to reading lots more innovative vegetarian recipes from you this year.

Smiles!

[Erin]

I'm sorry to hear about that! I know how much meat that really is since my mom orders her meat in bulk as well. Unfortunately I'm not sure how great of a deal you got paying over $600 as my mom pays $400 for 1/4 cow at a meat market in our area.

[Margaret]

Ooooh no!! What a disaster! I'm so sorry to hear that!

When I was a teen we had a similar thing happen, although the it was a fridge/freezer and had less food in it. But there was *fish* in there. Yuck!

[cherie]

Oh no - I am SO sorry! That is just heartbreaking - sigh.

And having to clean it all up too - AUGH!

That's a double whammy!