Our back up refrigerator went out earlier this week. Because we use it a lot during harvest time and butchering time, which is now, it is really bad not to have the extra fridge/freezer combo. Since it went out after we had butchered 28 chickens, but before we cut up and froze the meat, it was a somewhat urgent situation. Not totally urgent because the meat was in ice and water in coolers, but that is only good for so long.

We priced new low end fridges and the best price we could find on one of those was $479 plus $42.63 in sales tax. That was way more than we wanted to spend. We went to an estate clearance place because they had a fridge for $159, but it smelled like freezer burn, which in my mind makes me think it will cause serious freezer burn. Plus it was ancient. Not all was lost there, though, because I did find a double boiler for $16.95. I have been looking high and low for one for my salve making and haven't been able to find one and didn't want to buy the expensive ones on Amazon.

We also went to a place that refurbishes used fridges, but they do a ten day testing period and while they had a half dozen fridges, they were all 1 to 3 days into the testing period.

The place that clearances previous model years were all over $500. There were quite a few on Craigslist, some for $200, some for new prices even though they were used. Most of them did not have the right dimensions for the space, though.

Finally we went to the Habitat for Humanity resale store and they had several fridges in working condition. Only two met our dimensions and one of those the freezer part was way too small. So that narrowed it down to one off-white side by side that was perfect for our needs. Grand total spent: $75. Well under what we wanted to spend and helped to support a good charity.

It works great, too. It may not be pretty, but a back up fridge in the laundry room does not have to be. And it's not ugly. It's just not pretty. I am really happy we found it. I would really not have been happy to have to have bought 2 brand new refrigerators in the space of 12 months.

It also does have the hook ups to have filtered water in the door. Obviously we can't do that here, but we might be able to do that in the future after we move. It's an option, anyway. I am very happy with what we managed to find with a lot of legwork and some outside the box thinking.