There’s so much I love about my new (old) motor home. The wood floor in the kitchen. The wood paneling on all the walls. The plaid upholstery. And the super-cool, totally retro tinted sidelight next to the bathroom door.

But I’ll confess, I’m a little worried about my RV food storage space. In particular, the freezer. I have a smallish fridge with a mini freezer compartment on top. That’s it. And that’s gotta cover my needs for both me and my 90-pound dog Molly while we full-time RV.

I cook all my dog’s meals—which translates into 10 pounds of meat every week. I’m used to the deep freezer at home! In addition, I keep frozen veggies, frozen organ meats (again for Molly), frozen chicken broth and beef broth cubes (also for Molly) and the occasional frozen leftovers. And we haven’t even discussed the possibility of ice cream.

Soon after I bought the RV, I tested out a five-pound package of hamburger. Just fit inside the freezer. Not a heck of a lot of room for anything else, though. So I started looking at my options. Here’s what I found.

 

New RV Fridge

Lots of newer RVs have more spacious refrigerators—with more spacious freezer space. (Hmm … testament to popularity of easy frozen dinners?) That would have been my ideal—a brand new, two-door fridge and freezer model.

So I talked to the people at the RV stores. Here’s what I found out:

New Fridge: ………………………………………… $1,560

Cabinet remodel and installation: …………….$1,650

Total: …………. $3,210

Aside from the shocking price tag on the fridge, installation would have involved ripping out the old cabinetry around and above it. And at $110 per hour, that gets expensive. (Never knew RV repair people made such good money. Good for them.)

 

New RV Freezer

Okay, next plan. How about adding just a small RV freezer? The helpful RV guys flipped through their catalogs and found a really sweet unit that could function as either a freezer of a fridge. Best price I found?

Mini RV Freezer ……………………………………….$650

AC adaptor ……………………………………………… $ 70

Total: ……………..$720

The AC adapter was so I could plug the unit into one of my wall outlets … instead of plugging into the cigarette lighter and eating all my engine’s battery juice.

$720 was better. But still not good.

 

Appliance Store Mini Freezer

The ever-helpful RV people suggested I try the appliance stores. So I looked and called around. My ideal would have been a freezer about the size of a microwave that would fit just above my fridge. Otherwise, I had some space for a top-opening floor model.

Unfortunately, the microwave-sized freezer does not appear to exist. The best I found was super-cute and super-compact, but just barely too big. Plus the reviews on Amazon.com warned that it was poorly packaged and likely to arrive damaged. (Sob.)

Mini Front-Opening Freezer …………………………$150 – $250

What about top-opening floor models? By and large, the smallest floor models were still about 36 inches tall—way more storage space than I needed, and the sort of thing that would have dominated my RV living space. I can see my guests walking in: “Wow! Nice … freezer.”

Small Top-Opening Freezer …………………………..$170

 

Cooler and Dry Ice

Okay, I was getting desperate. But I was determined to explore all options. I already had a cooler, so …

Dry Ice ………………………………………………………..$1.00/lb

Variable, depending on the brand and how much you buy. Not bad—until you look at how much dry ice you need. A table at DryIceInfo.com suggested I would need 15 pounds of dry ice to keep 5 pounds of meat frozen for two days. Wow.

The stats at ContinentalCarbonic.com were a little friendlier. They noted that if you store your dry ice in the middle of your package, you can get by with a lot less. With this arrangement, six pounds of food would only require one pound of dry ice. If placing the dry ice in the middle doesn’t work, you can place it on the bottom and use 3 pounds.

And both these calculations assume that you’re merely shipping your frozen food … not that you’re keeping it in an insulated cooler.

 

Conclusion to RV Food Storage Dilemma

Be content with such things as you have … and get creative.

I grabbed a five-pound tray of chicken breasts, an egg carton, and a bunch of my storage containers and carried them all out to the camper. The chicken just fit in the freezer with enough room for two squatty storage containers on top and maybe a couple flattened-out bags of frozen veggies in front. Ideal? No. Workable? Maybe.

My strategy:

• Re-package bulky items (like meat on Styrofoam trays) into space-fitting plastic zip-top baggies (discard space-eating Styrofoam tray)
• Cook meat as soon as possible (meat can store in the fridge longer when it’s cooked than when it’s raw)
• In case of emergency, resort to dry ice

And as to the ice cream … I guess there’s DQ.