Freezer Inventory and Use-By Tracker

Who this is for

Know what is in the freezer without emptying it. Each drawer or shelf gets its rows: what the item is, how many portions, when it went in and the use-by date you chose, with days in the freezer and days left counted for you.

Anyone who has found an unlabelled tub at the back of a drawer, households that batch cook or buy in bulk, and people with a chest freezer in the garage they rarely open.

What this helps you track

• What is in each drawer or shelf, and how many portions of it
• When each item was frozen and the use-by date you set for it
• How long each item has been in and how many days it has left
• Items already past their use-by and items coming up within your own window
• What has been taken out, ticked off rather than crossed out

How to use it

1. Write the freezer's name or location, the number of drawers or shelves and the date of the stocktake.
2. Decide how many days' warning you want before a use-by date and enter it as your warning window.
3. Work through one drawer at a time, writing each item, its portions, the date it was frozen and the use-by date from its label or your own judgement.
4. Days in, days left and the past and due-soon flags are worked out in the browser and the workbook; on paper, count on from the stocktake date.
5. When something comes out, tick the used column rather than crossing the row out, so the flags stop counting it.
6. Plan the week's meals from the items flagged as due soon, and redo the stocktake whenever the sheet stops matching the drawers.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Where do the use-by dates come from?

From you. Write the date on the packet, or the date you decide on for home-frozen food. The sheet supplies no storage times, because they depend on the food, how it was packed and the freezer itself.

What is the warning window?

A number of days you choose. Any item still in the freezer whose use-by falls within that many days of today is flagged as due soon, so the summary shows what to eat first.

Why keep used items on the sheet?

Ticking used takes the item out of the past and due-soon counts while keeping a record of what you actually ate. Over a few stocktakes that shows what tends to sit in the freezer too long.

Can I use it for more than one freezer?

Use one sheet per freezer, with the name or location in the header, or put the freezer's initial in the drawer column. The browser version saves in your own browser, so you can keep a copy for each.