Product Review: Reynolds Handi Vac

Ok, if there is one thing frugal people do, it's freeze things!

I love to buy stuff on sale and freeze it for later use. I love freezing leftovers and surplus garden produce. I love whipping out my farmers market fresh blueberries in the depths of winter when blueberries are $4 a cup at Wegmans!

I used to have a Vacuum sealer (one of those long ones with the plastic rolls) You would think I would love it! Well I did not. It was messy to use, there was a lot of wasted plastic, and it was a pain to operate. It's a good thing It was free from someone because I tossed it.

Last week at Garden Club the Reynolds Handi-Vac came up in conversation. No one had tried it. A lot of people were wondering about it. The very next day, I got a request to review it. Bingo!

I have to say, I LOVE this thing!!! It came with 3 bags to start. I sealed a steak in one and used 2 bags for diced apples. It was very easy to use, not messy at all, and used far less plastic than the old type sealer. The seal is tight!! It was so tight actually that I needed to back off a little on the apples because I could see it was squeezing some of the juice right out of the apples. (I got the hang of it after a minute.)

I checked at the store. It was $9.99! Compared to whatever that old one was (I know they were A LOT more than $9.99) that is a bargain! (even if you don't compare it, I still think it's pretty reasonable and it comes with the batteries!) Bags were a bit pricier than regular freezer bags. (about $0.22 for the quart size and $.33 for the gallon) this is about double the price. It says not to re-use them. (which I don't for any meat based product anyway) but I don't see how there would be any harm in re-using the fruit and veggie ones.

I already bought another box of bags today at the store anticipating Thanksgiving leftovers.