Choosing a tiny house fridge

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Choosing a Fridge for your Tiny dwelling

Food is an essential piece of our everyday lives, so it makes sense to put in a lot of thought into what type of fridge you want. Here are some things that helped our

family decide on a fridge for our moveable tiny house.

How much food do you need your fridge to fit? Do you prefer to do one large grocery run a week? Or do you like going every day? Or perhaps somewhere in between? Your shopping style will heavily affect the size of fridge you need. Another thing to consider is left overs. Do you like to prep and make meals for the week? You may want a larger fridge. Or are you more likely to make a meal and eat it with no left overs? Fridges take up a lot of space and in tiny dwellings that means you have to really think about what kind of daily routine you want to have with food before purchasing. 

Pros of a smaller fridge (Dorm room size) 

  • Utilize space in the kitchen for other things you value, such as a blender

  • Less energy consumption 

  • Easier to be off grid 

  • More trips to the grocery store means more time in the community 

  • Less likely to forget about leftovers and have food go bad 

Cons of a smaller fridge 

  • Little to no space for freezer food

  • Having meals made for the week won’t fit 

  • Less room for leftovers 

  • Have to be on top of your meal planning and think ahead 

Pros of a larger fridge (apartment or full size) 

  • Less trips to the store 

  • More opportunities for meal prep for longer stretches of time

  • More options for hosting get-togethers

  • Large freezer so can save money on products/ buy in bulk 

Cons of a larger fridge 

  • More energy consumption 

  • Could lead to food waste (can’t see everything)

  • Takes up a lot of space 

  • Harder to be off grid 


For our family we love having a large freezer, especially one that’s on the bottom to provide us with the most energy savings. We save a lot of money buying organic bulk frozen food, so for us the freezer gets a lot of use. We decided on the 9.2 cubic feet fridge because it was the middle ground. Not too big and not too small. We also like to cook all homemade meals, so having room to save leftovers was a must. We didn’t go with a standard size fridge because we enjoy going to the grocery store often and haven’t had issues with forgetting about food in the back because it’s not super deep. 

What size fridge works best for you? Run through your daily week and what your food routine is and imagine if you want that food routine to change or stay the same. 

Free Spirit Team Member

~Emily Gerde