Watch Out, Costco: These 7 Stores Sell Cheaper Chest Freezers For Your Garage

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If you've got the space for one, a chest freezer can transform your grocery budget and your diet. Buying meats and produce in bulk can be significantly more affordable than typical purchase sizes, but most home freezers don't have the room to store multiple pounds of multiple items at once. With a chest freezer, you can plan meals weeks or months ahead and make the most long-term budget-conscious buys.

Costco is often a great place for such purchases, and it does offer several chest freezers at reasonable prices, with its cheapest being a Frigidaire 7.1 cubic feet convertible fridge/freezer for $289.99. However, chest freezers are one of those items where Costco may not actually have the best deal in town, depending on the size you need.

Like other retailers, Costco may occasionally run sales on chest freezers that make prices more competitive, but for this comparison, we used each item's full list price. And Costco competitors, BJ's Wholesale Club and Walmart, have comparable models for less, as do other major appliance retailers, like Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, and P.C. Richard & Son. They typically lack a refrigerator conversion ability, but this is a freezer comparison anyway.

Best Buy is a big-name appliance retailer with a range of chest freezers available, including an Insignia-brand model as affordable as $149.99. Part of that is that it's about half the size of Costco's Frigidaire model, but the same brand also sells a 7-cubic-foot freezer for $199.99, nearly $100 less than Costco's. And for many users, a refrigerator conversion ability may not be worth the extra cost.

Lowe's garage-ready chest freezers start with a 1.8 cubic foot model for $169.99, though there are even more affordable options in its range of portable freezers, a relatively unusual option. But if you're specifically in the market for a 7-cubic-foot model, Lowe's also has comparable convertible fridge/freezer models for less — though the specific Frigidaire sold by Costco is significantly more expensive at Lowe's.

Walmart's cheapest chest freezer is a 1.8-cubic-foot model for only $94.99, albeit with a significant $54.99 shipping fee. But it's still about half the cost of Costco's freezer, and Walmart also has a larger range of sizes, from tiny and casual to huge and professional-grade.

There are many options for stocking up on your favorite frozen snacks at Walmart. The chain even has a freezer that's 1.3 cubic feet bigger and $10 cheaper than Costco's most affordable option, making the latter difficult to consider.

As more of a department store than some of the other entries on this list, Target's chest freezer selection is on the smaller end of the scale, but it starts with a 3.5-cubic-foot freezer for $199.99, $80 less than Costco's most affordable option. However, if you need all 7 cubic feet, don't go to Target: its comparable model is more expensive than even Costco's price.

Home Depot has a vast range of chest freezers available, beginning with a tiny 1.8 cubic feet model for $188.99 at full price. In terms of size, there are many more comparable to Costco's Frigidaire freezer, though they tend to be more expensive.

But seemingly unlike Home Depot's selection, frozen food doesn't last forever — that's a frozen food myth that needs to die. Unless you have the large and/or long-term storage needs of a big-game hunter or restaurant owner, you probably don't need a 30-cubic-foot freezer.

P.C. Richard & Son may not be as recognizable as some of the stores on this list, but as a major retailer for over 100 years, it's clearly got worthwhile bargains at least here and there, including on chest freezers. Its most affordable entry is 5.1 cubic feet, which is relatively large for these stores' budget freezers, selling for $187.97 — over $100 less than Costco's 7-footer. But P.C. Richard also carries a 7-cubic-foot freezer for $221.97, still less than Costco.

Costco and BJ's Wholesale Club are very similar businesses; both are membership-based big box stores, making BJ's a direct competitor to Costco. BJ's most affordable chest freezer is a 7-cubic-foot model for $219.99, which really hits Costco where it hurts. And not only that, but BJ's doesn't actually require a membership to shop. A one-day shopping pass will cost you an extra 20% on the purchase price, or you could pick a $10 online membership, but either option would still be less expensive than Costco's Frigidaire model.