DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My husband has a charcoal grill, a gas grill, and a Traeger, so we do a lot of outdoor cooking all year round, one of the best things about living in Southern California.

My husband is always finding new preps and recipes for the meals he cooks, especially on the Traeger. To save money by buying bigger cuts of meat and cutting them down and freezing them, last year we bought a 3.5 cubic ft. deep freezer. It is now completely packed, and instead of working through what we already have, my husband told me he has started pricing 25 or 30 cubic ft. freezer models.

We can barely fit the small one we have in the kitchen, and he said not to worry because we could put the big one in the spare bedroom, since nobody much uses it. That way, we would have two deep freezers and save a lot of money on meat.

I shut him down first because it’s an expense we do not have to make because we could just go through what we already have, and second because those big freezers just gross me out. I think about those tv shows, movies, and true crime stories where someone cuts a murder victim up and stuffs them in a freezer. Not to mention we would use a third of the space in our spare room, which does get used when his family and my family come to visit.

My husband said that even with having the cuts of meat we have in the smaller freezer, we could get an even bigger, better variety of meat if we had a bigger freezer.

I see a serious flaw in my husband’s thinking here, don’t you? --- NO MORE FROZEN MEAT

DEAR NO MORE FROZEN MEAT: When I was a kid, my parents had one of those giant freezers in the basement. I, like you, found it a bit creepy.

I also remember my parents discovering food way at the bottom of it years after they’d purchased, frozen, and forgotten what they’d picked up with the good intention of buying large to save over time.

I agree with you completely that it’d be a less expensive strategy in the long run to work through what you already have on hand and then restock when appropriate.

Otherwise, your husband may find his more extensive purchases are liable to fall victim to the “out of sight, out of mind” rule my parents experienced. It’s easy enough to have happen.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My nephew works at our local hospital’s thrift store.

I think it’s fantastic local individuals and organizations donate things to the store that supports our community directly, which is what the hospital’s shop does both in re-giving some things and selling others to help fund the volunteer program services at the hospital itself.

I was talking to my nephew on the phone and he was telling me about some of the things people donate. Most of it is still useful and ready to be put on the sales floor or given to those in the community in need. Sadly, some of the donations are in less than good condition, or just plain inappropriate.

Here are a few of the things he told me came in while he is at work: baby clothing with poop and puke, live ammunition, a box with a dried out mouse body mixed in, sex toys, expired food, opened toiletries, sheets and clothes with tears and stains in them. That’s just what he thought of from the top of his head.

I don’t usually donate items I can sell at a yard sale or at our annual church bazaar, but it made me think about the kinds of people who dump their trash at thrift stores rather than in the bin. Why don’t people use a little thinking before they “donate” their stuff? --- GROSSED OUT

DEAR GROSSED OUT: While there may be malice in what a handful of people consider a joke at the expense of those working at the thrift store, I’m guessing many of the less savory donations likely come from people handling estates, downsizing, or moving, and the donors are either overwhelmed and simply don’t bother to go through what they’re getting rid of, or they’re not willing or able to make the necessary efforts of cleaning up what gets dropped off.

The upside is that at least the majority of what’s being brought into where your nephew works is making its way back into the community to be of use to someone new, while the retail sales benefit both the hospital and offset the cost of running the store.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My mother-in-law has had to be tough. She was widowed at an early age, right before my husband was born. She ended up taking over the IT business my father-in-law was starting up with two of his college friends when they decided it was too precarious and the two men went back to their old jobs. She not only made it work, but it became one of the top ten IT companies in the state, and won multiple government contracts, which have been renewed year after year.

It has always made sense to me why she has had to be tough and focused. What is hard to deal with sometimes is how she keeps that same attitude going even in her personal life.

Since our daughter was born, she seems to tell me more and more often how best to raise her, just like she told me how I should run my house when we first moved into it.

She does sometimes give me really good advice without any kind of judgments, but that does not happen too often.

When she is tough, she is really tough, and it intimidates me, which I don’t like and don’t think I deserve

I get she has had to be tough, but why extend that to her family life? --- NOT OFTEN WARM AND FUZZY

DEAR NOT OFTEN WARM AND FUZZY: Some people are more adept than others at adapting their behavior to their circumstances.

In the case of your mother-in-law, she may not particularly realize she isn’t making a distinction between her private and business lives, and therefore acts on the notion — correct or not — that what helped her succeed in one part of her world, will work universally.

There are times when the best way to deal with a difficult personality is to accept that’s who they are and learn not to take it personally. You acknowledged she faced and triumphed over tough challenges. In her case the way she decided to deal with them was to be tougher than they were.

This isn’t to say you don’t have a right and an obligation to yourself to push back at least a little when she comes on too strong, by reminding her that just like she’s in charge of her business, so too are you your own boss when it comes to your family and your home.