Trader Joe's 19-Cent Hack To Keep Groceries Cold On The Trip Home

Of all Trader Joe's best products of 2024, one underrated yet highly useful item went unmentioned — a frozen water bottle. One might wonder how such a simple and common commodity could be worthy of a special shout-out. However, as essential as water is to the human body, this stuff isn't meant for drinking (at least not for a while). Instead, rather ingeniously, Trader Joe's frozen water bottles can be placed in the same bag as your perishable groceries to keep them nice and cold as you make your way home.

This life-saving hack is a game changer for those who live far away from their nearest Trader Joe's location. It's also extra useful on those hot summer days when it seems like anything removed from the freezer melts within seconds. Best of all, the grocery chain's 19-cent frozen water bottles take the cake as one of the cheapest items the store offers, coming out to the same price as its famously affordable single bananas. The bottles can even dip below the cost of the fruit — one TJ's shopper on Reddit found them advertised for just 17 cents in North Carolina.

Trader Joe's frozen water bottles are something of a hidden gem in the freezer aisle. Unfortunately, it seems that not all stores carry them. So, if you come across them, consider yourself lucky, as they're incredibly handy when you're purchasing any refrigerated produce or frozen foods. And remember, if your neighborhood TJ's doesn't stock the frozen water bottles, you can always freeze your own water bottles and leave them in a cooler in your car ready to keep your groceries nice and chilly. 

Items like ice cream, the chain's popular frozen Gone Bananas! and Gone Berry Crazy! chocolate-covered fruits, or its raw meats, are particularly vulnerable to temperature spoilage. Since not everyone keeps a cooler on hand, grabbing a few bottles of water along with your groceries is a convenient way to help maintain the quality of these kinds of purchases. Water bottles are particularly suited to acting as icepacks because they contain frozen-solid blocks of ice, which melt slower than ice cubes – ensuring that everything is kept chilled until you make it to your destination. As a bonus, when all your produce has made it home and been successfully placed in the fridge or freezer, you have a rewarding bottle of water to quench your thirst from the drive!