I bought my first vacuum sealer from an infomercial 19 years ago and am on my 3rd one. I love it....I originally bought it as my last child went off to college and I realized my husband and I were tossing out a lot of fresh food. My refrigerator looks like a medical experiment as I use the quart and pint sized mason jars for storing food and making jar salads to bring to work for lunch. I especially like making double or triple batches of things like spaghetti and meatballs, pot roast, macaroni & cheese and chicken ala king, sealing it in a bag and we just pull it from the freezer, toss it in a pot of boiling water and dinner is ready in like 20 minutes. The freezer bags are pricey but what you save in not having to buy fast food....it does pay. As an aside to the person with the hamburger buns failure....if you had flash frozen them first in the freezer and then vacuum sealed them, they would have been fine. Also...I agree with the person who suggested that you keep it out on your counter or you won't use it as much.