Here are a couple suggestions. First, if you can take advantage of your cold location, that could save energy cost. For example, if your garage is down in the 40's, whatever you use for a container can be slightly warmed on a dual mode controller. If you think about it, it's weird to heat your house then put a smaller box in there to cool to about outside temps. Energy used in both cases basically fighting each other.
In my case, I got a big upright freezer and put a single stage (cool-only) controller. I had it in my garage in the fall where it was about 50 degrees. Here I am trying to ferment a lager at about 55 and the temp is slowly falling to garage temp. It's nice that the compressor didn't have to run at all, but I was going to drop too far. If I had a dual mode controller, I would have put a 25 watt light bulb inside to compensate if the garage temp dipped. The same could be said right now where my garage is exactly 33 degrees (perfect for lagering). Due to my single stage controller, I have the freezer in my 66 degree basement wasting energy. (I know I could just sit my carboy in the garage but I don't want to risk having it freeze.)
Also, if you do get a chest freezer, keep in mind you might want to lager now, keg later so make sure you can fit a bout 4 corny kegs in there.