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We ran out of milk this evening, so I made an emergency trip to the grocery store to buy more. Generally we purchase a half gallon of one-percent, which lasts us about a week.
When I went to grab the milk from the refrigerator case, however, I was startled by the price: $3.19! Usually we pay between $1.99 and $2.29.
Our of curiosity, I priced the full gallons. They were on sale for $2.99. That’s right: The sale price on a gallon of milk made the unit price less than 50% of the unit price for a half gallon. (That is, an ounce of milk from the gallon would cost me 2.34 cents, whereas an ounce from the half gallon would cost me 4.98 cents.)
I bought the gallon, naturally. We probably won’t drink it all, but by golly, I just saved twenty cents!
This article is about Food, Frugality, Funny Money, Real-Life Saturday, 19th April 2008 (by J.D. Roth)
April 19th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Hey J.D., do you know that milk can be frozen? It takes a little different if you drink it straight (some people mind, some don’t) but you won’t notice a difference in cooking and baking.
Freeze in increments that you bake with, e.g. premeasured for your usual recipe for muffins, pancakes, etc.
April 19th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Here in San Diego, the local supermarket sells a gallon for $3, and says “Least price that we are allowed to sell in the county”. A mile away Costco sells 2 Gallon packs for $4.38 -> about 30% cheaper! Go figure!
April 19th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
And don’t forget that you probably spent at least 50 cents on gas even if the grocery store was only 2 miles away. (e.g. 4 miles roundtrip / 20 mpg) * $3.40/gallon = 68 cents!
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
Hope you made something yummy with the milk…
April 19th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
By coincidence your article was next to another one in my aggregator about how demand for milk in China has led its price in the US to match the price of gasoline:
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/04/chinas-growing-thirst-for-milk-hits-global-market/
April 19th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Congrats! You avoided paying the math tax.
It’s always worth double checking the price per ounce on the larger boxes. It’s getting more common for the larger boxes to be the worse deal.
It works really well, since people have been trained to think that larger = value. So it’s being exploited. Always do the math. When you see this happen it’s never for a few cents, it’ll be a buck or two.
Avoid the math tax!
April 19th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Milk prices are killing us — with four growing boys in the house, we go through way (way, way!) more than a half gallon per week. Probably more like a gallon per day.
April 19th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Ditto on the freezing. Esp for puddings or dutch babies or for soups where you use a larger quantity.
Also 1% milk has a pretty long fridge life. I have never had one go bad before it was used up.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Wow, I pay C$5.79 for a regular 2L (half gallon?) of milk. That’s organic, though. Regular milk is C$3.19. However, we don’t allow bovine growth hormone in Canada.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
You know what’s even cheaper? Not drinking so much milk.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
It can make a big difference if you pull your gallon of the milk from the back of the row, and find the most distant expiration date. I usually dig around the back of the row until I find the best date, and I get as much as an extra 5-7 days before it expires. I’ll even reach WAY back in the cooler. Then your milk probably will last you two weeks. I meticulously check expiration dates on every item that has one, loaves of bread, bags of salad, etc. With grocery prices rising, getting the freshest food is worth the effort.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I discovered that I can freeze milk that will soon go bad into ice cube trays. This cube size is the perfect amount for my coffee in the morning! See post here
April 19th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
No wonder we’re marked as a wasteful nation. For us to save a dime, we get the larger size then waste portions of it.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Nthing freezing the excess milk.
Also, if you can train yourself/your family to be able to drink reconstituted milk when necessary, then keeping dried milk powder in the pantry will save you from “emergency” trips to the grocery store when you run out of fresh milk. You just need to lose your attachment to the taste of freh milk.
April 19th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Definitely try powdered milk! It was a posting on your blog that got us to switch. We don’t taste the difference at all. We buy milk maybe once every 2 months now. Even if you’re only using it for emergencies, it’s a nice way to avoid emergency trips, and save you a little more money.
April 19th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
We go through about a gallon a day. Maybe time to get a cow…..
April 19th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
You should drink more milk! Recently I’ve replaced soda with milk (skim) and drink about 3 gallons a week. It’s filling, full of nutrients and protein, great for you. And I feel a lot better than I did a few weeks ago, I think it plays a part.
Anyways, the “premium” milk runs $4.50 a gallon here, the “cheap” milk is about $3.50, Sam Walton’s store sells them for $3.09.
Either way, I’m not going to throw a fit over a couple bucks. Man needs his milk.
April 19th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
At my supermarket near Sacramento, a gallon of milk– NOT on sale– runs about $2.79, but a half-gallon runs $2.99. I won’t even try to make sense of that.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:19 am
I don’t pay attention to what milk costs at my regular grocery store, but at the one I can walk to, it’s $4.39 now. I’m willing to pay the extra dollar for not having to drive, supporting a local business, and being able to get milk whenever I want it without synchronizing it to my weekly grocery trip.
A couple friends of mine have switched to organic milk because it doesn’t go bad as quickly, they say. I wouldn’t know, and that’s no reason for me– I have *never* had milk go bad on me. I, just me, go through more than a gallon a week. If I haven’t done dishes recently, it can be a gallon in three days.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:20 am
Gallons have been sliding down under the half gallon price for about a year in my area. It started with the gallon being 25 cents more then slipped down to even.
I’ve found lately the best place for milk is the Pharmacy or the Gas station. I bought a gallon on Monday from the pharmacy for 75 cents less than I saw a gallon on Tuesday at the grocery.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:46 am
@Jenny
I buy the organic milk - the expiration date is normally 4-5 weeks away.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:56 am
I know this is get rich slow, but this is ridiculous - perhaps a standard post on how pricing often means that 2 * 500g costs a lot less than 1kg, but an article on saving 20c is just too far.
Is it possible to break your feeds up into different categories - as the finance parts and book reviews are excellent, but stuff like this is an enormous waste of time for a lot of people.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:01 am
If you don’t want to freeze the extra milk for some reason, and it goes sour, don’t throw it out! Sour milk is a good substitute for buttermilk in baking.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Here in Pennsylvania the price of milk is regulated by the state, so that sort of thing never happens. Milk is actually NEVER on sale and is pretty much the same exact price everywhere.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Welcome to the recession — eggs are way up too, among other things.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Like Julia, I switched to powder milk after I read about it on your blog. I buy milk maybe once a month now! (1 person household/oatmeal and coffee in the morning).
April 20th, 2008 at 7:28 am
I discovered Lockmead milk. Living in Corvallis, the milk is from down the road in Junction City. They don’t use hormones and the milk lasts longer. Plus the containers are recycled. Yes, we pay more but we also don’t use as much. Plus we walk down the road to get the milk at our local co-op.
April 20th, 2008 at 7:42 am
@Diatryma:
Apparently organic milk is ultrapasteurized, which extends its life significantly.
I buy milk when it is marked down for being close to its expiration date. If I need it right away, I store it in the coldest part of the fridge. I don’t remember ever having to throw any out, and I don’t use it up within a week, generally.
If I don’t need it right away, I open the container, take a little out to make headspace, and freeze it with the lid off (otherwise the container buckles and it won’t want to stand up on its own later). I recap it once it’s frozen solid. Never had a problem with taste or spoilage once I thaw it.
Powdered milk has gotten wildly expensive lately, following the cost of fresh milk, but it can still be a deal if you use it instead of buying (and throwing away excess) fresh milk, or if you use it to substitute for expensive canned milk products like sweetened condensed milk. The Tightwad Gazette has a great recipe for sweetened condensed milk using powdered milk. I’ve found it’s just as good leaving out the butter or margarine called for in the recipe.
April 20th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Don’t waste that milk! Prepare recipes which use milk as an ingredient to use the extra. MAKE YOUR OWN YOGURT IF YOU HAVE A DAB OF LEFOVER YOGURT FOR STARTER, SPARE MILK AND A WARM SPOT OR A HEATING PAD. I LOVE the idea above of freezing portions sizes of milk, JUST REMEMBER THAT MILK EXPANDS AS IT FREEZES! If freezing milk changes the milk slighly and you don’t like the taste, it can be used in recipes when you need milk as an ingredient. Think macaroni and cheese, made from scratch chocolate (or other flavor) pudding, cream sauce on vegetables, cream soups (great way to use up a dab of leftover vegetables and extra milk). Milk gone sour? MAKE SOUR MILK PANCAKES, DELICIOUS, LIGHT AS A FEATHER! As for James who thinks this is too petty, comment #21, read the first two lines of an article and then skip the rest. That’s what I do when I begin reading an article which quickly starts my eyes rolling back in my head and my interest to vaporize! PS. If the milk goes REALLY sour you pour it on the compost heap. Waste not, want not!
April 20th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Ever notice how a 20 oz. bottle of soda costs 1.25 whereas a 2-liter costs 99 cents? I used to work at a convenience store and sold at those prices for a long time, I found it quite ridiculous. Soda’s trash compared to milk in nutritional value, but the principle still matters.
Also, one other thing I learned, is that usually convenience stores will sell milk at comparable or reduced prices over grocery stores. One clever thing convenience stores have to do, nationally, is compete with local milk prices. The reason they do this is because to stay in business and get people in the door, they have to use milk as a draw since it’s the most popular item sold. If you really want to save on milk, check your local convenience stores because milk is sometimes sold for much cheaper. I get milk around here for 3.79 or higher at the grocery store (vermont) and I’ve seen it as low as 2.89 at Maplefields, a convenience store.
It depends on where you live and local economy but next time you’re filling up your gas tank go in and check, you might be pleasantly surprised.
April 20th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Here’s an idea…use reconstituted dry milk for recipes, and don’t drink milk at all…the only creatures that -need- cow’s milk are baby cows.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I too was going to suggest freezing the excess milk. Another thing I do when I have excess milk is to make pudding, or a cream soup, like baked potato soup.
And I second someone’s comment to James…skip articles that don’t speak to you! I don’t read the articles on investing, but I’m certainly not going to suggest that J.D. quit writing them.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I now only drink organic milk which costs $8 a gallon at Whole Foods.
April 20th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Yep, convenience stores here are cheaper than grocery stores, but Costco beats everyone by $1/gallon.
So we buy a half-dozen gallons of skim milk at a time from there and freeze the excess.
IMHO, powdered milk is for cooking, not drinking.
April 20th, 2008 at 11:06 am
is it just me or have the articles on this blog gotten extremely useless and boring… so obvious your running out of ideas… why don’t you talk about the fact that our economy is about to collapse… the problem with these blogs is that they are written by people who, while have some knowledge of the subject they are covering, are not experts… and therefore when they run out of stuff to talk about, either the blog gets extremely boring, or they go and copy other blog’s content and rewrite it –that’s why most blogs don’t have very much original content… it’s getting worse too…
April 20th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Sometimes I forget that attempts at humor don’t always work on the internet…
April 20th, 2008 at 11:43 am
A gallon costs $5.29 here in NYC, so consider yourself lucky.
April 20th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
@Ryan: Gee, where’s your blog? We’d love to see it. And yet another defeatist article about how the country’s going to hell, sure, that’d benefit all of us. Forget the small positive tips that help us save where we can.
If you don’t like it, don’t read it. And certainly don’t waste your time commenting. Your comment was far less useful and informative than anything JD’s written.
April 20th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Thanks for the post! One of the benefits of this blog is that we hear great ideas from other people as well as getting some good information from the articles.
For this one I will no longer worry if I am using “real milk” for cooking whether or not it smells to funny (only when it turns chunky).
As for powdered milk, an idea that came from here, it has been great for us to have on hand because we go through milk in spurts and now when I decide to bake something that calls for milk I always have it on hand.
(Also, as someone who grew up on “Bessie” milk - yes, I could go pet Bessie the cow if I wanted to at our neighbors - any milk I have tried from the store just doesn’t compare in quality.)
April 20th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I use soy milk. A half gallon is about $3, but it keeps for about 2 months. I can’t stand the taste of cow milk, plus I’m intolerant of lactose, so I use Silk for the times I feel like eating cereal or if we have cookies or something.
The taste definitely takes getting used to though.
April 20th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I’ll second (or third, or whatever) the Costco thing - I got milk there this weekend at $2.47 for a gallon for the Kirkland brand (1%). (I like their new containers, too - they’re flat on the top, so if I need to slide something flat in on top of the milk it’s possible.)
April 20th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Ryan,
I don’t know how old you are, but at 47 I’ve seen the economy “on the brink of collapse” about six times. Don’t worry so much! The economy is like the tide, it ebbs and flows. You need to “unstress,” guy! Turn off the news for a couple of days and take a walk or a bike ride.
Ed
April 20th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I scour milk prices like I scour gas prices. Two teenage boys = almost two gallons of milk per day, more than the gas I use to get to work. It’s $2.99/gallon for organic/no BGH at the deli here in CT. Gas = $3.65 today
April 20th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Good reminder to always look at other options to determine the best price. Don’t just grab what you always grab, pay attention! Now don’t let the gallon go to waste, use it in cooking, pancakes will use a couple of cups, freeze the extras. Homemade mac n cheese will use some too. Any as other commenters pointed out, you can freeze it.
April 20th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I don’t think this was a boring article, and I think its got some useful information even though the “yay I saved 20 cents!” part was a joke.
Its yet another reminder to CHECK UNIT PRICES.
Consumer advocates started reminding people to do this and people realized that, often, the bigger size has the lower unit price. Soon afterwards retailers realized that people started mentally simplifying “buy smallest unit price” to “buy bigger size” so they’ve started to switch it around to get more money again.
In the end, “hints” like buy bigger don’t work - only doing the work yourself, each time, gets you the best deal.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I’ll second an earlier poster’s comment.
This is a great time to consider how you use milk, and how you can use less of it. Milk isn’t a necessary food item — it’s better used as an ingredient in other things (hence, using less) than for straight consumption. Even for kids.
Babies NEED human mother’s milk until they are weaned. Once we are weened, consuming milk isn’t necessary. There are other, arguably better, ways to get those nutrients.
I’ve read recently that yogurt is the best dairy product to consume if you’re going to consume dairy. And I do love my cheese.
But I go through 1/2 gallon of milk once every 2-3 weeks.
This is a great motivation to cut down on cereal consumption too. Cereal is skyrocketing.
April 20th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I too noticed that the price of milk has jumped and inevitably the quart or half-gallon is more expensive than the gallon.
I’m not a milk drinker, so I was always buying the smaller package…that is, until my sister mentioned that she freezes milk when she stocks up while it’s on sale.
Now, I buy the gallon and transfer 1/2 of it to a thoroughly washed 1/2 gallon jug and throw one of them in the freezer. I save money and rarely end up running to the store to buy regular price milk because I have the “reserve” in the freezer!
April 20th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I have no sympathy … we pay $6 a gallon for our organic raw milk.
But it is soooo worth it.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:09 am
You go Jen. Couldn’t have said it better myself!!
April 21st, 2008 at 2:01 am
The thing you can do with the milk that is
going bad is FRESH CHEESE. I simply warm the
milk and add some lemon juice on it. Wait till
it “separates” then I hang it in a piece of fine
cotton. This cheese last a few days but you can
use to make cheese cake and other receipts. You
will find a lot of ideas in the Internet.
Try it!!!!
April 21st, 2008 at 7:09 am
I had raw milk yesterday and it was good. Then we had butter made with it and ice cream. They have 3 cows and yield about 5 gallons a day.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Yes, folks, by all means, buy more than you need and will use before it goes to waste, just because it’s cheaper.
No wonder people hate Americans.
FYI Jazmin: You can’t make fresh cheese with 1% milk, it’s basically already whey.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Jessie - I don’t understand how J.D.’s milk experience can be seen as an example of the wastefulness of Americans and how the rest of the world rightfully loathes them. Wanting to get a deal and price comparison is a universal pursuit, not just an American one. Frankly it would be stupid to buy a smaller amount for MORE than a larger one. That’s just common sense to buy the gallon rather than the half. And I think many commenters have given him ample suggestions for how to not let it go to waste. If anything, it reveals how resourceful and frugal the readers are.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Wow. Milk is super expensive here. Generic brands that are ‘hormone free’ are $3.79/gallon and the premium brands are $4.50+. We go through 3-4gallons/week.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Once I started thinking about what milk actually is, I got grossed out and stopped drinking it. I’m a fan of almond milk, but soy will do as well.
And the price of food/milk is not because of our ‘recession’ - food prices have been going up for about 6months-1year now (globally).
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Raw milk is not organic.
Only pasteurized milk (organic is often “ultra-pasteurized”) is safe to consume.
We have periodic listeriosis outbreaks here among the Hispanic population from products made from unpasteurized milk.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:01 am
I cannot believe I just read 55 comments on milk! And I don’t even drink the stuff! Ever! I can’t think of the last time I bought milk. But the comments here have been really interesting…
$8 for organic milk at Whole Foods? Dude, you’re getting ripped off. Organic milk at the Safeway here in Seattle is $4.29. And I know this because I checked after reading this post the first time
I don’t drink milk, like I said…
And OH GOSH FLAME WARS can get so silly, can’t they? JD - please - keep writing what you’re writing. I blog on personal finance and productivity and goal-setting and small business. Because I think they all completely interrelate and I can speak as an authority on all points. I have had readers complain, but so what? It’s what I want to write about, and since the blog is still growing, I must be doing something right.
JD, I’m sure you know when to shrug off meanies, but I thought I’d still make a point of offering you a smile and telling you that I got the satire off the bat. I love your writing and don’t think you should change a thing.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:41 am
Thanks for the tip on sour milk being used in pancakes and the like - never thought of it before.
Jessie, obviously there are people in the world that hate Americans (I think probably every country in the world is hated by someone) although from what I understand, it doesn’t have anything to do with milk. I have lived overseas for about 20 years and can tell you that in my experience in Europe, no matter what is going on, no matter who has been President, Europeans love Americans. They may not love American policies all the time but they love Americans .
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:38 am
The making of bread beocomes painfully easy with powedered milk and that old hobart or kitchen aid mixer. While it does not seem less expensive it stores forever and I no longer throw 3/4 of a gallon away. I havent yet told them, I must still somehow answer to the question, “There is no milk in the fridge, where’d you get it?”
July 8th, 2008 at 7:37 am
Bear in mind too that too much milk can cause some temporary health issues. Something to do with the Lactose.
July 29th, 2008 at 9:17 am
A great way to stretch milk is to mix 1/2 gallon of “real” milk with 1/2 gallon of powdered. You won’t be able to tell the difference and you stretch it twice as far.
January 14th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Some commenters have noted the relationship between milk and gas prices; this is absolutely a true relationship, and it exists for several reasons. First, dairy farms have to expend fuel in growing crops for their cows to eat, or they have to spend money to truck in grain for the cows. This has been exacerbated recently by the competition for corn from the ethanol industry. Second, milk is shipped via truck from the farm to the processing plant, and finally, once it is in cartons/jugs/bottles, it is shipped from the processing plant to stores. Until we find a way to get milk from the cows to the plant to the store without using fuel, milk prices will be tied to fuel prices.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:26 am
With a household of 11, we go through a lot of milk. To avoid spending gas on the emergency trip to the store, we’ve been freezing milk for years.
I don’t notice a difference in taste at all.
One difference I *do* notice is that milk that has been frozen is no longer homogenized. This means the cream floats to the top. Either shake it briefly before each use to mix in the cream, or pour right from the top to add real dairy cream to your coffee. Choice is a good thing!
January 20th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
>>”And don’t forget that you probably spent at least 50 cents on gas even if the grocery store was only 2 miles away.”
Yes, but the frugal mindset pays off.