Milk and Money...

Quasar

It's a month now since I started putting in place a little method of saving some money from all the milk I buy. I read about this somewhere and I think it was on this forum, but I can't stomach the search, so I'll say right now I am not the originator of this idea. My thanks go to whoever is.

I live alone but go through a bit over a pint of milk per day, as I have it with my Shredded Wheat each morning, then often I have hot choccie in the cold weather, then I also like the odd glass of cold milk (then tea, coffee etc).

Anyway, I used to buy the 2pt bottles which lasted me not quite two days. Now I buy the big 6pt bottles, then at home decant most of the milk in 2pt bottles and freeze them, getting them out and defrosting them in the fridge as and when needed. It takes four bottles though as you can only fill them two thirds otherwise, since during the freezing process the milk expands considerably, it will burst a fuller bottle.

This saves me about 30p or more per week, making it £15 or more per year. Not a life-changing saving, but I am putting the pennies away and come Xmas (well perhaps not this coming one yet!) I shall have a little extra cash.

Since joining this forum I have re-calculated by expenditure and adjusted the way I shop, and without no great effort on my part I can easily save £500 per year. Can't be bad now, can it.

:T

Queenie

Quasar wrote:

Since joining this forum I have re-calculated by expenditure and adjusted the way I shop, and without no great effort on my part I can easily save £500 per year. Can't be bad now, can it

:j Very proud of you Quasar!! :T That is really wonderful to hear! (And very encouraging for others too. :T

Keep up the good work

Curry_Queen

I'm just wondering, considering you can manage to get through a 6-pinter in say 5 days? why you would need to bother freezing it?

Milk can quite easily and safely last a week or more in the fridge, providing you don't leave it out on the side between usages so the temperature fluctuates, so you would have used it up before it could go off anyway

I've just checked the carton of a 4-pinter that I've just finished off on a bowl of muesli and the use-by date on it is 14th Oct, and we bought it last Thursday


The trick to keeping milk fresh is ...

a) keep it in the fridge at all times to maintain a constant temperature.

b) NEVER allow anyone to drink out of the carton as it introduces bacteria.

Fresh milk actually has a shelf life of up to 18 days when stored properly and is already several days old before it even reaches the shops, and you can probably add a few more days to that before we buy it, unless the shop has a high turnover of milk supplies

Quasar

Good point Curry Queen! However, my milk consumption as detailed above is not always guaranteed. Often I am out early morning till late evening, and that's a whole day the milk just sits there. I find that within 2/3 days it's a bit off.

Besides, as the ice compartment of my fridge would otherwise be empty (I only eat fresh food), the milk bottles in there helps it run efficiently. Then, when the frozen bottle is placed in the "ordinary" fridge, it cuts down on the energy needed for the fridge to stay cold.

My other savings are:

No more newspaper buying (find them on trains) - £100 per year
No more choccie bars, donuts, expensive coffee breaks -£360 per year (and a healthier diet)
No more wasting toiletries, etc. - £10 per year
Less electricity consumption - £15/20 per year.

The £500 or so saving? If I can't find something exciting and worthwile to do with it, I shall put it in my savings which, if not exciting, is certainly worthwhile.

Curry_Queen

That's a great amount of savings without really making many sacrifices! :T

You raise some good points there about running the fridge efficiently! I don't actually drink milk (use it in muesli/porridge) so I'm not sure at what stage it might actually "taste" off if it's kept for a while, so I just use my nose to judge it

Some people have mentioned it tasting different after freezing too but when I froze some a while back my DS actually preferred it and asked me to freeze it more often LOL! I don't often have room in the freezer for milk cartons unfortunately so we just buy it as we need it.

black-saturn

I tried freezing milk once when the weather was bad and I wanted to make sure there was enough in. It tastes the same when you first defrost it but then I found it went off very quickly, like in about 2 days.

Also if you check the dates on the bottles of milk in the supermarket some of them have later sell by dates than others so you can pick the one with the longest date on.

MATH

WTG Quasar,:beer: You'll soon have enough to buy a cow!

culpepper

Make sure you keep it covered in the fridge or it will taste of other items that are in there.We use cartons as we buy UHT and peg the opening shut between uses.

squiggles

I buy cravendale milk,i know its more expensive but my reason is because of the long use before date which is about 3 weeks.In the long run this actually saves me money because im not throwing milk away because its off.I know that you are probably going to say why dont you just buy smaller quantities then none gets wasted,ive done this in the past and we more often than not run out of it and then i have to nip to the very expensive local store.Some days we use lots of milk and some days its a couple of inches depending on working shifts and child care etc.So i find this the best solution for our house.

well done on your savings quaser:)