Milkmen - They can be cheaper

scrimpingbadger

we have milk delivered but the times seem a bit random from 3am (yup, I know, I don;t sleep well) (it's all the worrying about the milk...) to 9am. I'm sure the milkman is a hard working chap and all but sometimes it's not arrived by the time I leave for work and then it sits in the sun all day... Occasionally it doesn't turn up at all.
I'd stop but sometimes it's so convenient and out here in the sticks we have to suppport our milkie as there's lots of old folks who rely on his deliveries for their staples.

Dustykitten

We have dairy crest organic milk delivered. It is more expensive but I prefer it in glass bottles (so do the children). It keeps the milk round going for us and the neighbours. We stopped having a daily paper (which we hardly ever read all of) to make up the difference.

Hope it works out for you.

MrsTinks

I love the old bottles, less plastic waste!
I love that my milkman can drop me an extra pint or pack of butter if I leave him a note if I get unexpected guests...
I can get LOTS of stuff delivered - anything from milk, juice, bacon etc to spuds and even compost!
I had to stop the organic milk and switch to normal milk - much as I like organic when I can it was getting very expensive!
Also very rarely if we have to leave early for work the milk might not have arrived but we're talking very rarely and I think it was more our fault than his lol!
Definitely go with the Milkman

dlb

I have found having a milkman works for us.
Yes its more expensive but i havent run out of milk since we started having the deliverys, its always on the doorstep by 5.30am.
I have the 4 pint plastic delivered, it means less shopping to carry, and as i do one big shop for the 6 of us a week this helps loads.
I now have a seperate milk budget aside from the food budget, the money gets put away each monday ready to pay him on thursday.
I have 5 x 4 pints each week and keep a carton of uht in just incase we do run out.
I have thought about canceling due to the cost but the benifits for me outway this.

Debt_Free_Chick

I have milk delivered but I'm lucky to have it delivered by the local dairy - 50p a pint (just went up on 1 October).

Interesting that Dairy Crest are more than a third more expensive!!! But I guess they take their cut for running a national distribution network for dairies without direct delivery

Oh - and Gold Top (from Jersey cows) is the same price, so I have that :j

CLARABEL

that price is for organic milk, normal is a fair bit less.

i don't mind if dairy crest organise it, as i know the milk is from a local milkman in the next town, glad to be supporting a local business, and not feeding more to mr t! he gets enough of my hard-earned!!

Thanks everyone

xxx:beer:

Steve-o

dannahaz wrote: »

How can it be right that milk (from cows, which need feeding and managing and milking) is sold for less than water??

I'd never thought of that before! :shocked:

I'm quite happy to pop into a shop and buy one of those small (half litre or less?) bottles of water for 60p, but there is no way I'd have bought a bottle of milk that size for 60p - it would be just so...overpriced! It really brings home how brainwashed we are, thinking that milk is an essential product and should be dirt cheap, but that bottled water is a luxury worth paying extra for!

Bottled water:

• Collected at one source, purified there, bottled there, and then shipped off to be sold.
• No special storage needed. Extremely long shelf life (it's only bloody water!).

Milk:

• Organic product, from animals that need feeding, looking after, and medical needs met.
• Farms have to absorb costs of individual animal deaths, plus any culling (such as in foot & mouth).
• Produced at many farms, with animals having to be milked to get the white stuff out of them.
• Has to be collected and taken to processing plant.
• Processed at plant. Bottled there, and then shipped off to be sold.
• Needs to be constantly chilled to prevent spoilage (normal milk, not 'long life').
• Very short shelf life.

Why on earth do we expect milk to be so cheap?? :shocked:

Thanks dannahaz, you really opened my eyes and got me thinking. I can't believe I've undervalued milk so much, and overvalued bottled water. If you don't mind, I'll pop your remark into my sig. :T

prettypennies

I get unhomogenised organic milk delivered once a week with my veg box, but have to buy the rest from Mr S. I registered a few months ago with the 'deliver milk' site. After a week or so got a call from a milkman saying he covered my area two days a week. He agreed to deliver 4 pints twice a week.

That was about a month ago and as yet I haven't had a single delivery

If anyone knows a milkman who can deliver organic milk in the West Yorkshire area let me know!!

lil_me

Moved and changed milkmen.

Still not daily delivered. I did get glass bottles at first because that reduced our waste and DP prefered it but at 57p a pint it was getting a little too costly as it costs more in the glass bottles for some reason. I now get 2x1l bottles and 2x2l bottles a week at £4.78 in the plastic bottles as our council will be recycling them from next week, last milkman was cheaper. I don't mind paying more than supermarket (just slightly more at the mo as we're on a discounted rate) because it stops as many 'pop to the shop for milk' trips.

prettypennies

lil_me wrote: »

it stops as many 'pop to the shop for milk' trips.

That's what I would like to stop doing if possible.

At the moment the only option I can think of is to get two smaller vegbox deliveries a week from two schemes rather than one big one. Then order my milk with them. But I would really prefer a milkman. I would ideally like to get organic milk in glass bottles (as I think plastic cartons give the milk that plasticky flavour) but you can't seem to get it anywhere.

When I was a nipper we used to get green top (raw milk) delivered, but that seems to be a big no no these days.