Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Milk the Savings

Have you seen the price of milk lately? Wow, I'm thinking it might be cheaper to buy a cow! :) In many places, the price of milk has gone to $4 and $5 a gallon. I thought I'd give you a few tips to stretch your dollars there.

There are three basic forms you can get your milk in...the regular gallons, evaporated milk and non-fat instant dry milk. So far, the "regular" milk in gallon jugs is starting to become a luxury. When you have teenage boys, they can go through it fast! So I limit our budget on regular milk and tell the boys to take it easy.

I also keep a stock of evaporated milk on hand. When I'm cooking and I find the boys have drank all the milk, I simply use evaporated milk by adding the same amount of water. 1 can of milk to 1 can of water = 1 cans of regular milk. It tastes a bit different but works great for cooking.

Lastly, there is the non-fat instant dry milk. Here is where most people turn up their noses and say "YUCK!" but I have been experimenting with it lately and have found something that works. Have you ever read the side of the box? You know, the part that says, "some settling may have occurred during shipping." Well, there is the key to making the milk work. Many times, the smaller particles sift to the bottom and leave the lighter ones on top so when you mix up a batch it doesn't taste right. Here's the trick, instead of mixing it by dry measure using cups try measuring by weight. For example, to make 4 quarts of milk, my box calls for 3 3/4 quarts of water to 5 1/3 cup of instant milk. If I tried to measure it by cups my milk would end up a little off but if I measure by weight, which my box says 12.8 ounces, I'll use my little kitchen scale and measure the correct amount then mix well. I like to use a container that I can seal and shake it well. Let it refrigerate at least overnight. The milk will not taste like "whole milk" but it will taste very much like the 2% milk sold in gallons at your local grocery.

I can buy the instant milk at our local grocery for about $13 per box and each box makes 20 quarts or 5 gallons which works out to be about $2.60 per gallon, quite a bargain compared to the $4 or $5 per gallon of "regular" milk.

Hope this helps!
Mavis D.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Another thing I do to make my milk dollar stretch is after I make the powdered milk, I mix it 50-50 with Whole milk, so it has a bit more milk fat in it. My family is a lot more willing to drink it that way.

Your Blog looks Great!

Tina W said...

I hope this doesn't post twice, I'm new at this.
I purchase 2% milk and add water 50/50 to make "skim" milk - 2 gallons for the price of one! I did this for a couple weeks before my son caught me. He hadn't even noticed, and he is my big milk drinker.

love the blog!