Cost Break-Down : Chocolate Milk

Ok, the idea for this one came from a friend of mine who said she often buys the 4L jugs of chocolate milk for her family as a treat, since it can’t cost that much more than adding the syrup to it at home.  Honestly, I like the taste of the pre-made stuff better, so I bought a jug in my last grocery run, and set out to compare.

The first problem I ran into was that the Nesquick bottle does not actually say how much you are supposed to use!  I guess they figure you should add as much as you like.  To create a standard, this is what I did.  According to Nestle ( who uses the Canadian Food Guide to base this on) a serving of milk is one cup, and a serving of Nesquick, according to the nutrition label is one tablespoon.  To make sure this is close to what one might actually use, I mixed a glass to taste.  It was about what I had normally been putting in when I mixed it for my kids, really saturated, but none left in the bottom of the cup either.

So, if one cup is a serving of milk, there are 16 cups, or servings in a jug of milk.  16 times one tablespoon, or 15ml, is approximately 240 ml.  That’s about half the jug of the 500ml bottle of Nesquick, which costs $4.97

Here’s the breakdown:  If you took one jug of 2% milk ($3.97) and added enough syrup ($2.50) it would cost you $6.47!  Buying the 4L jug of chocolate milk is $4.89!  So I guess I’ll be buying the pre-made jugs more often.

Also, if I send chocolate milk in the school lunches, instead of buying it through the milk program, the difference is: $0.75 at school, $0.40 using syrup and milk, or $0.31 for the pre-made.

I gotta admit, this one surprised me!