another frugal flop

I'm not doing so well in the save-money-by-doing-it-yourself department.  Not well at all.

Last week I wanted to try making my own yogurt.  I first read about yogurt making in the The Tightwad Gazette.  I watched Alton Brown make yogurt on Good Eats.  Then yogurt-in-the-crockpot hit the internet a few years ago.   It seemed so easy.  It also seemed cost-effective.  We love yogurt, and we eat a lot of it. 

I always have almond milk on hand and don't always have regular milk.  So I used this recipe.  I was so excited.  I couldn't wait to have yummy homemade yogurt.

Instead all I got was a great big flop.  I don't know what I did wrong exactly, but I sure as heck didn't get yogurt.  :( 

I may try one of the alternate yogurt-making methods (the heating pad is supposed to be fool-proof) if I decide to give it another whirl.  Or I may just buy yogurt at the store.  I can buy 32 ounces of Dannon vanilla yogurt for $2.99 ($0.09 per oz.).  Nostimo vanilla Greek yogurt is $0.88 for 6 oz. ($0.15 per oz.).  To make the yogurt, I need a half gallon of milk (the almond milk I used was $2.99), plus 1/2 cup of yogurt (I used the above-mentioned Nostimo).  That makes the cost for 64 oz. of yogurt $3.87, or $0.06 per oz.  Not really huge savings there--especially when you consider that store-bought yogurt goes on sale and has coupons. 

But we'll see.  I may try again and have it go a bit better.  :)  If so, I'll revisit the calculations and reevaluate whether I want to add yogurt-making to my homemaking routine.