I absolutely disagree with this. I’m positive that the milk I buy begins to go off around the expiration date. Since a gallon normally lasts over a week in our house, there’s no way we’re going to consider that a “sell-by” date.
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As for the OP, I try to buy the fresher stuff, too, and will often reach around to get the milk that is dater later, too, even though a gallon lasts about a day in my house. I buy three gallons at a time.
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I like the cut of your jib,sir (or madam 
) It’s what I do too. In fact in the case of the milk I’d be crazy to anything else,seeing as we only use a pint a week. You have to make sure it’s going to last the week.
Unless there’s a strike going on.
Seriously, during the supermarket strike last year, all the milk I bought would go bad a day or two before the expiration date. It was like that until the strike ended.
I had a roommate who was a total priss and refused to drink milk after the expiration date. His excuse was that ALL milk tasted sour to him (due to a traumatic childhood incident I never did understand) so he had no other way of knowing if it was really good or not. Strange, I would think the opposite would apply in that case. 
When I threw my milk, which was about a week past the sell-by date, in the trash today, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be ironic if I found out that milk is still good a week after the sell-by date”, and here we are.
Although, this milk (Shamrock Farms or some such) seems to be noticeably bad a couple of days afterward, as I have experienced with prior purchases of it. I exclusively buy this brand, exclusively in half-gallon jugs, because I exclusively shop at the U-Mart (mini grocery store on campus) and that’s the only milk they sell.
I think nothing short of a public stoning will suffice for your misdeeds.
In order for this to be the case, you’re making the assumption that:
a. Everyone knows that everyone else is doing this
b. They won’t buy milk anyway.
In reality, if there are 20 gallons of milk, and Crafter_Man buys the two with the freshest dates, the next person isn’t even going to be aware that there was once fresher milk to be had, so they’ll happily make their selection based on what’s on the shelf, and so will everyone else after them while the milk is still fresh. What’s left over will be the milk that’s too close to the date for anyone to buy ever.
The worst case senario if everyone started doing it is that the truly paranoid will be staking out the milk case waiting for the new stuff to be shelved.
IANAmilkologist, but in my experience the milk I buy is always sour 2-3 days past the exp. date – It’s never been ok a week after.
If you want to whine about someone else’s thread, do it in The BBQ Pit, not here.
Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. I learned that in college, the hard way.
With kids? Heh. My house (just me and Ardred) goes through a gallon every three days.
I don’t drink milk. 