Quaker instant oatmeal 50 cents a box or less

OK- this ad lasts until 1-20-09

It's at Albertsons, and you need to get them in increments of four in order to get the advertised sale price of $1.50 per box. Then, if you have the $1 coupons from the newspaper or from the inside of the Simple Harvest boxes, then use those. Otherwise, use the blinkies (coupons the little machine spits out, hanging on the shelf right in front of the Oatmeal. This makes the oatmeal 50 cents a box.

There's a potential for overage if you use a coupon doubler. Sometimes they have these in the newspaper, in other store's ads. Albertson's accepts other store's advertisements. If you double each coupon, you have an overage of 50 cents per box. You have to spend that in the same shopping trip, so have fun!

I wasn't able to find any doublers, but I did get 16 boxes of the Simple harvest Oatmeal. We like that because it doesn't have high fructose corn syrup in it. Don't let those stupid commercials fool you about it being OK. "In moderate amounts" it says, but I challenge you to find prepared foods in your cupboard that don't have it in there. It's in bread, pasta, TV dinners, canned tomato sauces, ketchup, salad dressing, and other foods you wouldn't normally think of as sweet. INJECTED INTO MEAT- yep, and not just the deli counter lunch meat, either. They put it into ground beef. So forget about moderation. You could moderate all you want and you're still consuming more of it than you should be.

NOW- why does the healthier instant oatmeal have to have plastic packaging? Tell me that's biodegradable, please.

OOH- the blinkies arent' good on Simple harvest and I didn't read the label of the one it is good on. I had my own, and fromt he boxes I just bought, I got 16 more, which I will take back in a few days and do the deal again. My kids think flavored Oatmeal is treat. Dont' tell them I dilute it with 1/4 cup of the non-flavored stuff to reduce the sugar. AND- we don't use chemical sweeteners, so the sugar-free with splenda doesn't impress me. SEE- you can be a picky coupon shopper.