brand name vs store label: oatmeal

I like to start my day with warm oatmeal with brown sugar. It warms me up, fills me up, tastes good and is fairly nutritious.

As this is something I consume regularly I want to maximize the trade off between price and taste so that I am getting the best possible value. I tested the brand name oats (quaker oatmeal) and the store brand (safeway).

Shelf price:
Quaker Oats - $5.49 for 42 onces or 13 cents an once
Safeway - $3.99 for 42 onces or 9.5 cents an once.

Taste:
The taste of both were pretty similar, especialy after the brown sugar was added - which makes sense as oatmeal is basicly a commoddity product.

Consisteny:
Here is where things got a little interesting. The Safeway oats seemed to be smaller and have more oat dust/powder/residue vs the Quaker Oats and this seemed to give the Safeway oatmeal a more pasty texture. Adding more water seemed to take care of the issue, but it took some getting used to.

Conculsion:

The brand name and store brand are very close. I slightly prefer the Quaker Oats, but not $1.50 more. However, Safeway often runs buy one get one free specials on Quaker Oats making them cheaper then the Safeway brand so the best strategy for me is to look out for these specials and pounce when I see them. Even better would be if I could find a coupon to combine with the sale! I've also noticed that walgreens has occasional sales on oatmeal, so I'll have to keep an eye out to see how much they are charging.