Roundy's General Mills Cereal Deal--A Deal?

Roundy's has a different General Mills cereal deal this week. You might wonder if you can hit your target price for cereal (mine is less than $1 per box) with this new deal.

General Mills Cereal Deal: Buy 6 cereal, get catalina coupons for free milk, eggs, 4 Yoplait yogurt cups, and Toaster Strudels
Coupons available:
Various General Mills cereal coupons here and here
More cereal coupons (the same as above) and here

Unfortunately, you don't get the $10 off like you did with past deals (usually $10 off and at least 1 gallon of free milk--approx $13 value). This one is just shy of a $10 value, IF it takes off the full amounts listed and not just the sale amounts (will it take $3.29 off your bill even if the milk is $2.45?) Likely the price of the cereal will be around $18-$23 for 6 boxes before your cereal coupons. So how do you know if it is a good deal or not?

Here's what you do: add up your 6 cereal, AND the cost of milk, eggs, 4 yogurt cups, and Toaster Strudel (even though you aren't buying them in the same transaction). Then take off your doubled cereal coupon values and the values of the catalinas and that will give you your total OOP (out of pocket expense). Is your OOP divided by 6 less than your per box target price?

The problem is we don't know if the catalinas will take off the actual amount or the full allowed amount (will it take off $2.45 for the milk if that's what you paid, or will it take off $3.29, giving you overage on the milk to apply toward the cereal?) Since we don't know, to play it safe I'd basically call the catalina items free, in which case you are paying for the cereal minus the doubled cereal coupons. Unless you get overage from the catalinas, it won't make your cereal any cheaper--since you have to buy those items, it's not money off your purchase. Does that make sense?

That being said you *might* be able to use coupons for the "free" items (yogurt and toaster strudels) in addition to the catalinas (not sure if that would work or not) in order to make this a better deal. Anyone want to try and give us a report?

Coupons available:
$0.40/6 Yoplait Cups here and here (you'd have to buy 2 extra yogurt cups)
$0.50/2 Toaster Strudels here (you'd have to buy one extra Toaster Strudel)

When all is said and done, I am doubtful that this will be as good a deal as it has been in the past, unless you were going to buy milk, eggs, yogurt AND Toaster Strudels anyway. Here's hoping they bring back the old deal!