Thanksgiving Dinner Cost Takes a Dip

Farm Bureau's annual tally puts it at $58, the cheapest in decades when factoring inflation
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 26, 2024 2:16 PM CST
Thanksgiving Dinner Cost Takes a Dip
   (Getty / Mizina)

The annual tally of a typical Thanksgiving dinner by the American Farm Bureau Federation may come as a bit of a surprise to people accustomed to sticker shock in supermarkets. The federation pegs the cost of a 10-person gathering at $58.08, which is down 5% from last year and is actually the cheapest in nearly four decades when accounting for inflation, reports NBC News. Still, the cost is up 19% in unadjusted dollars from 2019. The breakdown:

  • 16-pound turkey: $25.67 or $1.68 per pound (down 6.1%)
  • 14 ounces of cubed stuffing mix: $4.08 (up 8.2%)
  • 2 frozen pie crusts: $3.40 (down 2.9%)
  • Half pint of whipping cream: $1.81 (up 4.7%)
  • 1 pound of frozen peas: $1.73 (down 8.1%)
  • 1 dozen dinner rolls: $4.16 (up 8.4%)
  • Miscellaneous ingredients to prepare the meal: $3.75 (down 5.1%)
  • 30-ounce can of pumpkin-pie mix: $4.15 (down 6.5%)
  • 1 gallon of whole milk: $3.21 (down 14.3%)
  • 3 pounds of sweet potatoes: $2.93 (down 26.2%)
  • 1-pound veggie tray (carrots and celery): 84 cents (down 6.4%)
  • 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries: $2.35 (up 11.8%)

"When adjusted for inflation—or if your dollar had the same overall purchasing power as a consumer in 1984, right before the beginning of this survey—this would be the least expensive Thanksgiving meal in the 39-year history of the AFBF Thanksgiving survey, other than the outlier of 2020," the authors write. The latter year was an anomaly because of the pandemic. (More Thanksgiving dinner stories.)

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