thanksgiving Cost of holiday meal 44 cents less than ’12

Associated Press

Here’s another reason to be thankful this holiday season — the cost of putting Thanksgiving dinner on the table is down slightly from last year.

But don’t bank on those savings for any big Black Friday splurges. The average Turkey Day dinner will cost $49.04, or just 44 cents less this year than it did in 2012. And while every penny counts, if you need to do any traveling to belly up to the big meal, increases in airline and train tickets mean that 44 cents won’t get you very far.

The good news is that after some steep price hikes during the economic downturn about five years ago, food prices have remained mostly stable this year. It’s a welcome change from 2011, when the cost of Thanksgiving dinner jumped $5.73, up from $43.47 in 2010, according to the annual informal survey of consumer grocery prices performed by the American Farm Bureau Federation.

The group estimates the cost by averaging nonsale food prices around the country based on feeding 10 people a meal of turkey, bread stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, carrots and celery, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and coffee and milk. And yes, their estimates account for the need for those all-important leftovers.

The credit for this year’s slight drop in price goes to stable commodity and fuel prices, both strong drivers of the prices consumers pay at the store, says Ricky Volpe, a research economist with the USDA’s Economic Research Service. He says overall grocery prices are down about one-tenth of a percent since January.

One exception — poultry. Though the Farm Bureau didn’t detect a price increase in turkey since last year (they actually found the price for a 16-pound bird down 47 cents), Volpe says consumers shouldn’t be surprised if that component of the meal jumps as much as 5 percent over last year. Higher demand and feed prices are to blame.