I took out a loan and bought some lean hamburger yesterday. Wow! At $6.00 a pound,(more or less) I'm thinking I'll never eat steak or seafood ever again! Groceries are getting more and more expensive. That includes the food you may be buying for your Thanksgiving table. The American Farm Bureau Federation economists keep track of these costs every year and this year the news is good and bad.

The average cost of this year's Thanksgiving feast for 10 people is $53.32 or just under $6 per person. That is up 14% this year over last.

Several factors contributed to the increase in average cost of this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. These include dramatic disruptions to the U.S. economy and supply chains over the last 20 months; inflationary pressure throughout the economy; difficulty in predicting demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and high global demand for food, particularly meat. Further, “The trend of consumers cooking and eating at home more often due to the pandemic led to increased supermarket demand and higher retail food prices in 2020 and 2021, compared to pre-pandemic prices in 2019.” - -AFBF Senior Economist Veronica Nigh

Costs were based on the Farm Bureau's shopping list including,

"Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and coffee and milk, all in quantities sufficient to serve a family of 10 with plenty for leftovers" - -AFBF

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Yes, they even consider the ingredients you need to prepare those menu items like sugar, butter, evaporated milk, onion, eggs, and flour. But you're thinking, "What about green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and where's the ham? A lot of people have ham too!"

So this year the Farm Bureau also shopped for these items. If you add a 4-pound bone-in ham, 5 pounds of Russets, and a pound of frozen green beans, it will increase your cost to about $62 for 10 people.

Remember though, if you go with a food delivery service or have a restaurant or grocery store prepare everything for you, you're talking about substantially more money.

So turkey on and Happy Thanksgiving!

Source: American Farm Bureau Federation

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