Christmas Dinner Costs

[Lori Biever-Launder]

There was an article in our paper today about the cost of Christmas dinner nationwide. Here's what the Portland area stores charged for the fixings:

2 bottles wine (1 red, 1 white)--22.48
2-2L pop--1.48
2 heads lettuce--1.56
2lbs tomatoes--4.32
10lb turkey--17.25
6lb ham--13.69
3lbs broccoli--1.79
cheese sauce (flour, cheese, milk)--10.98
10 lbs potatoes--1.48
1 loaf bread--4.29
1lb butter--2.50
1/2 gallon ice cream--6.38
1bag chocolate chip cookies--3.00

Grand total: 91.20!! ACK!

Now, let's look at this from a FV perspective (or, how Lori shops!):

1 bottle wine--10.00
2-2L pop--1.98
1 bottle sparkling cider--1.98
1 bag spinach (healthier!) 1.98
Tomatoes--NO WAY! Too expensive!
20 lb turkey: 5.01 (yes, I REALLY paid this little!)
Large ham--free from work for Christmas
3lbs broccoli--2.07
Cheese sauce--NO WAY! Too expensive!
10lbs potatoes--1.48
Bread--1.38
1lb butter--1.78
1/2 gallon ice cream--1.99
Cookies--won't be buying

Lori's grand total:29.65. Plus, there will a bunch of stuff left over for days. FWIW, we will NOT be cooking the ham this week. It will be next week once we have all had our fill of turkey.

At nearly a hundred bucks for ONE meal AT HOME, no wonder the economy is in the toilet!

[Lori Biever-Launder]

I forgot to add this: if we leave out JUST the wine, we can do this meal for under $20.00! How about that! More like a FV kind of dinner, hmmm?

[Patty A]

I agree, who would spend almost 100 dollars on one meal?? Like you I will be doing a more frugal dinner and have the left overs for days! I can't see how anyone could pay that kind of money for a meal, that much would feed us for awhile........

[madhen]

I'll easily be spending over $100. We do prime rib at my house for dinner, and for five adults, it will be close to $70 just for the meat. But it is once a year, and everyone (except me, not a big red meat fan) loves it, so prime rib it is. The way I look at it, I'll probably spend between $100-150 for dinner, especially if I cave in and buy red wine for the ONE person out of the five who drinks it, but if we all went out to McCormick and Schmick's for prime rib, it'd be closer to $400, so it is still pretty frugal for an EXCELLENT meal!

[MTS04]

Well, my sister probably spends that much. I personally can't see all of the hub bub over one day.

Being a vegetarian, it's pretty easy to have a good holiday menu on the cheap. I'm thinking we'll probably have blackbean and pineapple (or mango) stuffed artichokes, spaghetti fritatta (with spinach and asparagus) and salad.
If not the fritatta, then quiche. Maybe some wild rice too, not sure.

The meal will be more expensive than usual, but for 2 adults, it would be - lets see:
artichokes - $2.00
Asparagus - $1.99
Spinach - $1.49
Eggs - $2.00
Spaghetti - $.50
Rice - $1.00
Black Beans - $.50
Pineapple - $1.00

I think that's about $11.00 and most is already in the pantry and we'll eat leftovers for a few days too.

[phoeny_moonstar]

Seeing as I am having 10+ people over at my house for the holidays yes I could see spending this much for one meal. But I will turn those 100$ leftovers into aweek of meals.

[homesteadmamma]

We will have 7, with a possiblity of 8 people. I broke this down for our costs. Remember we are in Canada.

2 bottles wine (1 red, 1 white)-- $0 (we don't drink)
2-2L pop--1.74 for 2 pop
2 heads lettuce--$1.98
2lbs tomatoes-- $1.50 (I'd only buy 3 tomatoes)
10lb turkey-- $16.76 for a 17 lb. turkey
6lb ham-- $0 (we won't be having ham)
3lbs broccoli--1.79
cheese sauce (flour, cheese, milk)--$0 (we won't be having sauce)
10 lbs potatoes-- $5.98
1 loaf bread-- .75 cents (I make my own)
1lb butter--$1.50 (I wouldn't be using l lb. of butter)
1/2 gallon ice cream-- $0 (it's just too expensive right now)
1bag chocolate chip cookies--2.00 (I make my own and we wouldn't eat a full lb. bag)

~carrots $0 (from my freezer from my garden)
~beans $0 (from my freezer from my garden)
~pickles (homemade)

Total $36.00. I'd also use the turkey bones for a number of homemade soups and turkey would be eaten for a couple days after Christmas. If we got tired of turkey (which we hardly do) I'd freeze it for later. We would also not eat 10 lbs. of potatoes, so the leftovers there would be used for a couple of meals.

[Athena31]

I agree I think most of us can make a more frugal christmas meal and still have left overs for way less then $100!

[McD]

We most likely will be spending almost 100$ for Christmas dinner/Christmas Eve snackies.

For Christmas Eve we are having: hot crab pinwheels, little smokies, tostitos and salsa con queso, cheese and crackers, and oreo truffles.

For Christmas Dinner we are having: prime rib with au jus, caesar salad, party mashed potatoes, asparagus wtih hollaindaise, sauteed mushrooms and onions, rolls, mini-cheesecakes.

We'll be inviting our neighbor who doesn't have family other than us to celebrate Christmas with. So we're going to have him over to eat. Here's my grocery list so far:

6 blocks of cream cheese
crab meat
red pepper
shredded cheddar cheese
green onions
flour tortillas
cayenne pepper
little smokies
tositos
salsa con queso
colby jack cheese
cheddar cheese
oreos
2 baker's semi sweet chocolate
prime rib (on sale for 6.99 lb)
3 sour cream
prepared horseradish
caesar salad fixings
lemon juice
onions
mushrooms
rolls
2 lbs asparagus
potatoes
graham crackers
peanut butter cuos
sugar cookie fixings
sprinkles
food coloring
roasting pan
metal rack.

I think this is gonna be a big expense for us, but to us it's worth it. Zac's Christmas dinner last year was in Iraq and it was awful. So we are overcompensating a bit this year.

[i.m.cheap]

Who has chocolate chip cookies and ice cream for Christmas dinner? We never buy lettuce and tomatoes for Christmas dinner, either. If I make a salad, it will be one bag of spring mix, and one bag of baby spinach (I always have coupons for $1.00 off each bag), with red grapes, red onion, feta cheese, and raspberry vinegrette. This is WAY better than a salad of iceberg lettuce and out of season tomatoes!

[madhen]

Ooh, that salad sounds good!! I may have to try it (but minus the raspberry vinaigrette - I hate raspberries. Maybe a nice balsamic vinaigrette instead....)

[peanut]

One hundred dollars for one dinner?! WOW! Okay, I guess we've just developed cheaper tastes here. That's the budget for 10 days here. We're having:

$12 ham (there'll be leftovers)
$3 vegetables (there'll be leftovers)
$2 scalloped potatoes (I make these from scratch...probably won't be leftovers )
$7 apple pie (I caved and bought one at the Farmer's Market)
$5 ice-cream - 1 gall (there'll be leftovers)

I suppose we could buy some wine. Most of us can only handle one glass though...so it will go a long way... only one or two bottles needed. It will last two days though. I technically shouldn't have any.

Anyways, that's $29CAD for 4 people, and we'll have leftovers.

Jean

[zakity]

**hanging head** I paid a small fortune for a spiral cut ham. It is a good one though and I did get it on sale. I bake it on xmas day and we nibble on it all day long. The rest of the year, I buy crappy hams. This is the one time a year we get a good ham.

[mickee311]

My dinner cost for Xmas day is ZERO. That's right folks, we don't do it. We have Pizza Hut at my mom's Xmas eve and that's it. It's a tradition. We usually have a big breakfast Xmas day, nothing out of the ordinary, open presents, go back to Mom's house and are too wrapped up in unwrapping to do all that crap. One huge to-do meal for Tgiving is quite enough for me, thanks.

[McD]

I just went and did my Wal-Mart run. I purchased everything except for the red pepper, the green onions, the prime rib, horseradish, caesar salad fixings, onions, mushrooms, and asparagus.

I had a few impulse purchases as well and ended up buying the special paper that Santa wraps Wesley's presents in and the name tags for a total of 9.76$I bought some Christmas Napkins for 3$.Some Christmas candies for a total of 5.47, yeast for .98, pop for 6.68, and the fixings of chili for about 3$.

So total spent on all my actual Christmas loot was about 88$, and I'll probably spend another 30$ at the grocery store getting my produce and my prime rib.

I'm frugal throughout the year and scrimp on groceries throughout the year so I can splurge.

This is a definite splurge..but it was a budgetted for splurge. We calculated the amount we thought we would spend on Christmas groceries and have saved throughout the year in our Christmas Club.