Costing out Thanksgiving Dinner

[snafu]

The 'talking heads' on TV this AM explained the cost of Thanksgiving Dinner has decreased slightly this year. Turkey and all the trimmings was costed out at $ 49.50 for ten people...about $ 4.95 per person. Gives perspective on dinner at one of the nicer restaurants.

[rennigade]

That seems pretty accurate to me. Turkey is on sale this week at the grocery store for 60 cents a pound. So a 25lb turkey will run $15 along with a bunch of sides.

[disneysteve]

$5/person sounds about right for a nice home-cooked meal. When people try to claim that eating out is cheaper than cooking, I just wonder what they're thinking.

[HappySaver]

I agree about it being cheaper than eating out, but that estimated cost is too low for us.

Our turkey alone will cost $60. We'll be picking it up at a local farm the day before. It's worth it to us, to be able to do that.
Factor in appetizers, trimmings, wine, and dessert and we'll be well over $100 for 6 adults.

Still way cheaper than eating out, of course, and better than anything you'd get at a restaurant.

[hamchan]

It costs a lot more than 5$ per person to cook for just two people. Not as much as it costs for Thanksgiving dinner for two at the restaurant up the street from us, but since I am working from 8-4 on Thanksgiving, and won't be home till 5:30 or 6:00, we'll be eating out again this year. It works out better anyway because I don't like turkey and I can get what I want and DH still gets his annual turkey.

[HappySaver]

Good point about the cost decreasing per person with more people. I suppose that's why they picked 10, to help make their point.

We always get a bigger turkey than the official estimates say we need per person, because we want leftovers! We've even done small turkeys for just the two of us, not at Thanksgiving, and it will feed us for days.

[disneysteve]

It costs a lot more than 5$ per person to cook for just two people.

Good point about the cost decreasing per person with more people.

If you're making a whole turkey for 2 people, you need to keep in mind that you get a lot of leftovers. Not all of that money is being spent on just one meal.

The other option (assuming you both want turkey) is to just buy a turkey breast, not a whole bird. My wife and I have done that since we only want the white meat anyway and the rest would go in the trash. Actually, even when we have people over for Passover dinner, we do all breast meat.

[hamchan]

We have cooked before for Thanksgiving, but we never make turkey because I don't like it. The big problem is that there are way too many leftovers for us to realistically finish before we get sick of eating them. We ate out last year and I liked that much more. Might do the same for Christmas this year. I don't get much time off and the last thing I want to do on Christmas is cook.

[disneysteve]

I can certainly understand not wanting to cook after a long day at work. We've all had those days.

As for leftovers, the simple answer of course is to not make so much food. My wife and I made a nice dinner last night and made just enough for the two of us. There was only a very small container of veggies left over.

And as for not wanting to cook, we happen to enjoy cooking so my point of view may be skewed but most meals we make take no more than about 30-45 minutes start to finish. When I'm tired from working all day, I enjoy the process, like last night. I got home about 4:30pm. We needed to leave the house by 7:00pm. We didn't start dinner until about 5 and we were done eating,all cleaned up, changed our clothes and still out of the house by 6:30. Good cooking doesn't have to take a lot of time.

[hamchan]

I'm not talking in general, I mean specifically for Thanksgiving. Traditional Thanksgiving dishes aren't something we eat on a regular basis (too much salt, carbs, and potassium to have more than once a year), so it's hard to make it for two people without having a bunch of leftovers or ingredients we won't use. When I cook dinner it is a one dish meal. I don't do side dishes ever, and there aren't usually leftovers unless it's something I made with the crock pot, and those meals freeze pretty well.

But I don't enjoy cooking, or the clean up, which takes a considerable amount of time with no dish washer. So I am starting to lean more toward not cooking for holidays.

[rennigade]

I just bought a 22lb turkey today for 2 people. We'll freeze a lot of it and thaw it out as we want it. We like to use the leftover turkey for soups we make.

Most things can be froze and later thawed and taste exactly the same. Just get creative...use your head...and throw together some enjoyable.

[hamchan]

I don't like turkey and we can't/won't eat the other stuff later. I don't think it's such a terrible thing to eat out for holiday dinners if it makes the day more enjoyable for me. I could stay home and cook all day, or I could go to work, make $250 and then spend $50 on dinner out. I still come out ahead.

[hamchan]

I also don't agree that most things can be frozen and taste the same when thawed out. There are not a lot of foods that taste fine to me after being frozen. It really changes the texture and flavor of most foods to me.

[QuarterMillionMan]

To preface this as a single guy cooking a whole turkey can be overwhelming when it comes to leftovers (ha-ha). I'd be eatiing turkey sandwiches, turkey salads, turkey con carne, turkey spaghetti, scalloped turkey with broccolli, potatoes, corn, and cream of mushroom soup (this is a great way I like eat leftover turkey by the way), turkey with this, turkey with that for a month. Usually every thanksgiving I'll be with family/friends. And with the price of turkey being so cheap this time of year or when I'm not with family/friends this is what I've done. Being a direct descendant of the Neanderthal man, I'll get a whole frozen turkey and while frozen solid cut up the turkey into fourths using a saw-zall (with a brand new saw blade of course). I'm not talking about an electric knife here, I'm talking about an industrial electric reciprocating saw used to cut lumber (seriously). This method works fantastic and it cuts through the meat/bones like a hot knife thru butter. One-fourth of a turkey is about the same size of a whole chicken and much more manageable for a single person. So there you go, Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

[LuckyRobin]

If you don't want to cook a turkey for just two people, I'd recommend Cornish game hens. On a year where we didn't go anywhere, we made 2 game hens for the four of us, and suitable portions of the other side dishes scaled down to go with it. I'd still say we hit about $5 per person that way.