Between buying the turkey and stuffing, travel costs, and finding just the right bottle of wine, Thanksgiving is getting to be an expensive holiday.
A new survey from LendEDU finds that the average American will spend a total of $165.14 on Thanksgiving expenses.
Travel’s a notable part of that, but it’s not the majority. The site, which surveyed 1,000 people about their expected costs, says travel expenses make up $67.59 of that amount, with the rest going for food, wine, and other expenses.
It’s somewhat surprising that travel doesn’t make up more of the costs, actually. Industry trade group Airlines for America says it expects the Sunday after Thanksgiving (November 26) to be the busiest travel day of the year with an estimated 2.88 million people taking to the skies.
Thanksgiving has traditionally been a time of friends and family, of course, but it’s more and more a retail holiday as well, as stores try to lure in holiday bargain hunters. This year, J.C. Penney will begin sales at 2pm on Thanksgiving.
The real winners at this time of the year, though, are the nation’s turkey farmers. LendEDU calculates there are 254 million turkeys raised in the U.S. each year, with a total value of $4.85 billion.