How Hard Do You Work for Thanksgiving Dinner?
It's that time of year for getting cozy, sipping cider and looking forward to a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. How many hours do you need to work to get ready for turkey time? Depending on your job, you may need a couple of hours or a couple of days to pay for the best meal of the year.
Online salary database PayScale.com ran the numbers on how much time different workers must put in on the job to afford their Thanksgiving meal. To get our cost estimate for a dinner for 10 adults, we turned to Chef Patrick Frank of Cochon Catering in Seattle, Washington. He came up with the following estimates.
|
Food Item |
Quantity |
Cost |
|
Turkey |
18 lbs. x $1.58 per lb. |
$28.50 |
|
Stuffing |
2 bags x $4.50 per bag |
$9.00 |
|
Mashed Potatoes |
6 lbs. x $1.50 per lb. |
$9.00 |
|
Cranberry Salad |
2 cans x $3 per can |
$6.00 |
|
Gravy |
1 quart |
$5.00 |
|
Green Bean Casserole |
3 lbs. total |
$8.00 |
|
Rolls |
1 dozen |
$4.00 |
|
Butter |
1 lb. |
$2.50 |
|
Salad |
Assorted Veggies |
$8.00 |
|
Baked Sweet Potatoes |
4 lbs. plus topping |
$10.00 |
|
Pecan Pie |
1 pie |
$9.00 |
|
Pumpkin Pie |
1 pie |
$8.00 |
|
Cool-Whip |
1 tub |
$3.00 |
|
|
TOTAL |
$110.00 |
With this estimate, dinner costs about $11 per person. Yet, that number is low considering other costs like gasoline to drive to the store, hours spent in the kitchen and energy to heat an oven all day. Your true total may be more.
Frank mentions two ways to quickly boost your costs: organic ingredients and ordering out.
"If you want to go organic, you can add 30 percent per person," he says.
Or, rather not mess around with all of the above? Grocery chains and caterers in some cities can prepare the entire meal for you. "If you just want to pop some stuff in the oven for a half hour, Whole Foods can give you what you need for about $160," says Frank.
Hours Worked for a Thanksgiving Meal
Who earns their Thanksgiving Day meal the quickest? PayScale crunched the numbers on a variety of jobs' hourly rates then figured out the number of hours and minutes needed get that turkey on the table.
|
Job Title |
Hourly Pay |
Work Time Required |
|
$112.00 |
59 min |
|
|
$48.00 |
2 hr 17 min |
|
|
$28.00 |
3 hr 56 min |
|
|
$20.00 |
5 hr 30 min |
|
|
$19.00 |
5 hr 47 min |
|
|
$19.00 |
5 hr 47 min |
|
|
$11.00 |
10 hrs |
|
|
$11.00 |
10 hrs |
|
|
$9.00 |
12 hr 13 min |
We'll finish with some inspiring thoughts from Frank. "Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. As a kid my whole family got together, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and even friends. Grudges were forgotten and family was all that mattered. Perhaps if we all gathered around the table more often than once or twice a year we would have tighter knit families and communities."
That sounds good. We may just need to make those extra meals potlucks.
Next: Tipping Guidelines For The Holidays And Beyond
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Bridget Quigg
Bridget Quigg is the web content editor for online salary database PayScale.com. Located in Seattle, Wash., Bridget specializes in writing and editing content for blogs, websites and feature articles.
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