How much will your Thanksgiving dinner cost you? Favorite potato & pie recipes in every US state, 5 Thanksgiving dinner table conversation topics & more...

Plus if you are traveling this Thanksgiving expect cheaper flights. You are also likely to catch some good bargains on Black Friday.

««Happy Thanksgiving all- A glance at today’s special edition»»

🙏🏼My first experience of Thanksgiving in the US when I was a freshmen in college

💸How much is your Thanksgiving dinner going to cost you this year?

🥧What are Americans’ favorite potato and pie recipe in every US state?

🤓 If you want to sound smart and insightful at your Thanksgiving dinner table, here are 5 questions that you can use to drive the conversation. 

✈️ Traveling this Thanksgiving? Expect cheaper flights, fewer disruptions and more boomers. 

🛍️And of course, what is Thanksgiving without America’s favorite shopping day- Black Friday. See any irresistible deals below?

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🦃🍁🥧🙏🏼Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Before, we start, I wanted to share a quick story of my first Thanksgiving in the US. 👇🏽 

Many of you know I am originally from India. And I hadn’t heard about Thanksgiving until I came to the US for my undergraduate studies in 2007. So, when the college shut down during Thanksgiving break, there were just a handful of international students who were left on campus, including myself. To get me through the break, I had stocked up on plenty of cereal boxes and instant cup noodles in my dorm room. 

And then on Tuesday, I received an email. The Dean of our college had sent out an invitation to all the international students at his residence for Thanksgiving dinner. That afternoon of Thanksgiving, the Dean picked us all up from our dorms and took us to his home. And there I had one of the most heartfelt and memorable experiences of my life, as a family, who I had never met before, opened their home and hearts to me and shared the most delicious food, stories and laughter. 

Plus, I have to admit, I did fall in love with stuffing and cranberry sauce that day. I also realized how complicated the rules of American football were, which I till date don’t understand fully. 

But most importantly, my first Thanksgiving in the US spent with my college Dean’s family made me realize how potent an act of kindness can be. And perhaps, from the spark of kindness that was lit that day, I have created sparkles in others’ lives too since then. 

You see, kindness is contagious in a good way and we need it now more than ever before in order to remain strong, sane and focused in a world that may feel confusing and chaotic at times.

I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving!! Fill up your house and belly with all the good vibes, food and laughter. 

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💸How much is your Thanksgiving dinner going to cost you this year?

Let’s start with some good news and that is inflation is easing overall. Food prices aren’t rising at the same rapid clip as last year. Consumers are estimated to spend 2% more on Thanksgiving dinner this year, compared with a 14% increase last year, according to market research firm Circana. 

The American Farm Bureau Federation estimates that the typical Thanksgiving feast for 10 will come in at $61.17, a 4.5% decline from last year’s record-high price tag. That is still 25% higher than in 2019, the Farm Bureau said. 

Among the side dishes surveyed by the agricultural trade group this year, a can of pumpkin-pie mix and dinner rolls increased the most at 3.7% and 3% respectively. Since dinner rolls are often prepared in-store, the Farm Bureau said, they could show the effect of rising supermarket wages. 

The main comfort for families this year will be turkey prices, which had soared last year because of the deadly bird flu outbreak. 

Here’s a breakdown of your key Thanksgiving shopping basket items and how much you are likely to pay relative to last year. If you like cranberry sauce like I do, you are in for a pleasant surprise on your shopping bill. 

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🥧What are Americans googling for Thanksgiving food in different states?

Thanks to Google Trends, I can each and every state’s favorite Thanksgiving potato and pie choices. Which is your favorite potato and pie recipe for Thanksgiving?

Plus, Texas is the top state searching for “Thanksgiving” over the past week in the US, followed by Oklahoma and West Virginia. Meanwhile, the search terms “best wine for thanksgiving” and “appetizers for thanksgiving” have spiked over 500% in the past month. 

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🤓 If you want to sound smart and insightful at your Thanksgiving dinner table, here are 5 questions that you can use to drive the conversation. 

Wall Street Journal has prepared a pretty neat list of Thanksgiving dinner table conversation topics and a quick brief on each of those topics to get you up to date. I definitely recommend it. Out of the list of questions that Wall Street Journals, these are my favorite:

1. Is it worth taking on credit card debt for a big ticket event like a concert tour?

2. If labor shortages ease up, will unions lose their leverage and support?

3. Is buying a house still worth it?

4. If enough people are taking Ozempic, does that spell bad news for industries built around snacking, fast food and groceries?

And I will add one more to this list of questions, which I am sure will come up in your dinner conversation. 👇🏽

5. What the hell is going on with OpenAI?

(And since the Wall Street Journal does not have a quick brief on this in its list of questions, here’s my attempt to get you up to speed in less than 5 minutes.)

What is OpenAI? OpenAI is the San Francisco-based company behind ChatGPT, a chatbot that has wowed users with its ability to produce highly convincing text responses to human prompts. It has also developed Dall-E, a tool that produces images from text prompts. Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI. 

Why was Altman fired? On Friday, the board announced that it had fired Altman because “he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board” and was thus “hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities”. The board gave no further details about the communications in question. 

What has happened since? On Monday, Microsoft announced it had hired Altman and his close colleague Greg Brockman to head a new advanced AI research unit.

Meanwhile, in an open letter to the board of directors published on Monday, more than 600 staff at OpenAI, including Mira Murati, threatened to resign and join Microsoft unless the board quit and reinstated Altman as the CEO.  

As of this morning, Sam Altman will return as CEO of OpenAI. Former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will join OpenAI’s board, with Taylor holding the chair position.

What does this mean for the future of AI development? The big takeaway is that OpenAI’s crisis points to a wider rift emerging in the industry as a whole, between “AI safety” folk who believe that unchecked progress could one day prove catastrophic for humans and those who find such “doomer” talk a ridiculous distraction from the real-world risks of any technological revolution, such as economic upheaval, harmful biases and misuse. If OpenAI’s rift spreads to the wider industry and the pace of development slows down overall, we may have to wait a little longer.  

You feel ready to ace all the questions from your aunts and uncles on the dinner table now?

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✈️ If you are traveling this Thanksgiving, expect cheaper flights, fewer disruptions and more boomers. 

Nearly half of Americans plan to travel between Thanksgiving and mid-January, up from 31% last winter, a recent Deloitte survey found. AAA expects 55.4M travelers to venture at least 50 miles from home during the Thanksgiving period alone, a 2.3% increase from last year. 

The good news: Airline ticket prices are falling even as more Americans intend to fly. Deloitte found that 33% of holiday travelers plan to take a domestic flight, up from 29% last year. Despite the strong demand, airfares were 13% cheaper last month than they were a year ago.

Round trip tickets within the US are set to average $268 during Thanksgiving (an annual decline of 14%) and $400 around Christmas (down 12%) according to the booking platform Hopper. 

Meanwhile, airlines and aviation officials sound confident about handling the holiday crush. 

“We are now so much better prepared for extreme weather events,” Southwest’s chief operating officer, Andrew Watterson, told investors on a recent earnings call, referring to the carrier’s holiday meltdown last December. 

American Airlines is also reassuring customers that it “has been running the most reliable operation of any US network carrier for the past 14 months.” And United Airlines unveiled a new boarding process last month that it says should speed up the process. 

Meanwhile, baby boomers who represented 21% of those traveling during the holidays in 2022, are expected to make up 29% of travelers this year, Deloitte projects. As inflation, health and travel disruption concerns have eased, boomers are making up for the lost trips.

Gen X travelers will also comprise a greater share of holiday travelers, growing from 26% last year to an expected 29% this season. On the other hand, Millennials and GenZ travelers are expected to fall back a bit, with millennials going from 36% of holiday travelers last year to 31% this year, and GenZers from 14% to just 8%. 

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🛍️Can’t do a Thanksgiving post without talking about America’s favorite shopping day- Black Friday. 

Holiday shoppers scouring Back Friday deals are in for a pleasant surprise. We know that inflation has broadly declined from its 40-year peak as the economy shows signs of cooling from slower job growth and sluggish retail spending last month. Retailers such as Walmart said that an era of price hikes may be fading. 

Adobe, which tracks online sales through its analytics arm, predicts holiday discounting will hit record highs as retailer struggle with the uncertain outlook for consumer spending. It forecasts that toys, electronics, TVs and furniture will see the most aggressive price cuts.

However, it is expected that consumers will increasingly continue to finance their purchases using credit cards. To tame inflation, the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates to their highest level in 22 years, which in turn, has lifted consumer borrowing rates to punishing highs, with credit-card rates above 20%. This means shoppers planning to stuff stockings on credit might just find themselves paying more in the long run than they would have a few years ago. 

But as long as you are aware and in control of your personal finance, it doesn’t hurt going a little bargain hunting, does it?

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That’s all for today and this week, folks! 

What is on your Thanksgiving menu this year? 

Amrita 👋🏼👋🏼