Wednesday, December 18, 2013

How Much Do the 12 Days of Christmas Cost in 2013?

So, it's official. PNC Financial has released their yearly cost for the 12 days of Christmas. You remember the song: five golden rings, a partridge in a pear tree, etc. Every year, PNC Financial releases the cost of the "12 Days of Christmas" song based on the financial numbers of the prices for the items, or what they call the "Christmas Price Index".

So here are the costs for each of the twelve days:

One partridge in a pear tree: $199.99
Two turtle doves: $125.00
Three french hens: $165.00
Four calling birds: $599.96
Five golden rings: $750.00
Six geese-a-laying: $210.00
Seven swans-a-swimming: $7000.00
Eight maids-a-milking: $58.00
Nine ladies dancing: $7552.84
Ten lords-a-leaping: $5243.37
Eleven pipers piping: $2635.20
Twelve drummers drumming: $2854.50

Total of those added up would come to $27,393.17. If you kept track of last year's Christmas Price Index, you'd note that this year's is up 7.7% from last year.

Quite pricey. But that's only if you went through the song without repeating everything. Remember that the song starts at the first day. On the second day, it's the partridge and the turtle doves. On the third day, it's the french hens, the turtle doves, and the partridge. And so on. So if you repeat everything, how much does that cost? $114,651.18. This is over $7,000 more expensive that last year's.

What were the highest increases? The lords-a-leaping went up 10% (1% for each lord); the calling birds went up 15.4%; and the nine dancing ladies went up by 20%.

The other thing to keep in mind is that these prices are only based on buying them without shipping. If you added each line above and then added shipping, the total cost would be over $12,000 more.