The rising price of New Year's Eve treats and traditions
Celebrating the new year with good food and a drink or two or more? If so, it will cost you. Like anything else these days, NYE traditions are feeling the sting of inflation.
Let's start with champagne, wine and other alcoholic beverages, musts for many partygoers.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics November 2022 Consumer Price Index (CPI), the cost of alcoholic beverages at home are up 4.5%, with wine in particular up 3.0%. In addition, per a price study conducted by FinanceBuzz, Americans can expect to pay $55.85 dollars for a bottle of champagne this year. According to the online wine marketplace Vivino, the average cost for a 'good' bottle, 4.0 rating, of wine costs $32.48 U.S. dollars.
Some other cultural NYE traditions will be more expensive as well this year.
Example: One Filipino tradition includes displaying and serving 12-to-13 circular fruits. (12 representing months in a calendar year.) The fruits are believed to bring good fortunate into the New Year and welcome prosperity into the home. Per CPI data, the cost of fruits year-over-year is up 6.6%.
The price of fruits will have Italian and Spanish families feeling the brunt for what's called 'The Twelve Lucky Grapes' tradition. People are expected to eat 12 green grapes at each ring of midnight. This symbolizes the 12 months of the year and is intended to bring good luck.
Lentils at midnight—another Italian tradition—is supposed to bring you more money in the new year. But in 2023, you may have to haul in much more. Overall, the cost of dried beans, peas and lentils are up per the BLS, 7.8% compared to 2021.
Another new year's treat that hasn't escaped the wrath of inflation: the Greek bread, or cake, called Vasilopita.
At Pi Bakerie, the overall cost for ingredients have gone up 25%. The impact on sales? Typical customers walk into the bakery three times a day - they're down to one visit per day now.
Want to make Vasilopita, which costs $36 retail, at home? It will still cost you. Overall cakes, cupcakes and cookies are up 17.6% per CPI data. Individual ingredients also increased year-over-year. They include flour, up 24.9%, eggs, up 49.1%, milk, up 14.7%, butter up 27.0% and sugar, up 14.1%.
And in the New Year, experts expect a toll on the overall broader economy in the first few months.
"It's going to be a couple of— a couple of rough months to start the year....You do see this rolling recession that's actually happening out there. Consumer sentiment is terrible. Retail spending, although the consumer is resilient, it's starting to give a little bit," Defiance ETFs CEO and CIO Sylvia Jablonski told Yahoo Finance.
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Brooke DiPalma is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@yahoofinance.com.
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