SWANS ARE EXPENSIVE!

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Theholiday season is upon us.  And so is the29^th annual PNC Christmas Price Index!
Theannual survey conducted by PNC Wealth Management tracks the cost of the items giftedby the True Love in the classic carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” - from a partridgein a pear tree to 12 drummers drumming.
Thecost for 2012 is $25,431.18, up $1,168.00, or 4.8%, from 2011.
Thebiggest price increase on the list is the 6 geese-a-laying, which jumped 29.6%,from $162.00 to $210.00.  Half of theanimal prices showed double-digit increases, the other 2 in the teens, and halfremained unchanged.  While the cost of thepartridge was the same as last year, the price of the pear tree in which thepartridge sits was up 11.8%.  The onlyother double-digit increase was for the 5 gold rings, up 16.3%.
Onthe labor front - although the performer’s union has usually done better for itsmembers than the musician’s union, with the dancers and leapers earningsubstantially more than the pipers and drummers, this year there was no changein the price of the dancers or leapers. But the musician’s union was able to get their members a 5.5% pay raise.  The poor milking maids, considered “unskilledlabor”, are paid the minimum wage, which did not go up in 2012.
Asa point of information, each dancing lady gets $699.34 while a milking maidgets only $7.25 (the musicians each get slightly over $230.00).  At $58.00, the 8 maids-a-milking is the leastexpensive item on the list (if you could the partridge and pear tree combined).  On the other end the swan is the mostexpensive item at $1,000 each. 
PNCalso calculates the “True Cost of Christmas”, which is the total cost of all364 gifts from repeat giving in each verse of the song.  For 2012 this is $107,300.24, up $6,180.40 or6.1% from last year.
Andit also determines the price of the items if purchased over the internet, which,at $40,439.53, is $15,008.35 more than the base CPI.    However, the increase in cyber prices from2011 to 2012 is only $579.47, or 1.5%. 
PNCWealth Management tells us –
“In general, Internet prices are higher thantheir non-Internet counterparts because of premium shipping costs for birds andthe convenience factor of shopping online.”
Soit does pay to stand on line on Black Friday instead of ordering from theconvenience of your home on Cyber Monday. Since I no longer exchange gifts, I do not have to do either!
TTFN