The 2007 CPI

                                        

Item

Cost

Cost last year

Partridge	$15	Same
Pear Tree	$150	$130
Two Turtle Doves	$40	Same
Three French Hens	$45	Same
Four Calling Birds (canaries)	$600	$480
Five Gold Rings	$395	$325
Six Geese a-Laying	$360	$300
Seven Swans a-Swimming	$4,200	Same
Eight Maids a-Milking	$47	$41
Nine Ladies Dancing (per performance)	$4,759	Same
10 Lords a-Leaping (per performance)	$4,285	$4,160
11 Pipers Piping (per performance)	$2,213	$2,124
12 Drummers Drumming (per performance)	$2,398	$2,301

 

It's hard to believe that Christmas is a month away.  With the shopping season in full swing thanks to last week's Black Friday frenzy, it's time once again to look at the CPI - Christmas Price Index.  The good folks at PNC bank have been working hard as usual to bring us the 2007 CPI.   According to the 23rd annual survey, the cost of "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" is $19,507, a 3.1 percent increase over last year.  And once again, the rise in prices equaled the government's CPI - Consumer Price Index. 

 

If you want to buy your true love five gold rings this year, you're going to have to pay a bit more thanks to the increase in gold prices. The price of five gold rings now totals $395, a 21.5 percent increase over 2006prices, but nowhere close to 1989 prices, when five gold rings hit an all-time high of $750.  But the big bargains this year are on all of the birds; most of their prices stayed the same as last year. 

 

Another major increase this year was long overdue - the eight maids a-milking finally got a raise.  Thanks to the increase in the minimum wage this year, the maids got a 13.6 percent raise.  Which isn't anything to brag about when you consider the raise brought them up to the minimum wage of $5.85.  All I can say is it's about time those milk maids got a raise.