How much is a cookout in 2024?

Sharon Wren
·2 min read
How much is a cookout in 2024?

Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer fun, including backyard cookouts. How much are those cookouts going to cost this summer?

The experts at Cookout News, a website covering everything about outdoor cooking, ran numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to see which parts of the country are paying more for grilling out. BLS tracks regional data based on the census regions of the Midwest, West, Northeast and South.

The pros decided a typical cookout would serve 10 people with one plate of food each. The costs don’t include higher priced items like alcohol or people who like seconds. For the purposes of the study, one plate for each person consists of:

  • 4 oz. cheeseburger with lettuce, onion, tomato, ketchup, mustard and bun

  • Hot dog with bun

  • Serving of baked beans

  • Serving of potato salad

  • Serving of potato chips

  • Serving of strawberries

  • Serving of vanilla ice cream

  • Serving of cookies

  • 12 oz of soda

Grillers out West are paying more to cook outdoors; the average cookout will set hosts back $94.55 on average. The Northeast does a little better with an average overall cost of $90.33. Southern hosts can expect to pay $87.76 on average to entertain. The Midwest comes out as the bargain place for cookouts, with an average of $84.99. The national average for 2924 is $89.41, a 3.6% increase from last year. That may not sound good, but it’s better than the 12% increase from 2022 to 2023, when it rose from $76.87 to $86.32.

The website offers tips for cutting costs even more.

  • Barbecuing began as a way to take inexpensive meat and turn it into something tasty. Try less expensive items, like pork shoulder, and let them cook slowly for better flavor.

  • If you want to serve steaks, try cheaper cuts that still taste good, like flat iron steaks, instead of the more expensive Porterhouse or T-bone cuts.

  • Have a good assortment of side dishes on hand because they are generally cheaper than proteins and are filling, like potato salad, macaroni salad and cut fruit.

  • Save money by doing some of the work yourself. Make hamburger patties instead of buying premade ones or make homemade sides like macaroni salad. Cutting fruit for a platter may take a little longer but is much less expensive than precut.

  • Check for deals at warehouse/membership stores.

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