Someone on TikTok analysed the economics in iconic Christmas flick Home Alone to see how much Kevin McCallister’s groceries would cost today and the results are dire to say the least. I know we’re dealing with inflation but… damn.
Home Alone is unrealistic for a lot of reasons — a parent forgetting their kid home alone while vacationing is pretty unlikely, as is an eight-year-old then being left to their own devices with no one else checking up on them.
And, of course, a kid that age is probably not going to come up with the wild and sadistic death traps our dear Kevin does (even though it’s fun to watch). As someone who has an eight-year-old sibling, there’s no way.
But the most unrealistic part of the film, in this day and age, is actually Kevin’s grocery total — which comes to less than $20, despite there being about a dozen items on his list. Imagine!
If I had to guess, I’d say a shopping trip of that size would cost at least $50 at Woolworths.
TikToker Geoffrey Lyons (@sellitlikelyons) did the maths to figure out exactly how much these same items would cost today, and even inflation can’t account for this.
“TV dinner, you got the Wonder Bread, the frozen mac and cheese, Saran wrap, half gallon of milk, Tide, half gallon of orange juice, [toy] army soldiers, the Snuggle dryer sheets,” he noted, listing the items Kevin bought.
The total cost of the items in the film, which was released in 1990, was USD $19.83 (minus $1 which Kevin got off via a coupon)
Geoffrey recreated the shopping list online at Target (which, in the US, is more of a discount store that also sells groceries, unlike in Australia where it mostly sells clothing and homewares and is a bit more expensive).
He was able to find most of the same products, but subbed in the ones he couldn’t find with similar items.
The total for the groceries, in 2023, was…. drum roll… a whopping USD $63.73!!!!! If you include tax, the total increases to USD $68.99. Which is 3.5x more than what Kevin paid in 1990. In AUD, that’s a total of $104.29. YIKES.
To cover all bases, I used an inflation calculator to check how much USD $19.83 equivalates to in 2023. The answer is only USD $46.68, which means even after inflation, prices have increased exponentially.
Now I want to know how much it would cost for a family with five kids to live in that fancy Chicago mansion Home Alone is set in. I always wondered how the McAllisters could afford that and all their luxe holidays.
