We’re creeping closer to Thanksgiving 2026, otherwise known in Bargain Sleuth’s house as the Grocery Shopping Olympics. Through the years, I have found that the prices leading up to the holiday to be the best of the entire year. If you’ve been wanting to start a small stockpile (which is recommended for a variety of reasons,) the next few weeks are when you are going to find the best deals of the year on food, not just your Thanksgiving meal.

Many of you discovered Wisconsin Consumer when I did the research and found Which Wisconsin Grocery Store is the Cheapest? What I’ve done with this post is basically the same. I’ve checked the prices for the most common Thanksgiving foods and noted the price, highlighting who has the best and worst prices on any given item. I’ve also gathered the prices for a pre-made meal that you can get at the various stores and then just heat up. You can do Thanksgiving anyway you want!

The items that I priced are included below. I went for lowest price regardless of brand, and the lowest price per item is listed.

As you can see, Aldi has the cheapest prices on holiday staples, followed by Walmart and then Festival Foods. Oddly enough, Woodman’s did not have a lowest price on a single item; Fresh Thyme was the same, in part because many of the items were organic.

UPDATE: Walmart has a deal right now: Use the Promo code “Double10” (or try Triple10 if that doesn’t work) for $10 off your grocery order. The link takes you to their $35 Thanksgiving list, but with the discount code, you can get 26 items for $25.

Hy-Vee has a deal through the 29th where you can buy a Hormel Cure 81 Ham at $5.99/lb and get a Free Turkey. Free turkey offer covers up to a 14 lb. turkey, with a maximum value of $27.86. For turkeys over $27.86, only the remaining balance applies to the customer’s total. Valid on in-store and online orders placed Nov. 2-29, 2026. If you don’t want to do the deal, the prices on the grid are the lowest prices they have for ham and turkey.

Important to Note – some stores on this list may not have their sales started on Thanksgiving items until the start of the new sales week, which starts tomorrow or Wednesday/Thursday. I will update the list accordingly at the time.

Don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen? Check out my previous post, Planning Your Thanksgiving Meal? Order it to Go with These Options

I did the research and can tell you Which Wisconsin Grocery Store is the Cheapest? The Numbers for October 2026 are Here If you’re looking for more organic/natural/healthier choices at the grocery store, check out Which Grocery Store is the Cheapest When Buying Natural/Organic items? Here are the Numbers

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Fans of reading may be interested in my other website, Bargain Sleuth Reviews. The majority of books I review are Advanced Reader’s Copies, which are given for free. Or I get my books to review from The Brown County Library.

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