University grads turn to training for trades

SCARBOROUGH, Maine — Putting on hazmat gear for the first time turns out to be a drawn-out process, so the trainees who are practicing this new skill make the time go faster with a little clowning around.

“Smile! Work it! Work it!” one shouts at a classmate as she jokingly strikes glamour poses for photos in a heavy vapor suit with rubber boots, two layers of gloves, a respirator and a 26pound breathing tank. Another compares the get-up to the uniforms worn by the child detection agents in the movie “Monsters, Inc.”

Spread out in a parking lot beside a fire station, these congenial 20- and 30-somethings are enrolled in a community college

program to become firefighters.

Four of the five in this group have something else in common:

meal for the first time without relatives’ help.

More than a third of Americans plan to spend less on Thanksgiving this year, a survey from mobile rewards platform Ibotta Inc. shows.

“Pricing whole turkeys as ‘loss leaders’ to entice shoppers and move product is a strategy we’re seeing retailers use that’s increasingly common the closer we get to the holiday,” said John Newton, chief economist for Farm Bureau, which has been surveying retail prices ahead of

the holiday since 1986.

The average overall cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for 10 this year is $46.90, down 4 percent from last year, the farm group’s survey shows. The survey is based on a menu of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and coffee and milk.

In addition to turkey, foods that showed slight price declines include whipping cream and sweet potatoes. Foods showing modest increases this year included dinner rolls, cubed bread stuffing and pumpkin pie mix.

Michael Robinson Chavez / Washington Post Completing career and technical education is almost always less expensive and faster than studying toward a bachelor’s degree.

Stacey Wescott / Tribune News Service Mark Bristow, right, helps customer Jim Christman choose a turkey early this month at Jewel Osco in River Forest, Ill., a village outside Chicago. Bristow is a sales manager at the store.

Dreamstime / Tribune News Service A survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation showed slight price declines this Thanksgiving for turkey, whipping cream and sweet potatoes.