Boo! How to shake off scary prices & enjoy Halloween

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Costuming Up Post-COVID

With the fall calendar in full swing, we’re rapidly approaching the so-called holiday season, which will be largely free of COVID-based restrictions for the first time in two years. Although the more traditional holiday season gets underway at the end of next month with Thanksgiving, Halloween can also be seen as a jump-off point of sorts.

 

The National Retail Federation anticipates more people will be participating in Halloween this year as the pandemic eases, meaning more dollars will be spent. A record $10.1 billion was spent on Halloween in 2021, and that’s expected to rise to $10.6 billion this year. Just under 7 in 10 Americans say they will participate in some Halloween-related festivities.

 

Costumes are the biggest cost. The estimated total spend for 2022 is $2.9 billion, combining costumes bought for kids and adults. That’s the largest estimate since 2017. Of course, with inflation sending food prices soaring, candy prices are up this year as well.

(Not So Cheap) Sugar High

Per data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, costuming materials cost more, leading to increased prices for the finished product. Fabric, supplies, and sewing machines were up 11% year-over-year as of last month.

 

Meanwhile, people will be paying more to keep those trick-or-treaters happy. Candy prices are up 13.1% in comparison to 2021. That’s the largest single-year jump ever recorded in the CPI. For reference, in the nine-year stretch from 1997 to 2006, candy prices rose by the same amount.

 

The most basic explanation for this rise is similar to that of costumes: increased raw material costs. Both sugar and flour are up in price. Production of both has been poor this year, and supply chain disruptions remain a factor as well, sending prices higher.

Who You Gonna Call? Budget Busters!

While there may not be much you can do about the rising price of candy, some evergreen money-saving tips can be used, especially come the holiday season. For example, organizing a bulk purchase at Costco (COST) or Sam’s Club (WMT) can help save among several families who are expecting trick-or-treaters.

 

You could also find better prices shopping locally for pumpkins and other seasonal produce. Local farms or garden supply stores may have lower prices in comparison to big-box retail stores.

 

Finally, getting crafty can pay off. Visiting stores like Goodwill can help you “do it yourself” with secondhand costume and decoration ideas. In fact, a survey from Goodwill indicates 66% of people who prefer to make their costumes themselves find inspiration on social media. So get searching – and hopefully saving – en route to a fun Halloween that won’t cause a financial fright.

 

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This article originally appeared on SoFi.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.

 

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10 ways Halloween was more fun when Boomers were kids

 

We all have fond memories of Halloween as a child. That was the one magical night when you could be anything you wanted to be, and receive candy just for the asking.

While those two basics, costumes and candy, remain the core of Halloween celebrations, there have been changes over the past 40 or 50 years. Some are for the better, some for the worse, but children still have fun when trick-or-treat time rolls around.

 

Richard / Flickr

 

Americans spent $9 billion on Halloween in 2018. That includes costumes, decorations, and candy.

While costumes are still the top expenditure, Halloween decorations are becoming bigger and more elaborate every year, even rivaling Christmas for home decoration.

 

SamuelBrownNG / istockphoto

 

 

As communities grew and changed, we found that not all neighborhoods lend themselves to trick-or-treating. Suburbs often lack sidewalks, and many new neighborhoods have a minimum acreage requirement to accommodate McMansions. That results in long scary hikes from house-to-house with no guarantee of reward.

Even in rural areas, where children expect the trek to be long, families are less likely to know their neighbors than ever before. So parents pack up their costumed children and head to older, more settled neighborhoods where residents may run out of candy under the onslaught, while more isolated homes are ignored.

However, public Halloween parties at parks, schools, community centers and churches are commonly held to fill in the gaps. A fairly recent innovation at these parties is called “trunk or treat,” where adults who want to hand out candy (but live in isolated areas) dispense treats from their cars in parking lots, often decorating their open car trunk for the occasion.

 

Public Domain

 

In the 1960s and earlier, unsupervised trick-or-treaters welcomed whatever treat was given, and we ate half of it before we returned home. Every neighborhood had that one house where a grandmotherly type invited us in to pick our own treats from a table full of lovingly crafted homemade candies, cakes, and cookies.

But in the 1970s and ’80s, stories of deliberately poisoned candy caused parents to panic. Almost all urban legends, these tales grew from one horrific case of a father who poisoned his own children’s Halloween candy in 1974 in order to collect life insurance money.

The fear was exacerbated when the Chicago Tylenol murders occurred in 1982, which had nothing to do with Halloween. Still, Halloween candy culture changed forever.

Today, children are only supposed to accept individually wrapped mass-produced candy, and aren’t allowed to eat until their parents examine their haul. This procedure yields a bonus for parents who confiscate any Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups out of an abundance of caution.

 

Denver Post / Getty Images

 

The real danger for trick-or-treaters is from traffic. A study last year analyzed data from 1975 to 2017, and found that 43% more pedestrians were killed on October 31st compared to deaths the week before Halloween and the week after. Some were due to drinking and driving, but the steep difference in the rate of children killed is due to the large number of excited kids running around in costumes in the dark.

To combat the danger, many cities stipulate trick-or-treat hours and put extra police patrols on duty. Parents are discouraged from dressing their children in masks or any costume that would obstruct their vision or interfere with walking. Glow-in-the-dark accessories make children more visible to drivers. And…

 

Leonora (Ellie) Enking / Flickr

 

Fifty years ago, families would send small children out trick-or-treating with their bigger siblings or the neighbor’s kids. Now families are smaller and children don’t wander through their neighborhoods enough to know them well. Combined with the danger of traffic, it’s best that parents accompany trick-or-treaters.

The upside of this custom is that families spend time doing something fun and traditional together. It’s an opportunity to meet neighbors and model good manners, and the parents sometimes get into the spirit and dress up, too. The only downside is fewer adults giving out treats from their own homes.

 

Mark Marek Photography / Wikimedia Commons

 

Many families object to the pagan origins of Halloween — often for religious reasons, and sometimes to protect children from unnecessary fear.

Therefore, some schools that allow costumes on Halloween warn parents not to dress children as vampires, ghosts, witches, or other scary characters. Churches offer Halloween night parties as alternatives to trick-or-treating, called Noah’s Ark parties (where children are encouraged to dress as animals) or fall festivals.

 

Richard / Flickr

 

Fifty years ago, children dressed as horror legends, pop culture characters (particularly superheroes and princesses), animals, uniformed professionals, and ethnic stereotypes.

You don’t see a lot of children dressing in professional uniforms these days, since those uniforms aren’t as regimented or recognized as they once were. Halloween costumes portraying ethnic stereotypes are fortunately fading away. Costumes of horror legends are still popular, but some schools ban scary costumes.

However, superheroes and princesses are as popular as ever. As they say, dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

 

Richard / Flickr

 

There have always been some people who put Halloween costumes on their pets, but the trend has exploded over the past few decades. Now Americans are spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year on pet costumes.

One reason is that with a falling fertility rate, more people use their pets to indulge in the fun parts of parenting. Another reason is the rise of social media, particularly photo-sharing sites that entice people far and wide to get creative with their dogs, cats, birds, horses, and reptiles.

 

smrm1977 / istockphoto

 

The game Bobbing for Apples was once a staple for Halloween parties or any harvest festival. Savvy players knew that the only way to successfully bite a floating apple is to submerge your entire head and push the apple against the bottom of the washtub.

Meanwhile, multiple players would leave behind saliva, hair gel, and face paint in the water, besides whatever germs were already on the apples or washtub. This, plus the traumatic experience of near-drowning in young children, caused the Halloween game to die out almost everywhere. While you might have fond memories of bobbing for apples, no one really misses it.

 

Getty Images

 

The phrase “trick or treat” used to be an implied threat: give me candy, or I’ll play a trick on you. As young children, we didn’t mean it literally. But eventually we learned that adolescents who outgrew the ritual candy extortion used Halloween to prank adults.

Tipping over outhouses ended when we moved our toilets inside. In the mid-20th century, the classic prank was to string toilet paper over someone’s lawn and trees, which turned into a real mess with the morning dew. More serious pranks included pelting cars with eggs, slashing tires, and breaking windows.

As homeowners grew less patient, the risks for pranksters grew to include arrest or even being shot. Communities responded with curfews, age limits for trick-or-treating, and intensified police patrols.

These tricks still happen, but are not as prevalent in the 21st century. The average child collecting candy on Halloween night doesn’t even understand the meaning of the phrase “trick or treat” anymore, and maybe that’s a good thing.

 

Rawpixel / istockphoto

 

One thing that hasn’t changed in the past 40 or 50 years is how young adults, particularly college students, use the holiday as an excuse to get together in groups, dress in ways they never would otherwise, drink alcohol, and lose their inhibitions about interacting with potential romantic partners. Scary stories, horror films, and haunted house tours only add to the necessity of holding onto each other.

That’s a holiday tradition that might stick around forever.

 

This article originally appeared on Considerable.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.

 

vadimguzhva / istockphoto

 

 

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Featured Image Credit: choreograph.

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