Chase's Chatter: Candy spending sends chills up his spine

Are you scared of bats? Do spiders give you the willies? Maybe Victorian houses blanketed in thick cob webs strike your fright response. Regardless, it seems that time of year to give yourself a scare.
And if you don’t have enough spookiness in your life this autumn, here’s a chilling fact – Americans are estimated to spend $13.1 billion on Halloween this year according to an annual study by the National Retail Federation.
That adds up to roughly $114 spent per person in the U.S. Sure, compared to Christmas spending this may not seem like much. But consider that a large chunk of this money is being spent on cheap plastic-wrapped candy that’d cost a third of the price any other time of the year. In fact, the NRF study estimates that $3.9 billion of the $13.1 billion will be spent on candy this year. Now this record-high projection seems like highway robbery from candy manufacturers. Maybe Hershey and Mars Inc. executives should dress up as bandits this year to show their true colors.
Of course, costume manufacturers are no better. These parsimonious partygoers become absolute monsters right about now. Halloween is the only time of the year that a paper-thin orange vest could be labeled as a “construction worker costume” and sell for $40. And costume stores know they can get away with this.
Why wouldn’t they? It keeps working.
The NRF study estimates that $ 4.3 billion will be spent on costumes. This seems like a far cry from the grass roots of Halloween in which children donned often sloppy, yet charming, homemade costumes. But as long as goofy inflatable banana costumes continue to be produced, I believe there’s still hope for the creative spirit behind dressing up.
But one’s costume doesn’t necessarily have to be unique in order to be good. Spider-Man is expected to be the most popular children’s costume this year as the study reported that 2.3 million children planned to put on the mask. Princess is the second most popular children’s costume with 1.9 million planning to don a crown and/or sparkles.
For adults, a witch is the most popular projected costume with 5.6 million planning to paint their skin green and risk getting crushed by a flying house. Vampires are expected to be the second most numerous Halloween monster with 2.7 million adults planning to develop a garlic allergy and knack for sleeping upside down.
Between candy, costumes, decorations and other Halloween paraphernalia, the study estimates that Americans will spend $1.5 billion more on the holiday than they did in 2024. And sure, price increases likely aren’t all due to corporate greed (79% of shoppers anticipated higher prices due to tariffs) but it’s scary to realize how little control the average joe seems to have. We pay what they ask for because it’s just that time of year.
Unlike goblins and ghouls, bloated holiday spending seems to be a very real danger this year. Goblins and ghouls may have scared me as a kid, but as an adult, the almighty dollar has reared its green head as the true villain.
And it feels like a knife-wielding lunatic waiting in the dark corner of my kitchen. But instead of wanting to take a chunk out of me, it wants to hack and slash at my wallet. What could be scarier than that?