Halloween has come a long way from the home-made holiday that it once was. People used to make homemade treats to pass out to little ghosts and goblins instead of purchasing bags of candy. Costumes were home sewn or glued instead of purchased at the local grocery store or online. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that the holiday became commercialized. Now, consumers spend more during Halloween than any other non-gift giving holiday (it is surpassed by the three main gift-giving holidays: Mother’s Day, Christmas and Valentine’s Day). Americans will spend between $7-8 billion on Halloween, including candy, costumes and decorations. Read on for more crazy financial facts about Halloween.
38% of what is spent during Halloween is spent on costumes, 30% on candy, 27% is spent on decorations, and 5% spent on greeting cards.
Costumes sales estimate at about $2.8 billion; $1.1 billion of that spent on children’s costumes, $1.4 billion on adult costumes, and $350 million on pet costumes (23 million people dress up their pets for Halloween). Per person, that is an average of $28 spent per costume.
Over $2 billion worth of halloween candy is sold each year. That’s nearly 600 million pounds of candy! Over half of that ($1.2 billion) is spent on chocolate candy. (The most popular candies are Reese’s, M&M’s and Snickers).
An additional $2 billion is spent on decorations, from blow-up ghosts in the front yard, to creepy spider-webs adorning every crevice of the home.
$370 billion is spent on Halloween greeting cards.
The average college-aged adult will spend an average of $87 on Halloween. The average person will spend about $77.
22% of Americans throw a Halloween party each year, averaging a spending of $59.
October 28th has the most candy sales than any other day during the month, or even the year. The next 4 top-candy-buying days also fall in October.
The average pumpkin costs about $18. Nearly half of all Americans will carve a pumpkin during the Halloween season.
Every year, the stock markets experience what is known as the “Halloween Effect.” Stocks tend to increase in value from October to April, and decrease from April to October.
The estimated $7.4 billion spent for Halloween is larger than the gross domestic product of several European countries (Montenegro, Monaco and Lichtenstein, to name a few)
America spends more during Halloween than the entire world spends on malaria per year.