A 6.7% drop in Halloween candy volumes offers a clear look at how localized supply shocks ripple into consumer elasticity trends. While broader CPI has shown signs of stabilizing, confectionery pricing continues to detach from baseline inflation due to persistent cocoa supply constraints in West Africa, forcing a 15.5% year-over-year price spike. This drop in seasonal sales suggests that mass-market sweets have crossed an affordability threshold for middle-class consumers, triggering a notable demand pullback.
It serves as an interesting case study in corporate pricing power and consumer substitution behavior, particularly as households reallocate restricted disposable income away from highly concentrated oligopoly products (Mars, Hershey, Mondelez) toward cheaper non-chocolate alternatives or non-discretionary goods.
Exactly, candy makers aren’t crying at night. Despite less demand and lower units sold, profits have increased due to higher prices offsetting. Their growth are coming off the price not volume.
Kids would rather fruity and gummy and sour shit than chocolate. Chocolate is preferred by adults who for some reason don't remember when they were kids. It has been this way for a billion years. I think kids will be more happy moving to the "cheaper non-chocolate alternatives."
I fucking love sugar in almost all forms, but I’ve never found chocolate that interesting—not in Belgium, or Switzerland, or tropical countries that produce cacao either.
Give me the chewy, fruity stuff any day of the week. Better for the environment as well.
Hasn't trick of treating in general been trending downwards since the 2010s? There's also the demographic decline, there's simply fewer kids than there was 10 years ago.
Trunk or treats were a great idea for rural areas , but they’ve ruined trick or treating in very walkable neighborhoods.
My neighborhood still has a good trick or treat vibe. Lots of people even put fire pits in their driveways and hang out , but trunk or treats in my area are just bored SAHPs planning extra bullsh!t we didn’t need .
Bingo. In our area we trick or treat door to door on Halloween AND do trunk or treats on weekends prior to Halloween.
It’s a fun activity where you get to dress up in your costume more than just one day, people get super creative with their trunks, you get free candy, and get to do some fun fall fun all month long.
The hate is because it's another obligation for families with two working parents that are already busy with fall sports and fall festivals and the endless other things. Now of course you can just opt out but then your kid is sad their friends are doing something they don't get to do and it brings bad feelings into the mix. I'd also argue it dilutes Halloween.
I don't have kids but I'm a big fan of Halloween. Full candy bars + generally a pantry meal item since I've lived in a lot of neighborhoods with Title 1 Schools. I'm not going to a trunk or treat with no kids bc it feels creepy so its yet another way that the village everyone wants has been cast aside. Strangers (aka neighborhood adults) giving Halloween candy to kids is more of a community effort than the middle school swim team trunk or treat relying on the parents of the team to do all the work.
Yeah, this. It’s been like this for a decade, do a fun trunk or treat the weekend before Halloween, and then on Halloween walk the neighborhood like you always do. It’s just one more fun thing to do like going to a haunted house during the season. I don’t get the hate. If you don’t live in a neighborhood with kids, just find one and go there, it can’t be that hard, ask your kids friends parents what’s good?
My neighborhood would have an amazing trick or treat vibe - a whole development of mostly four bedroom homes for families - but it is now like 80% owned by one or two boomers and barely any kids to be seen
I lived in one of those neighborhoods in Fort Worth. It was very mixed, mostly middle class, but by the lake is where the millionaires lived that handed out the really good stuff. Car loads of kids came from all over.
It's just another activity, not sure what the problem is. Trunk or treat was in my town this past weekend. Everyone still goes trick or treating on Halloween. You either take your kid to the town park a week before for extra candy and socializing or you don't.
Society doesn't support families enough, wages are low, inflation is high. Many parents are perpetually burned out and pressed for time. Trunk or treats are safe, easy, and seem fun for kids.
I don't do them but blaming parents for being lazy just for doing trunk or treat is bullshit.
Blah blah blah my problems should be everyone's problems and it's ok for parents avoid spending time with their kids because life is hard. Don't have kids if you can't make time for them.
Lazier than sending your kids out to walk the streets around sunset in a costume by themselves?
Back in the 90s you sorta went trick or treating without your parents most of the time. The older kids looked after the younger kids. Mom and Dad only went with the little ones.
Although honestly all the candy isn't good for the kids in the long run. If I had kids, I wouldn't let them get a taste for the sweet stuff and would control their diets pretty closely. Not doing that now means the kid is going to end up obese and sick when they are a young adult.
Allowing kids to be independent isnt lazy parenting. Not having to think or be concerned and limiting options by forcing them to do simple things in a manner that's most convenient is lazy parenting.
What makes you say that? I’ve only seen people online bitch about trunk or treat and make it out to be some serious event that’s destroying Halloween. Parents go to them throughout the month bc they need to entertain their kids, their church/community is hosting one, it’s not that deep. I don’t know any parents that strictly go trunk or treating on Halloween night. Most people go to the big fancy neighborhood putting on a show
Talking to all my coworkers that have kids. They say they just got to the rich side of town they all give out candy. No one in the other side mostly does.
I just looked up to see when trick or treat for my neighborhood would be and I found out that there really isn’t one (weird considering Halloween is on a weekend this year); it was redirecting people to trunk or treats. It’s pretty sad
Trick or treating isn’t dying, it’s consolidating. Kids know what the “good” neighborhoods are and go to those areas in big groups. My neighborhood happens to be one of them, and even then it’s a very specific couple of streets that everyone flocks to (because we go alllll out on decorations, it’s insane). You cannot imagine how many kids it ends up being, it’s like Disney during Christmas break. Sounds miserable, but it’s actually a lot of fun! So yeah, not dying, just looks a little different
Same for me. We will go through 2 giant bags of candy before 7. I usually walk the neighborhood with my kids and it's packed, but when we go about 3 blocks over, you wouldn't even know it was Halloween.
There a certainly fewer trick or treaters around me over the last decade. Partially due to fewer kids of trick or treating age but also because folks are concentrating their efforts on commercial strips and decorated areas. Maximum candy gathering in the least amount of time without walking long distances to find the houses that will have candy.
Right? Depends on local demographics, lots of kids even though the area has long term population decline. 200 kids last year and I would expect the same this year.
I think a lot of it is just everyone going to the "best" neighborhoods for trick and treating. Like you can walk around your own neighborhood, and do okay. Or you can drive 5-10 minutes and go to neighborhoods that really take it seriously. Kind of like what happens with Christmas lights.
Mine it varies from street to street. Anecdotally my area is very diverse and my street is full of people from different countries where they don't celebrate Halloween. Other streets are more homogeneous and have a larger contingent of "locals" for lack of a better term and those streets go all out.
As my city becomes more heterogeneous I suspect a lot of these old fashioned traditions - trick or treat, caroling, street hockey, and so on will disappear.
Hopefully something interesting will replace them but so far it seems like they don't get replaced by anything
Kids trick or treat in what are basically pre-set neighborhoods now. Doesn’t help that in my town, alot of people with kids had to settle for homes in less walkable, undesirable areas because the elderly retires are holding on to homes they bought in their 20s and raised their families in. In some cases these wonderful homes with big backyards just sit empty, serviced by biweekly landscapers, etc. while people with kids are living on postage stamp lots in areas with no sidewalks. But we do it because the schools are good. It’s a sad state of affairs. We’re driving to a more walkable neighborhood so my son can trick or treat with friends.
According to this website, the number of kids who might trick or treat has been holding steady for the last ten years. Locally, in your neighborhood, you may have seen your neighbor’s aging and their kids leaving.
I was passing out candy at my mom’s house last night - her town always does trick or treat the Sunday before Halloween for some reason- and we noticed this demographic shift. At first we were like where are all the kids? Then we thought about her neighbors and how few houses ever go up for sale. It’s mostly the same people living there now as when I was a kid. All the kids are grown up. We got some kids from the newer development across the street but nothing like it used to be back in the day. But it makes sense.
Fewer kids and fewer homes being used to raise young kids. Back before I had to move close to work, I could afford to rent a nice house in a suburb. All of my neighbors were 45+. Except one family who was obviously up to their eyeballs in debt.
While true, I have a friend in a high traffic neighborhood that's tapping out for the first time since she moved there because it's going to be too expensive. Even crowd sourcing, she was normally out of candy by 8 pm most years. The volume we did last year would likely be running well over a hundred dollars. That's just too much
Since 2007 we’ve had about the same number of kids as always, 40-50. Nothing’s changed, as far as I hear, anywhere else in my city.
Trunk-and-treats died out here almost as soon as they started. They take the fun out of Halloween for everyone and seemed mostly based on pushing paranoia from religious or political organizations.
My small town still celebrates it like its the 90s. I give out pretzels and cheese puffs that costco/sams sell for halloween and kids love them, and it's way cheaper than candy.
Maybe. I haven't looked into those numbers. As far as the article is concerned though, the decreased interest is likely a result of the inflation caused by high cacao prices due to ecological issues in Africa and disruptions from the current Iran war.
Gotta go where the big neighborhoods are. At least in my rural area there are a couple large communities that go all out. I don’t live in one so I just toss up orange/purple lights and some deco for passerbys.
The several years I lived in Seattle/Portland area I never had trick-or-treaters, supposedly they now meet up in parking lots/organized events to exchange candy
Halloween candy prices are crazy high this year, and shrinkflation is rampant!
What you pay is ridiculous for the amount of chocolate/candy you actually get.
We live in a neighborhood that still gets a lot of trick or treaters, but this is the last year I'm giving out the typical "fun size" bars.
We did a trunk at a Trunk or Treat yesterday, and I had glow stick bracelets as a non-food option. They were surprisingly popular, and if you buy a big party pack of them online, the unit price is cheaper than chocolate.
I walked into a Sam's Club last week and they had all the displays out with bags of chocolate bars, etc. Okay yes, they are large bags but... $16? $22? $27? These people are out of their minds, especially given what people are already dealing with these days.
Just fyi. They stopped putting a lot of the “good” chocolate and such in Halloween wrapping so it won’t mark down after the 31st. Just the big variety packs still have it. It’s mainly just the boxes it’s displayed in now. They started this last year and it was very noticeable after the 31st. Sucks for consumers and employees both. Source: I manage a Wally World.
We used to give out like 3 boxed of full size chocolate bars just to be that one house. This year the first 24 kids get a bag of skittles and everyone else two fun size whatever sugar candy. That was my compromise to the wife.
I tried buying adult costume accessories at Target yesterday. They had almost nothing at all for adults. Even the kids costumes supply was crazy small.
The amount of floor space for their Halloween section was their usual large area, but everything was so spread out that it barely had any actual Halloween stuff in comparison.
It's maybe the first time I've seen shrinkflation actually hit the store itself.
No, because there were massive empty spots in that area where there weren't any display cases. Plus the cases themselves were half full where a few hooks were empty where people had bought stuff.
I've seen that Target's Halloween section before. It's usually overflowing with things.
Target, from my knowledge of former employees, doesn’t replenish goods like a Walmart does. Once the initial set it sold not much gets shipped to the store is what I hear and what seems to be the case when I go into one.
Costco was the way this year. A 5.75# bag of gummies/sours, and a 5.4# bag of assorted chocolate candies. Total cost was a little over $40.
We have always given out full size bars but the prices are ridiculous. So instead we got gift bags, and the kiddos will get quarter pound bags of mixed candy instead.
It actually ended up being a nice family evening making up the gift bags. And if we have leftovers they'll just go in the bin with our kiddo's other candy, something we always felt weird about with full sized bars.
This year it looks like full size bar boxes are about $1/pc avg price.
I buy party favors (and candy!) every year. Glow sticks are very popular, as are pull-back cars, rings, and sheets of stickers. Even pencils are scooped up with excitement.
One of my neighbors has a goodie table instead of candy and the kids love it. They get to pick one thing from each section. It’s stuff like temporary tattoos, glow sticks, stickers. It looks like stuff you can get from those packs of assorted party favors on Amazon.
these companies are so greedy, one day we are going to watch movies of people trick or treating and our grandkids ate going to say “ mom did people really give out free candy every year to anyone who came to their house?” I feel like between the media making up bs claims every year about strangers poisoning candy, religious puritans who have suddenly decided in the past 4 years that Halloween is evil and have made up fallacious stories about the origin of Halloween online and companies price gouging while lowering the quality of goods. This unique and festive tradition will one day end.
It’s funny, I grew up in an extremely conservative evangelical household and my parents didn’t let us trick or treat for YEARS. I was so angry and hurt about it, they always tried to do alternative solutions but there’s no replacement for the volume and variety of candy you get from streets upon streets of individual houses passing it out. My parents have de-weirded over the years and thankfully are normal, kind people now.
Anyway I say all that to say, we have a great relationship, I love and respect them tremendously, and I have forgiven a number of questionable parenting decisions arising from this time because I do think they were doing their best. But I have not fully forgiven the years of banning trick-or-treating. It still feels really delusional and cruel. 🤷🏼♀️
Rightfully so lol. Back then it was like one family on the block not participating, usually Jehovah’s Witness, now it’s a shit ton of standard Christians (and Mormons in my area)
My mom loves to say, "I just don't know how you kids are expected to make anything work, everything is so expensive these days and the housing market is ridiculous."
She's also staunchly conservative, voted for Trump 3 times and doesnt believe minimum wage was "created as a sole income source for adults, minimum wage is meant for high schoolers working at McDonalds."
Millions of people in this country think just like her and have no fucking idea how their voting choices affect consumers and the working class. The rest of us have to suffer the consequences of that stupidity.
This isn’t a direct reply to your comment, but just a jumping off point since you mentioned even Walmart prices being too high.
To all If you have trick-or-treaters: get the weird candy. Get the cheap candy. As a society, the Halloween candy has gotten kind of boring. Everyone gives out the same Hershey’s and Mars stuff. And it’s also the most expensive.
When I was a kid we’d get such a huge variety because everyone had different amounts they were willing to spend. There was the one lady living on a fixed income who would give each child one mini Tootsie roll. There was a house where they would give out the full-size candy bars. And then you would have everything in between like the peanut butter taffy, and the crumbly smarty suckers on a stick, the rolls of smarties, the flavored Tootsie rolls, the mini candy cigarettes sticks, the circus peanuts. Seriously, kids want to try them all!
If you’re only buying what you’re willing to eat after Halloween is over, that’s totally valid. But I just want to give people permission to buy the cheap candy. Because the kids still find it very fun and still like trying and seeing all kinds of new treats.
That to me was the entire point of Halloween - I could find a boring Snickers bar any time if I cared, but I never wanted one. A Halloween tote full of stuff you rarely see and stuff you've never even heard of is much better than just being assigned whatever five-chocolate assortment suits your neighborhood best.
It doesn't help that most chocolate tastes worse and worse every year. I don't want to eat that fake stretchy wannabe-chocolate, so I just stopped buying chocolate candy altogether.
Try Milka bars from Romania. You can get them at Cracker Barrel for some reason but no high fructose corn syrup which is the actual reason mass-produced milk chocolate (especially Hershey) is bad.
My husband's in Germany right now and had eaten some of these and decided to ship me a variety of them, since I'm a chocoholic.
They're just okay and honestly comparable to like Hershey's and other larger brands. I wouldn't say the flavor is the same, but if you're someone who really likes dark or rich chocolate, you aren't getting that from these. The flavor of the original Milka bar reminds me of how a lot generic "chocolate" sold around Easter tastes.
I grabbed a couple of Milka bars when I was in Greece a couple of years ago and that is some gooood chocolate. I had no idea Cracker Barrel had them! World Market is also a good place to find European chocolate as well.
I mean, in a world where gas is sky-high and living expenses continue to climb, it's little surprise that there's less folks feeling comfortable enough to be literally giving away money in the form of candy right now.
YSK: Check ingredients of chocolate candies. Manufacturers have stopped using cacao and cocoa due to crop shortages and are investing in and using lab grown and cell-cultured cocoa and cacao.
Brands include Cadbury, Hershey, Nestle (Kit Kat is one), Lindt, Mars (M&M’s, Snickers to name a few) and Kinder.
I came here to say this. Sales are down and things are expensive yes, but the chocolate is fake now and the most common candy has been shown to have high levels of arsenic in it. And by high I mean 20 Nerds pieces OR 3 Swedish fish is your ANNUAL allotment of Arsenic.
The study was misinterpreted by the surgeon general of the state of FL (shockingly).
The study said that 96 nerds or 8 Swedish fish IF EATEN EVERYDAY FOR 365 DAYS (i.e. cumulative annual exposure) would exceed the State's safe limit of arsenic for an 8 year old CHILD.
I wouldn’t call it debunked. Just under heavy scrutiny because they didn’t have access to the same tests that the FDA does. If I recall, they had to use a process generally reserved for checking soil contamination.
Mars is not currently using cell-cultured cocoa in Snickers, M&M's, or any of its main products, but the company is actively exploring alternative cocoa technologies.
FUCK MMS! I hadnt had fake chocolate in years and i had some m&ms and almost had a heart attack from the poison. They def changes the recipe and it feels like a poison to people who eat clean
It’s not just the outrageous prices. It’s that we know the candy is no good.
There is little to no Cocoa in any of the main chocolates… And the selection is pretty thin. You have about 10 main chocolate candies, by maybe 2 companies?
The way they push the no-real-chocolate, and fake peanut butter Reeses, is criminal.
The non-chocolate candies, as well as the chocolate candies, do not even contain sugar. It’s all corn syrup.
So what we end up being offered is: cocoa substitutes, corn syrup, chemical flavors, completely overpriced, and a small repetitive selection, why even bother?
Candy doesn’t taste the same as it did 40 years ago. Why waste money on chemical garbage?
There are three: Mars, Hershey and Ferrero. Ferrero is an Italian company that makes Nutella, Kinder and Ferrero Rocher. They bought most of Nestlé's US candy brands (except Kit Kat (which is licensed by Hersey in the US, and the Quik and Toll House brands) in 2018.
Incidentally, Hershey has been begging the FDA to allow "milk chocolate" to be made from vegetable oil, like in the EU. Their main opponent? Mars, who refuses to cheap out.
I almost bought a bag of fun-sized Kinder bars at TJMaxx. It was a bit cheaper per unit than any other kind of chocolate at Walmart. But I'm not a huge fan of Kinder and I didn't want to have to eat the leftovers.
High "chocolate" prices. Whatever that hydrogenated crap is what it is not is chocolate.
When kids and gluttons don't want to eat your candy like product it's time to consider going back to the recipe that got you business in the first place.
Good. I’m glad American consumers are pushing back, finally. Apparently, it took 20 dollar bags of chocolate to knock some sense into them. Now, we are in the week of Halloween, so here’s hoping the consumer doesn’t rush out and buy candy on credit card to hand out, due to social pressure.
Genuinely thought you were lying for a sec so i booted up my walmart app and saw it was 18 fucking dollars for an assorted bag of chocolates. I cant afford to give out candy even if i wanted to at those prices
My local grocery store had big bags marked at $42.99 the other day! I had to take a photo because I couldn’t believe it and needed someone to confirm I was reading it right.
On sale from $49.99. 50 oz or something lime that and not even good stuff.
I go to Ollie's every year for candy & just check the dates to make sure it's more recent bags. I think last year the big bag of Hershey's with 160(?) pieces was $17, this year it was $20. I only bought it to donate to my kid's school for their event.
I usually stick with non-chocolate because I feel like I can get more for less. This was the first year I was doing math in the store to figure out price per piece to know what was more worth it.
Honestly though, non-candy items end up being more cost effective. Glow sticks and Halloween tattoos. You can end up with like 400 items for $10-15. On our busy years we probably see a few hundred trick or treaters.
I hadn’t thought of these Halloween treat alternatives! I think I’ll go see if I can order some in time. And if I don’t have a bunch of trick or treaters, I’ll just leave goodie bags on my neighbors’ porches - I’ve got three neighbors with kids.
That’s actually smart- giving out non-edibles instead of candy.
Better for their teeth.
The low-effort mommas that bring their brood to my neighborhood wouldn’t approve, because they count on that Halloween candy haul to be sustenance for their litter for a few days after Halloween.
We usually do a mix of both, just because little kids are less about the candy (I know I didn't let mine have the stuff that would get stuck in their teeth at 2-3y old, but he also just was more into the fun, not the candy). And sometimes kids have allergies or just want something different, so non-candy is nice for that.
Last year I went in to Walmart on November 1st looking for some discounted Halloween candy ...it was all gone, completely removed from the store. No discount.
When you charge $29.99 for a bag of shrunken candy, of course people aren’t going to buy it. Our store shelves are still full of candy. This weekend they went on “sale”, buy 2 get one 50% off…still $29.99 each for the first two bags though.
ICandy bars have also outpaced inflation by about 30% over the last 20 years while also shrinking in size by 10%(snickers). They have also changed the ingredients list to use cheaper ingredients like palm oil instead of coconut oil, left out condensed milk and added in artificial flavors to make up for it. The crap doesn’t even taste the same, it has a blah chemical taste now.
At this rate, it may be more economically friendly to play tricks on the door-knockers than to actually give them treats. I mean, they do give people that option, don’t they?
Wow no kidding? You're telling me $15 bags of garbage chocolate produced by a mega corporation aren't flying off the shelves whenever gas is 6 and $7 a gallon? Crazy stuff.
I bought candy last night, ended up being $62. That is too much for a lot of people and I don't blame them. Really interested in what xmas will be like this year.
Christmas at my home will be all three of us (2 parents, one teen), working jobs until the hour of. We’ll get each other a little surprise or two, but most of the money goes to rent and energy (gas for cars, utilities).
We have 6 of us, 2 parents 4 boys (ages 8-13). We lucky that both my wife and are I are doing ok, but at the flip side, the kids are getting to the age were basic toys and trinkets don't cut it like it used too. They want expensive stuff now :-/
Anecdotally, I’ve seen the number of kids and houses participating in trick or treating diminish over the last few years, so much so that I bought only two bags of candy. The first year we moved in, I had bought 3 bags of the 100+ piece candies and ran out within an hour. Definitely a lot less kids I see around the neighborhood mainly due to kids getting older and younger kids not around.
At my local Trunk or Treat this past weekend there were literally half as many cars set up giving out candy as there were in the past few years. Guessing prices and the economy had at least something to do with it.
I love smarties and I was looking to pick up a bag to hand out (and enjoy myself) and I always thought it was a good deal. I could get a large bag for $2.97 at Walmart. This year, it’s now close to $6 for a smaller bag.
The candy industry is the great example of the fake capitalism we live in. We have unlimited selection but actually very little choice. This is what happens when in reality there are a handful of super large companies that own everything in a market
Trick or treating in our neighborhood grows every year, but our position in a bedroom community adjacent to an urban core could explain this, as people move here when they need extra bedrooms and a yard. It was a lot more expensive to buy candy this year to satisfy those crowds, but more telling was our local Walmart still has tons of candy stock. This time last year it was hard to find candy during Halloween week. It’s no wonder, as a bag of chocolate candy is near $30 and a mixed bag of non-chocolate is $25. If you want enough to satisfy the hordes in our area, your minimum spend is $50-$60. Two years ago the same amount of candy would be $40 or less.
With prices the way they are I don’t think I can justify handing out candy this year. We usually get north of 300 treaters, so that adds up quite a bit.
I specifically made plans to trick or treat somewhere else because I didn’t want to buy candy to give out. I can’t afford $50 worth of candy to hand out.
I was blown away by candy prices this year. It feels like things have doubled. The same bag I but every year that I never have a second glance costing $31 and that covers only like half of the usual trick or treaters we get in my neighborhood.
I haven't seen a trick or treater on my street, save for the kid who lives across the street, in three years. I ain't even buying Halloween Candy this year.
We get candy each year, and while we have shopped according to price in years past, this year has made it feel ridiculous. We have a 5 year old in preschool and they have an annual trunk or treat. They ask for the parents to donate the candy. The ask for the last few years is "4 large bags of candy, no peanuts". Going to the store this year made that feel like a punch to the gut; large bags of name brand candy were going for around $30 a bag. We love Halloween and our daughter loves her trunk or treat at school each year, but $120 for candy was too much to take. Plus we had to get some for our own house for the big night.
Worked retail for a while & stocking the candy every year, seeing how the price went up every year. It was depressing. Thise fun-sized bags going from $12 to now in the $20 range.
Went to the grocery store with my cousin yesterday so she could grab a few variety packs of candy for her Halloween decorations and I kid you not almost every single bag of candy was $19 to $25. We left with no candy because she refused to pay that price.
Being able to give out candy has always been a luxury. With the current inflation, yes it's real and whoever tells you otherwise is lying. There is not much money to go around to give out candy
People are buying a lot less of everything, not just Halloween candy, as people navigate inflation at the grocery store.
There is always something clearanced or marked down in my local grocery stores. You just have to look closely and find these deals.
The good news is after Halloween, there will likely be a glut of dirt cheap candy that stores are desperate to sell. A great time to load up on cheap candy that you can use for holiday baking.
And it’s not just candy on sale after Halloween. Stores will clearance Halloween themed foods, such as pasta, breakfast cereals, refrigerated cookie dough, chicken nuggets, coffee creamer, etc. Yes, I’ve seen bat-shaped pasta and ghost-shaped chicken nuggets! And the crazy amount of pumpkin-spice versions of coffee, cookies, cereal, hand soaps, etc will need to go as stores make way for Christmas and holiday stuff.
A day or two after Halloween is a great time to scour those aisles and hunt for cheap deals.
Everyone is shitting on trunk or treating but in my experience those happen all month leading up to Halloween. On Halloween night, everyone wants to go to the nice neighborhood that goes all out. If you don’t live in one of them it’s hit or miss, and just getting worse bc of how these middle class neighborhoods are being built, narrows streets no sidewalks
Do they take demographics into account at all? Like, if people in the west are having far fewer kids and/or the foreign imports don't celebrate Halloween, then I would obviously expect to see Halloween candy sales continue to fall every year, all else being equal.
I live in a rare neighborhood where trick or treat is actually a very large event. Even a regional event. Breeders bring their offspring from 40-50 miles away to come to this neighborhood. Lawn and home decor all around, nice flat walkable streets. The city even closes off entrances and polices the streets. It’s Halloween at the level of a Super Bowl.
This year, going to be a lot of smarties and dum dums.
I live in this neighborhood for my town. It's great for kids but not something I can afford. I'll get around 3k kids, not a chance I'm buying candy for that many people. The town promotes the event and tells everyone to come to my neighborhood. The town should pay for it if they are going to do that.
The surrounding area outside of the small city I live in is all pretty rural. That's not great for trick or treating so they come to my street. We get kids from a pretty wide ring up to an hour away. That plus the city activity encourages people to only trick or treat on my street for "safety" leads to lots and lots of kids.
Sheesh I thought the 1,100+ we got last year was a lot. 3,000 is crazy numbers. We all gather at my in laws for halloween because they live in one of those neighborhoods. My mom always buys a bunch of trinkets from those dollar stores throughout the year and we give those out alongside candy, it helps with how expensive the candy is this year
I wanted to buy some but I just can’t keep feeding random children those mildly poison treats.
It’s not food. If the only benefit of it is to create gut bacteria that make you crave it so it can survive by creating more.
It just seems like feeding cancerous, gut bacteria, to the children, and it just kind of throws me off now
My family loves Halloween; usually spend a lot on candy and drinks to hand out. Last year I couldn’t bother and decided to not hand out candy for the first time in a decade; my reasoning was simple. I got tired of helping people in the community that dressed up like MAGA. Fuck em. I had a blast with my family and family friends. This year we’re all doing the same thing; I have 2 boxes of ring pops to put in a bowl that I’m almost positive will be swiped quickly. In a country where 50% of the people hate you, people throttling up the use of slurs, i find myself just not needing to get angry or help.
I bought two bags. I used to buy a lot more. I moved into my house and the first Halloween I spent there, the neighborhood was banging. Every Halloween since then(6 years ago) has been a significant downtrend.
Last Halloween was on a Friday, I only went through two bags. That was giving generously to kids. I gave out about 10% of the Jell-O shots I made for adults. This will be the lowest effort Halloween I’ve done in the past couple years.
Krogers by me has already been discounting the candies and making room for Xmas stuff. We don’t participate but I found it telling that the candy is already on sale 2 weeks before Halloween.
When I was a kid my neighborhood went all out for Halloween but the kids have all grown up and the parents never left so now its 70% old folks. The last hurrah for me handing out candy was 3-4 years ago when we had maybe 6 kids stop by over the 3 hours we were out. We were also the only house on the block with our light on sitting out.
Went to Kroger a few weeks ago and I feel like Halloween candy was at least a good $2 to $5 more than it was last year. The last time I was there I did notice that now most of it was on sale for 30% off.
This year I bought a few boxes of Big League Chew to give out. Chocolate in general has been going down hill in terms of taste, texture, and consistency for years now.
It's more expensive, but we've started doing snack sized chips and juice pouches/boxes. We always had so much leftover candy plus whatever our kid got and it ended up going to waste. Any leftover chips/juice get used by us or for after soccer/basketball games.
Chocolate was up in price and then came back to normal levels for the most part as a global commodity, over the course of a year. It didn’t stay high and crazy for long. It’s the companies who are shooting themselves in the foot.
I work at a grocery store. I notice people buy small bags of candy for themselves. They’re not planning on handing this expensive stuff out to kids for free.
This is what inflation looks like in practice: even when some prices fall, consumers still cut spending because essentials take up more of their budgets. Falling inflation doesn't mean households feel better off.
I bought my candy when Costco first stocked some. They were on sale and it wasn't too bad, but none of it is chocolate. I think I heard kids aren't as into chocolate anymore- not sure where I heard it, though
I thought my kid was weird because she hardly likes any of the candy her whole childhood. She would go trick or treating, pick out a few, then let me give away the rest to trick or treaters that come to our house later. I think she just likes the experience of dressing up and walking around the neighborhood in a costume more than the candy.
Anecdotally I've definitely noticed kids aren't as into chocolate anymore. When I was a kid we thought the best houses were those with chocolate, but since I moved into my suburban neighborhood a decade ago every year I put out a bowl of chocolate stuff and a bowl of things like dum-dums and the non-chocolate bowl always gets emptied out first. Which at first I was like, score, more leftover chocolate for me! - but nowadays it's so increasingly crappy that we end up eventually just throwing it all away. 🥲
This year the gross 'cheap' stuff is so expensive anyway I splurged on upper-mid chocolates (like Godiva-level) for the chocolate bowl so at least spouse and I can stand to eat whatever's leftover at the end of the night.
Honestly starting to resent the entitlement culture of trick or treating. I don't have anything free for you, now get off my lawn. I don't even have a lawn.
Am i joking? I don't even know anymore, but I know i don't have candy for your kids
We stopped buying candy years ago when the prices started going up. We definitely don’t buy candy for Halloween or most any other reason. I’m not spending that kind of money on candy.
I was talking with a friend and not only buying candy for themselves to pass out , but the school wants a candy donation for their trunk or treat and well as the church for their trunk or treat as well.
The boxes of mini chocolate bars are the same price here as they were the past few years. They are already on clearance as well. I don’t think high prices is the main factor here.
[OP] unconventionalbook | 22 hours ago
A 6.7% drop in Halloween candy volumes offers a clear look at how localized supply shocks ripple into consumer elasticity trends. While broader CPI has shown signs of stabilizing, confectionery pricing continues to detach from baseline inflation due to persistent cocoa supply constraints in West Africa, forcing a 15.5% year-over-year price spike. This drop in seasonal sales suggests that mass-market sweets have crossed an affordability threshold for middle-class consumers, triggering a notable demand pullback.
It serves as an interesting case study in corporate pricing power and consumer substitution behavior, particularly as households reallocate restricted disposable income away from highly concentrated oligopoly products (Mars, Hershey, Mondelez) toward cheaper non-chocolate alternatives or non-discretionary goods.
AZMadmax | 18 hours ago
6.7% but at a 15.5% price increase, it worked out for them
ssyoit | 16 hours ago
Exactly, candy makers aren’t crying at night. Despite less demand and lower units sold, profits have increased due to higher prices offsetting. Their growth are coming off the price not volume.
AZMadmax | 14 hours ago
They have algorithms for it all now. We’re fucked
Suitable-Economy-346 | 16 hours ago
Kids would rather fruity and gummy and sour shit than chocolate. Chocolate is preferred by adults who for some reason don't remember when they were kids. It has been this way for a billion years. I think kids will be more happy moving to the "cheaper non-chocolate alternatives."
Turing45 | 14 hours ago
We went with all sour and gummy crap for this years trunk or treat because the chocolate from all the big companies tastes nasty anymore.
GrapheneBreakthrough | 8 hours ago
Yeah but Reeses peanut butter cups were always a favorite among my friends, highly valued when you do the end-of-the-night candy trade.
KRandMG | 16 hours ago
I fucking love sugar in almost all forms, but I’ve never found chocolate that interesting—not in Belgium, or Switzerland, or tropical countries that produce cacao either.
Give me the chewy, fruity stuff any day of the week. Better for the environment as well.
teshh | 21 hours ago
Hasn't trick of treating in general been trending downwards since the 2010s? There's also the demographic decline, there's simply fewer kids than there was 10 years ago.
magic_crouton | 21 hours ago
Hardly anyone in my neighborhood hands out candy. The kids vanished to trunk or treats.
IKillZombies4Cash | 20 hours ago
Trunk or treats were a great idea for rural areas , but they’ve ruined trick or treating in very walkable neighborhoods.
My neighborhood still has a good trick or treat vibe. Lots of people even put fire pits in their driveways and hang out , but trunk or treats in my area are just bored SAHPs planning extra bullsh!t we didn’t need .
captainpoppy | 19 hours ago
Yes. I saw a post the other day for my city that was like “what are the plans for Halloween this year since it’s on Saturday???”
Luckily most of the comments were “take your kid trick or treating”
HumorAccomplished611 | 14 hours ago
Sexy party
captainpoppy | 12 hours ago
It was a post about what to do with their kid. So. No.
lion7725 | 20 hours ago
Going to 10 cars in a parking lot for 30 minutes a week before Halloween is not a replacement. It’s just another thing
libananahammock | 19 hours ago
Bingo. In our area we trick or treat door to door on Halloween AND do trunk or treats on weekends prior to Halloween.
It’s a fun activity where you get to dress up in your costume more than just one day, people get super creative with their trunks, you get free candy, and get to do some fun fall fun all month long.
I don’t get the hate.
PatsFanInHTX | 18 hours ago
The hate is because it's another obligation for families with two working parents that are already busy with fall sports and fall festivals and the endless other things. Now of course you can just opt out but then your kid is sad their friends are doing something they don't get to do and it brings bad feelings into the mix. I'd also argue it dilutes Halloween.
2absMcGay | 18 hours ago
The hate is definitely not because of the burden on the parents
IKillZombies4Cash | 16 hours ago
It kinda is. They treat them as school fundraisers here, and you decorate the car, and 8 years ago these didn't exist at all here.
Mine are now aged out of these, so I can stop being a grump about them at least.
lion7725 | 17 hours ago
The kids aren’t clamoring to do these. It’s a fun, free, low stress thing to do in the Halloween season.
We did 1 this year and that was plenty.
Aggravating_Life7851 | 14 hours ago
It’s not free though? You have to buy the decorations for your car and the candy
lion7725 | 12 hours ago
Probably less than 10% of participants decorate cars.
Aggravating_Life7851 | 6 hours ago
They still have to pay for candy though
itsBritanica | 15 hours ago
I don't have kids but I'm a big fan of Halloween. Full candy bars + generally a pantry meal item since I've lived in a lot of neighborhoods with Title 1 Schools. I'm not going to a trunk or treat with no kids bc it feels creepy so its yet another way that the village everyone wants has been cast aside. Strangers (aka neighborhood adults) giving Halloween candy to kids is more of a community effort than the middle school swim team trunk or treat relying on the parents of the team to do all the work.
lion7725 | 12 hours ago
Fair enough. This is a good point, although I don’t think people treat “trunk or treats” as a trick or treating replacement (at least in most areas).
bandito12452 | 18 hours ago
The hate is usually directed at trunk or treats held on Halloween or the same weekend, not ones the week before.
TriscuitCracker | 19 hours ago
Yeah, this. It’s been like this for a decade, do a fun trunk or treat the weekend before Halloween, and then on Halloween walk the neighborhood like you always do. It’s just one more fun thing to do like going to a haunted house during the season. I don’t get the hate. If you don’t live in a neighborhood with kids, just find one and go there, it can’t be that hard, ask your kids friends parents what’s good?
FernCoolingHeating | 18 hours ago
My neighborhood would have an amazing trick or treat vibe - a whole development of mostly four bedroom homes for families - but it is now like 80% owned by one or two boomers and barely any kids to be seen
juliankennedy23 | 16 hours ago
Yes there is zero reason to have those in Good walkable Suburban neighborhoods.
I mean one of the benefits of Halloween is to meet a lot of here neighbors you wouldn't otherwise hey see you more than a couple of times a year.
secretaire | 20 hours ago
This is so neighborhood dependent. My neighborhood in north Austin is crazy busy!
AZMadmax | 16 hours ago
This is the bigger factor. Everyone drives to “THE” neighborhood on Halloween
SimpleVegetable5715 | 7 hours ago
I lived in one of those neighborhoods in Fort Worth. It was very mixed, mostly middle class, but by the lake is where the millionaires lived that handed out the really good stuff. Car loads of kids came from all over.
saml01 | 20 hours ago
Trunk or treats is just lazy parenting. Change my mind.
Bcider | 18 hours ago
It's just another activity, not sure what the problem is. Trunk or treat was in my town this past weekend. Everyone still goes trick or treating on Halloween. You either take your kid to the town park a week before for extra candy and socializing or you don't.
petit_cochon | 18 hours ago
Society doesn't support families enough, wages are low, inflation is high. Many parents are perpetually burned out and pressed for time. Trunk or treats are safe, easy, and seem fun for kids.
I don't do them but blaming parents for being lazy just for doing trunk or treat is bullshit.
saml01 | 6 hours ago
Blah blah blah my problems should be everyone's problems and it's ok for parents avoid spending time with their kids because life is hard. Don't have kids if you can't make time for them.
elebrin | 16 hours ago
Lazier than sending your kids out to walk the streets around sunset in a costume by themselves?
Back in the 90s you sorta went trick or treating without your parents most of the time. The older kids looked after the younger kids. Mom and Dad only went with the little ones.
Although honestly all the candy isn't good for the kids in the long run. If I had kids, I wouldn't let them get a taste for the sweet stuff and would control their diets pretty closely. Not doing that now means the kid is going to end up obese and sick when they are a young adult.
saml01 | 5 hours ago
You don't have kids.
Allowing kids to be independent isnt lazy parenting. Not having to think or be concerned and limiting options by forcing them to do simple things in a manner that's most convenient is lazy parenting.
MikeOKurias | 20 hours ago
God, I hate those
arcrad | 20 hours ago
Why?
lion7725 | 20 hours ago
Because he’s a guy on the internet with no kids
082426grateful | 17 hours ago
So, Reddit? 😂
AZMadmax | 18 hours ago
Bingo lol
Working-Crab-8401 | 18 hours ago
Man this kind of social media discourse is useless. At least one of you is probably a bot
AZMadmax | 18 hours ago
What makes you say that? I’ve only seen people online bitch about trunk or treat and make it out to be some serious event that’s destroying Halloween. Parents go to them throughout the month bc they need to entertain their kids, their church/community is hosting one, it’s not that deep. I don’t know any parents that strictly go trunk or treating on Halloween night. Most people go to the big fancy neighborhood putting on a show
Brown_Samurai | 20 hours ago
Talking to all my coworkers that have kids. They say they just got to the rich side of town they all give out candy. No one in the other side mostly does.
gingerdjin | 20 hours ago
I just looked up to see when trick or treat for my neighborhood would be and I found out that there really isn’t one (weird considering Halloween is on a weekend this year); it was redirecting people to trunk or treats. It’s pretty sad
min_mus | 18 hours ago
The number of trick-or-treaters has only increased in my neighborhood.
omgwtfbbq0_0 | 18 hours ago
Trick or treating isn’t dying, it’s consolidating. Kids know what the “good” neighborhoods are and go to those areas in big groups. My neighborhood happens to be one of them, and even then it’s a very specific couple of streets that everyone flocks to (because we go alllll out on decorations, it’s insane). You cannot imagine how many kids it ends up being, it’s like Disney during Christmas break. Sounds miserable, but it’s actually a lot of fun! So yeah, not dying, just looks a little different
mycleverusername | 16 hours ago
Same for me. We will go through 2 giant bags of candy before 7. I usually walk the neighborhood with my kids and it's packed, but when we go about 3 blocks over, you wouldn't even know it was Halloween.
colonelcasey22 | 21 hours ago
There a certainly fewer trick or treaters around me over the last decade. Partially due to fewer kids of trick or treating age but also because folks are concentrating their efforts on commercial strips and decorated areas. Maximum candy gathering in the least amount of time without walking long distances to find the houses that will have candy.
mandyvigilante | 20 hours ago
Wild. That is not the case in my neighborhood
nakedlettuce52 | 20 hours ago
My neighborhood has never been busier
SmokingTheBear | 20 hours ago
Right? Depends on local demographics, lots of kids even though the area has long term population decline. 200 kids last year and I would expect the same this year.
EstablishmentTop551 | 17 hours ago
Anecdotally I’m 25 and still live with my folks, there was a huge decrease about 8 years ago but the last 3 years has been more kids than ever
Kendertas | 16 hours ago
I think a lot of it is just everyone going to the "best" neighborhoods for trick and treating. Like you can walk around your own neighborhood, and do okay. Or you can drive 5-10 minutes and go to neighborhoods that really take it seriously. Kind of like what happens with Christmas lights.
OK_x86 | 19 hours ago
Mine it varies from street to street. Anecdotally my area is very diverse and my street is full of people from different countries where they don't celebrate Halloween. Other streets are more homogeneous and have a larger contingent of "locals" for lack of a better term and those streets go all out.
As my city becomes more heterogeneous I suspect a lot of these old fashioned traditions - trick or treat, caroling, street hockey, and so on will disappear.
Hopefully something interesting will replace them but so far it seems like they don't get replaced by anything
IstockUstock2024 | 11 hours ago
Yup. Going to go through 300 bucks in candy easy this year. Every year our subdivision gets blasted
rpv123 | 18 hours ago
Kids trick or treat in what are basically pre-set neighborhoods now. Doesn’t help that in my town, alot of people with kids had to settle for homes in less walkable, undesirable areas because the elderly retires are holding on to homes they bought in their 20s and raised their families in. In some cases these wonderful homes with big backyards just sit empty, serviced by biweekly landscapers, etc. while people with kids are living on postage stamp lots in areas with no sidewalks. But we do it because the schools are good. It’s a sad state of affairs. We’re driving to a more walkable neighborhood so my son can trick or treat with friends.
HaloFever117 | 20 hours ago
According to this website, the number of kids who might trick or treat has been holding steady for the last ten years. Locally, in your neighborhood, you may have seen your neighbor’s aging and their kids leaving.
fridayfridayjones | 16 hours ago
I was passing out candy at my mom’s house last night - her town always does trick or treat the Sunday before Halloween for some reason- and we noticed this demographic shift. At first we were like where are all the kids? Then we thought about her neighbors and how few houses ever go up for sale. It’s mostly the same people living there now as when I was a kid. All the kids are grown up. We got some kids from the newer development across the street but nothing like it used to be back in the day. But it makes sense.
TawneyBomb | 20 hours ago
Bought candy the last few years and have probably 75% of the bag left at the end of the night. Just skipping it this year entirely.
ShdwWzrdMnyGngg | 18 hours ago
Fewer kids and fewer homes being used to raise young kids. Back before I had to move close to work, I could afford to rent a nice house in a suburb. All of my neighbors were 45+. Except one family who was obviously up to their eyeballs in debt.
whichwitch9 | 18 hours ago
While true, I have a friend in a high traffic neighborhood that's tapping out for the first time since she moved there because it's going to be too expensive. Even crowd sourcing, she was normally out of candy by 8 pm most years. The volume we did last year would likely be running well over a hundred dollars. That's just too much
sweatboxy | 17 hours ago
Since 2007 we’ve had about the same number of kids as always, 40-50. Nothing’s changed, as far as I hear, anywhere else in my city.
Trunk-and-treats died out here almost as soon as they started. They take the fun out of Halloween for everyone and seemed mostly based on pushing paranoia from religious or political organizations.
junpei | 12 hours ago
My small town still celebrates it like its the 90s. I give out pretzels and cheese puffs that costco/sams sell for halloween and kids love them, and it's way cheaper than candy.
Optimal-Fix-2997 | 9 hours ago
Is candy at Costco cheaper? I just paid over $150 at Walmart smh there 200 piece is like $30 now its absolutely dumb
CrissBliss | 19 hours ago
We still get a lot of trick or treaters every year.
ControversialQuerier | 19 hours ago
Maybe. I haven't looked into those numbers. As far as the article is concerned though, the decreased interest is likely a result of the inflation caused by high cacao prices due to ecological issues in Africa and disruptions from the current Iran war.
AmputeeHandModel | 18 hours ago
This neighborhood used to have lots of trick or treaters. I got like 5 last year.
Broad_Assistance3343 | 15 hours ago
My town has a temporary curfew after 6p on halloween.
It’s so weird cause growing up we’d be out till 2am running around and most of these kids today are done trick or treating before the sun goes down.
Exoprime270 | 14 hours ago
Gotta go where the big neighborhoods are. At least in my rural area there are a couple large communities that go all out. I don’t live in one so I just toss up orange/purple lights and some deco for passerbys.
Optimal-Fix-2997 | 9 hours ago
Yeah the bigger newer subdivisions in my area always go all out for halloween
FlyOrdinary1104 | 4 hours ago
The several years I lived in Seattle/Portland area I never had trick-or-treaters, supposedly they now meet up in parking lots/organized events to exchange candy
Wurm42 | 21 hours ago
Halloween candy prices are crazy high this year, and shrinkflation is rampant!
What you pay is ridiculous for the amount of chocolate/candy you actually get.
We live in a neighborhood that still gets a lot of trick or treaters, but this is the last year I'm giving out the typical "fun size" bars.
We did a trunk at a Trunk or Treat yesterday, and I had glow stick bracelets as a non-food option. They were surprisingly popular, and if you buy a big party pack of them online, the unit price is cheaper than chocolate.
Qeltar_ | 19 hours ago
I walked into a Sam's Club last week and they had all the displays out with bags of chocolate bars, etc. Okay yes, they are large bags but... $16? $22? $27? These people are out of their minds, especially given what people are already dealing with these days.
Gonna be a lot of deals on November 1...
Exoprime270 | 14 hours ago
Just fyi. They stopped putting a lot of the “good” chocolate and such in Halloween wrapping so it won’t mark down after the 31st. Just the big variety packs still have it. It’s mainly just the boxes it’s displayed in now. They started this last year and it was very noticeable after the 31st. Sucks for consumers and employees both. Source: I manage a Wally World.
Qeltar_ | 14 hours ago
Thanks. I guess it doesn't surprise me.
EchoInternational856 | 18 hours ago
It was $6 for a bag of Reese’s Pumpkins that I swear was $3.5 a few years ago. And then I went to eat them and they were like fucking tictacs.
swaywithwords | 17 hours ago
The actual quality and taste is also not great.
livestrong2109 | 20 hours ago
We used to give out like 3 boxed of full size chocolate bars just to be that one house. This year the first 24 kids get a bag of skittles and everyone else two fun size whatever sugar candy. That was my compromise to the wife.
Vio_ | 19 hours ago
I tried buying adult costume accessories at Target yesterday. They had almost nothing at all for adults. Even the kids costumes supply was crazy small.
The amount of floor space for their Halloween section was their usual large area, but everything was so spread out that it barely had any actual Halloween stuff in comparison.
It's maybe the first time I've seen shrinkflation actually hit the store itself.
IamTalking | 18 hours ago
Perhaps they were sold out…
Vio_ | 18 hours ago
No, because there were massive empty spots in that area where there weren't any display cases. Plus the cases themselves were half full where a few hooks were empty where people had bought stuff.
I've seen that Target's Halloween section before. It's usually overflowing with things.
Proot65 | 16 hours ago
Heavily tariffed categories plus inflation means that inventory has to be tighter, and much harder to blow out if you over forecast.
Less inventory means less risk.
/edit for autocorrect disaster
Exoprime270 | 14 hours ago
Target, from my knowledge of former employees, doesn’t replenish goods like a Walmart does. Once the initial set it sold not much gets shipped to the store is what I hear and what seems to be the case when I go into one.
SalsaMan101 | 11 hours ago
Have you seen the Haribo mini packs of gummy bears? There are 4 mini gummy bears in each pack. 4.
Ivorypetal | 20 hours ago
Im doing rice crispy treats and fruit snacks instead of chocolate this year
Wurm42 | 20 hours ago
Good ideas!
DilutedPoison | 17 hours ago
I did that same combo last year and the kiddos were thrilled
Constant-Plant-9378 | 17 hours ago
Lights are staying off at my place for the first time in 20 years.
dogs_gt_cats | 8 hours ago
Costco was the way this year. A 5.75# bag of gummies/sours, and a 5.4# bag of assorted chocolate candies. Total cost was a little over $40.
We have always given out full size bars but the prices are ridiculous. So instead we got gift bags, and the kiddos will get quarter pound bags of mixed candy instead.
It actually ended up being a nice family evening making up the gift bags. And if we have leftovers they'll just go in the bin with our kiddo's other candy, something we always felt weird about with full sized bars.
This year it looks like full size bar boxes are about $1/pc avg price.
Living_Ad8152 | 18 hours ago
Right like a bag of 12 shitty “chocolate adjacent” candies costs 35$.
definitelytheA | 18 hours ago
I buy party favors (and candy!) every year. Glow sticks are very popular, as are pull-back cars, rings, and sheets of stickers. Even pencils are scooped up with excitement.
Mper526 | an hour ago
One of my neighbors has a goodie table instead of candy and the kids love it. They get to pick one thing from each section. It’s stuff like temporary tattoos, glow sticks, stickers. It looks like stuff you can get from those packs of assorted party favors on Amazon.
IcyGazelle9281 | 20 hours ago
these companies are so greedy, one day we are going to watch movies of people trick or treating and our grandkids ate going to say “ mom did people really give out free candy every year to anyone who came to their house?” I feel like between the media making up bs claims every year about strangers poisoning candy, religious puritans who have suddenly decided in the past 4 years that Halloween is evil and have made up fallacious stories about the origin of Halloween online and companies price gouging while lowering the quality of goods. This unique and festive tradition will one day end.
AZMadmax | 18 hours ago
Ok so the explosion of religious people not participating in Halloween isn’t just a local to me phenomenon
JennaTulwartz | 14 hours ago
It’s funny, I grew up in an extremely conservative evangelical household and my parents didn’t let us trick or treat for YEARS. I was so angry and hurt about it, they always tried to do alternative solutions but there’s no replacement for the volume and variety of candy you get from streets upon streets of individual houses passing it out. My parents have de-weirded over the years and thankfully are normal, kind people now.
Anyway I say all that to say, we have a great relationship, I love and respect them tremendously, and I have forgiven a number of questionable parenting decisions arising from this time because I do think they were doing their best. But I have not fully forgiven the years of banning trick-or-treating. It still feels really delusional and cruel. 🤷🏼♀️
AZMadmax | 14 hours ago
Rightfully so lol. Back then it was like one family on the block not participating, usually Jehovah’s Witness, now it’s a shit ton of standard Christians (and Mormons in my area)
MonkeyInnaBottle | 20 hours ago
tear This is the most American thing I’ve ever heard. Every home should be given a banner flag that says, “Won’t you think of the poor shareholders?”
Ext_JuniorYT | 20 hours ago
/r/doomercirclejerk prime material right here
storemans | 19 hours ago
lmao thank you for this sub, lot of it going around these days.
amalgaman | 17 hours ago
I love Halloween. Love handing out candy.
My salary has gone up less than 1% and everything else has gone up a lot more than 1%.
Looking at candy prices has made me sad. I’m talking Walmart prices are still too high.
Red-little | 15 hours ago
My mom loves to say, "I just don't know how you kids are expected to make anything work, everything is so expensive these days and the housing market is ridiculous."
She's also staunchly conservative, voted for Trump 3 times and doesnt believe minimum wage was "created as a sole income source for adults, minimum wage is meant for high schoolers working at McDonalds."
Millions of people in this country think just like her and have no fucking idea how their voting choices affect consumers and the working class. The rest of us have to suffer the consequences of that stupidity.
HicJacetMelilla | 16 hours ago
This isn’t a direct reply to your comment, but just a jumping off point since you mentioned even Walmart prices being too high.
To all If you have trick-or-treaters: get the weird candy. Get the cheap candy. As a society, the Halloween candy has gotten kind of boring. Everyone gives out the same Hershey’s and Mars stuff. And it’s also the most expensive.
When I was a kid we’d get such a huge variety because everyone had different amounts they were willing to spend. There was the one lady living on a fixed income who would give each child one mini Tootsie roll. There was a house where they would give out the full-size candy bars. And then you would have everything in between like the peanut butter taffy, and the crumbly smarty suckers on a stick, the rolls of smarties, the flavored Tootsie rolls, the mini candy cigarettes sticks, the circus peanuts. Seriously, kids want to try them all!
If you’re only buying what you’re willing to eat after Halloween is over, that’s totally valid. But I just want to give people permission to buy the cheap candy. Because the kids still find it very fun and still like trying and seeing all kinds of new treats.
Educational-Emu-2427 | 16 hours ago
My great grandparents would give 1 mini tootsie roll and a dollar in quarters to all the kids in the neighborhood. It was so sweet
Hawthm_the_Coward | 13 hours ago
That to me was the entire point of Halloween - I could find a boring Snickers bar any time if I cared, but I never wanted one. A Halloween tote full of stuff you rarely see and stuff you've never even heard of is much better than just being assigned whatever five-chocolate assortment suits your neighborhood best.
brandt-money | 21 hours ago
It doesn't help that most chocolate tastes worse and worse every year. I don't want to eat that fake stretchy wannabe-chocolate, so I just stopped buying chocolate candy altogether.
Maxpowr9 | 19 hours ago
I can't eat milk chocolate anymore, especially Hershey. Them adding more and more palm oil at the cost of actual cocoa. Only dark chocolate for me.
_aliased | 19 hours ago
Try Milka bars from Romania. You can get them at Cracker Barrel for some reason but no high fructose corn syrup which is the actual reason mass-produced milk chocolate (especially Hershey) is bad.
_nylcaj_ | 18 hours ago
My husband's in Germany right now and had eaten some of these and decided to ship me a variety of them, since I'm a chocoholic.
They're just okay and honestly comparable to like Hershey's and other larger brands. I wouldn't say the flavor is the same, but if you're someone who really likes dark or rich chocolate, you aren't getting that from these. The flavor of the original Milka bar reminds me of how a lot generic "chocolate" sold around Easter tastes.
PinkyLeopard2922 | 18 hours ago
I grabbed a couple of Milka bars when I was in Greece a couple of years ago and that is some gooood chocolate. I had no idea Cracker Barrel had them! World Market is also a good place to find European chocolate as well.
PronatorTeres00 | 21 hours ago
I mean, in a world where gas is sky-high and living expenses continue to climb, it's little surprise that there's less folks feeling comfortable enough to be literally giving away money in the form of candy right now.
coffeequeen0523 | 17 hours ago
YSK: Check ingredients of chocolate candies. Manufacturers have stopped using cacao and cocoa due to crop shortages and are investing in and using lab grown and cell-cultured cocoa and cacao.
Brands include Cadbury, Hershey, Nestle (Kit Kat is one), Lindt, Mars (M&M’s, Snickers to name a few) and Kinder.
Maleficent_Cake6435 | 17 hours ago
I came here to say this. Sales are down and things are expensive yes, but the chocolate is fake now and the most common candy has been shown to have high levels of arsenic in it. And by high I mean 20 Nerds pieces OR 3 Swedish fish is your ANNUAL allotment of Arsenic.
brergnat | 16 hours ago
That's been debunked.
Maleficent_Cake6435 | 16 hours ago
Word, source?
brergnat | 16 hours ago
The study was misinterpreted by the surgeon general of the state of FL (shockingly).
The study said that 96 nerds or 8 Swedish fish IF EATEN EVERYDAY FOR 365 DAYS (i.e. cumulative annual exposure) would exceed the State's safe limit of arsenic for an 8 year old CHILD.
Uncle-Osteus | 13 hours ago
They also used a soil test process to measure the arsenic, which over reported levels by like 1000% because taffy is not soil
brdn | 16 hours ago
I wouldn’t call it debunked. Just under heavy scrutiny because they didn’t have access to the same tests that the FDA does. If I recall, they had to use a process generally reserved for checking soil contamination.
brergnat | 16 hours ago
Either way, the claim that one serving is a year's worth of arsenic exposure is definitely 100% wrong.
brdn | 16 hours ago
Probably. But the tests were not wrong. Just incomplete. We’re arguing semantics at that point.
brergnat | 16 hours ago
No. The tests showed that cumulative annual exposure (eating 98 nerds or 8 swedish fish every day for a YEAR would be too much arsenic for a child.
No study showed that eating 20 nerds or 3 swedish fish one time was an annual exposure to arsenic. It was spun into that on social media.
brdn | 16 hours ago
Got it. Cool.
collectivebarganing | 14 hours ago
Mars is not currently using cell-cultured cocoa in Snickers, M&M's, or any of its main products, but the company is actively exploring alternative cocoa technologies.
Whocares7x | 5 hours ago
FUCK MMS! I hadnt had fake chocolate in years and i had some m&ms and almost had a heart attack from the poison. They def changes the recipe and it feels like a poison to people who eat clean
raspberryharbour | 17 hours ago
I make my own chocolate at home from candle wax and used coffee grounds, and my grandchildren always love it!
Ladydoodoo | 16 hours ago
👀
weaselroni | 15 hours ago
It’s not just the outrageous prices. It’s that we know the candy is no good.
There is little to no Cocoa in any of the main chocolates… And the selection is pretty thin. You have about 10 main chocolate candies, by maybe 2 companies?
The way they push the no-real-chocolate, and fake peanut butter Reeses, is criminal.
The non-chocolate candies, as well as the chocolate candies, do not even contain sugar. It’s all corn syrup.
So what we end up being offered is: cocoa substitutes, corn syrup, chemical flavors, completely overpriced, and a small repetitive selection, why even bother?
Candy doesn’t taste the same as it did 40 years ago. Why waste money on chemical garbage?
tunaman808 | 14 hours ago
> by maybe 2 companies
There are three: Mars, Hershey and Ferrero. Ferrero is an Italian company that makes Nutella, Kinder and Ferrero Rocher. They bought most of Nestlé's US candy brands (except Kit Kat (which is licensed by Hersey in the US, and the Quik and Toll House brands) in 2018.
Incidentally, Hershey has been begging the FDA to allow "milk chocolate" to be made from vegetable oil, like in the EU. Their main opponent? Mars, who refuses to cheap out.
Uncle-Osteus | 13 hours ago
Be real, nobody gives out ferrero on Halloween lol
maplecremecookie | 8 hours ago
I almost bought a bag of fun-sized Kinder bars at TJMaxx. It was a bit cheaper per unit than any other kind of chocolate at Walmart. But I'm not a huge fan of Kinder and I didn't want to have to eat the leftovers.
Uncle-Osteus | 13 hours ago
Last two years we only got two groups of trick or treaters anyway. Barely need any candy for them at all
Polite_Bark | 20 hours ago
High "chocolate" prices. Whatever that hydrogenated crap is what it is not is chocolate.
When kids and gluttons don't want to eat your candy like product it's time to consider going back to the recipe that got you business in the first place.
PinkyLeopard2922 | 18 hours ago
Palm oil. More and more palm oil. It's cheap.
082426grateful | 21 hours ago
Good. I’m glad American consumers are pushing back, finally. Apparently, it took 20 dollar bags of chocolate to knock some sense into them. Now, we are in the week of Halloween, so here’s hoping the consumer doesn’t rush out and buy candy on credit card to hand out, due to social pressure.
goldencrisp | 20 hours ago
Walmart was charging $25 for a damn bag of candy yesterday. Like what are we even doing anymore
the_blue_eel | 19 hours ago
Genuinely thought you were lying for a sec so i booted up my walmart app and saw it was 18 fucking dollars for an assorted bag of chocolates. I cant afford to give out candy even if i wanted to at those prices
TriscuitCracker | 19 hours ago
Yep, discovered that yesterday. And it’s not a ton of candy either.
-Fiat-Lux- | 18 hours ago
I received a Halloween treat bag of mixed candy from a neighbor. The mini peanut M&M packet had 3 (!!!!!!) pieces in it. What’s the fuggin’ point?
Ldb87 | 10 hours ago
My local grocery store had big bags marked at $42.99 the other day! I had to take a photo because I couldn’t believe it and needed someone to confirm I was reading it right.
On sale from $49.99. 50 oz or something lime that and not even good stuff.
BeingSad9300 | 20 hours ago
I go to Ollie's every year for candy & just check the dates to make sure it's more recent bags. I think last year the big bag of Hershey's with 160(?) pieces was $17, this year it was $20. I only bought it to donate to my kid's school for their event.
I usually stick with non-chocolate because I feel like I can get more for less. This was the first year I was doing math in the store to figure out price per piece to know what was more worth it.
Honestly though, non-candy items end up being more cost effective. Glow sticks and Halloween tattoos. You can end up with like 400 items for $10-15. On our busy years we probably see a few hundred trick or treaters.
shouldbepracticing85 | 19 hours ago
I hadn’t thought of these Halloween treat alternatives! I think I’ll go see if I can order some in time. And if I don’t have a bunch of trick or treaters, I’ll just leave goodie bags on my neighbors’ porches - I’ve got three neighbors with kids.
082426grateful | 17 hours ago
That’s actually smart- giving out non-edibles instead of candy.
Better for their teeth.
The low-effort mommas that bring their brood to my neighborhood wouldn’t approve, because they count on that Halloween candy haul to be sustenance for their litter for a few days after Halloween.
BeingSad9300 | 17 hours ago
We usually do a mix of both, just because little kids are less about the candy (I know I didn't let mine have the stuff that would get stuck in their teeth at 2-3y old, but he also just was more into the fun, not the candy). And sometimes kids have allergies or just want something different, so non-candy is nice for that.
mahones403 | 18 hours ago
Last year I went in to Walmart on November 1st looking for some discounted Halloween candy ...it was all gone, completely removed from the store. No discount.
AiringOGrievances | 18 hours ago
When you charge $29.99 for a bag of shrunken candy, of course people aren’t going to buy it. Our store shelves are still full of candy. This weekend they went on “sale”, buy 2 get one 50% off…still $29.99 each for the first two bags though.
Bubbaman78 | 20 hours ago
ICandy bars have also outpaced inflation by about 30% over the last 20 years while also shrinking in size by 10%(snickers). They have also changed the ingredients list to use cheaper ingredients like palm oil instead of coconut oil, left out condensed milk and added in artificial flavors to make up for it. The crap doesn’t even taste the same, it has a blah chemical taste now.
ZhangtheGreat | 18 hours ago
At this rate, it may be more economically friendly to play tricks on the door-knockers than to actually give them treats. I mean, they do give people that option, don’t they?
MidwestFescue82 | 20 hours ago
Wow no kidding? You're telling me $15 bags of garbage chocolate produced by a mega corporation aren't flying off the shelves whenever gas is 6 and $7 a gallon? Crazy stuff.
Triingtolivee | 18 hours ago
I didn’t buy any Halloween candy this year. I went to the store and did a double take that a small bag of candy was going for $25 at the store.
Niceguy4186 | 20 hours ago
I bought candy last night, ended up being $62. That is too much for a lot of people and I don't blame them. Really interested in what xmas will be like this year.
082426grateful | 17 hours ago
Christmas at my home will be all three of us (2 parents, one teen), working jobs until the hour of. We’ll get each other a little surprise or two, but most of the money goes to rent and energy (gas for cars, utilities).
Niceguy4186 | 15 hours ago
We have 6 of us, 2 parents 4 boys (ages 8-13). We lucky that both my wife and are I are doing ok, but at the flip side, the kids are getting to the age were basic toys and trinkets don't cut it like it used too. They want expensive stuff now :-/
Dfiggsmeister | 20 hours ago
Anecdotally, I’ve seen the number of kids and houses participating in trick or treating diminish over the last few years, so much so that I bought only two bags of candy. The first year we moved in, I had bought 3 bags of the 100+ piece candies and ran out within an hour. Definitely a lot less kids I see around the neighborhood mainly due to kids getting older and younger kids not around.
Ingsoc40 | 20 hours ago
At my local Trunk or Treat this past weekend there were literally half as many cars set up giving out candy as there were in the past few years. Guessing prices and the economy had at least something to do with it.
Blindfolded22 | 19 hours ago
I love smarties and I was looking to pick up a bag to hand out (and enjoy myself) and I always thought it was a good deal. I could get a large bag for $2.97 at Walmart. This year, it’s now close to $6 for a smaller bag.
naththegrath10 | 16 hours ago
The candy industry is the great example of the fake capitalism we live in. We have unlimited selection but actually very little choice. This is what happens when in reality there are a handful of super large companies that own everything in a market
Vanth_in_Furs | 20 hours ago
Trick or treating in our neighborhood grows every year, but our position in a bedroom community adjacent to an urban core could explain this, as people move here when they need extra bedrooms and a yard. It was a lot more expensive to buy candy this year to satisfy those crowds, but more telling was our local Walmart still has tons of candy stock. This time last year it was hard to find candy during Halloween week. It’s no wonder, as a bag of chocolate candy is near $30 and a mixed bag of non-chocolate is $25. If you want enough to satisfy the hordes in our area, your minimum spend is $50-$60. Two years ago the same amount of candy would be $40 or less.
thelegodr | 14 hours ago
With prices the way they are I don’t think I can justify handing out candy this year. We usually get north of 300 treaters, so that adds up quite a bit.
Mikimao | 18 hours ago
I've been hunting the clearance aisle for Candy, because I saw 120 piece bags are like 20-25 bucks now.
I managed to score 3 bags of Starburst for 2 bucks each and I felt like I stole them
Easily gonna spend $150 for the right to rush home from work and give kids candy, lol
genescheezesthatpls | 18 hours ago
I specifically made plans to trick or treat somewhere else because I didn’t want to buy candy to give out. I can’t afford $50 worth of candy to hand out.
End3rWi99in | 15 hours ago
I was blown away by candy prices this year. It feels like things have doubled. The same bag I but every year that I never have a second glance costing $31 and that covers only like half of the usual trick or treaters we get in my neighborhood.
TazerMonkey1419 | 20 hours ago
I haven't seen a trick or treater on my street, save for the kid who lives across the street, in three years. I ain't even buying Halloween Candy this year.
SuperSalad_OrElse | 19 hours ago
Our neighborhood doesn’t trick or treat so we don’t buy candy anymore.
We’re stuck with candy we don’t want to eat and a bunch of plastic wrappers that go into the trash. No bueno.
Antknee2099 | 17 hours ago
We get candy each year, and while we have shopped according to price in years past, this year has made it feel ridiculous. We have a 5 year old in preschool and they have an annual trunk or treat. They ask for the parents to donate the candy. The ask for the last few years is "4 large bags of candy, no peanuts". Going to the store this year made that feel like a punch to the gut; large bags of name brand candy were going for around $30 a bag. We love Halloween and our daughter loves her trunk or treat at school each year, but $120 for candy was too much to take. Plus we had to get some for our own house for the big night.
Whocares7x | 5 hours ago
Thats not a donation thats an entrance fee. For preschoolers thats Ludicrous amount of candy per student
Knees0ck | 16 hours ago
Worked retail for a while & stocking the candy every year, seeing how the price went up every year. It was depressing. Thise fun-sized bags going from $12 to now in the $20 range.
444divinity444 | 16 hours ago
Went to the grocery store with my cousin yesterday so she could grab a few variety packs of candy for her Halloween decorations and I kid you not almost every single bag of candy was $19 to $25. We left with no candy because she refused to pay that price.
evonebo | 20 hours ago
Being able to give out candy has always been a luxury. With the current inflation, yes it's real and whoever tells you otherwise is lying. There is not much money to go around to give out candy
majordashes | 20 hours ago
People are buying a lot less of everything, not just Halloween candy, as people navigate inflation at the grocery store.
There is always something clearanced or marked down in my local grocery stores. You just have to look closely and find these deals.
The good news is after Halloween, there will likely be a glut of dirt cheap candy that stores are desperate to sell. A great time to load up on cheap candy that you can use for holiday baking.
And it’s not just candy on sale after Halloween. Stores will clearance Halloween themed foods, such as pasta, breakfast cereals, refrigerated cookie dough, chicken nuggets, coffee creamer, etc. Yes, I’ve seen bat-shaped pasta and ghost-shaped chicken nuggets! And the crazy amount of pumpkin-spice versions of coffee, cookies, cereal, hand soaps, etc will need to go as stores make way for Christmas and holiday stuff.
A day or two after Halloween is a great time to scour those aisles and hunt for cheap deals.
AZMadmax | 18 hours ago
Everyone is shitting on trunk or treating but in my experience those happen all month leading up to Halloween. On Halloween night, everyone wants to go to the nice neighborhood that goes all out. If you don’t live in one of them it’s hit or miss, and just getting worse bc of how these middle class neighborhoods are being built, narrows streets no sidewalks
No_Cell6708 | 21 hours ago
Do they take demographics into account at all? Like, if people in the west are having far fewer kids and/or the foreign imports don't celebrate Halloween, then I would obviously expect to see Halloween candy sales continue to fall every year, all else being equal.
082426grateful | 17 hours ago
I live in a rare neighborhood where trick or treat is actually a very large event. Even a regional event. Breeders bring their offspring from 40-50 miles away to come to this neighborhood. Lawn and home decor all around, nice flat walkable streets. The city even closes off entrances and polices the streets. It’s Halloween at the level of a Super Bowl.
This year, going to be a lot of smarties and dum dums.
Slow_Savings4489 | 16 hours ago
"Breeders"?
c0de1143 | 16 hours ago
Some people are weird about other folks having kids.
Boneyg001 | 14 hours ago
Yeah, it’s the annual candy migration. The young offspring travel door to door to feast on candy
midwestia | 7 hours ago
Brood mares and their studs
Fit_Doughnut_598 | 13 hours ago
I live in this neighborhood for my town. It's great for kids but not something I can afford. I'll get around 3k kids, not a chance I'm buying candy for that many people. The town promotes the event and tells everyone to come to my neighborhood. The town should pay for it if they are going to do that.
082426grateful | 13 hours ago
Whoa! 3,000 kids!?!? Man, I thought the 400-500 we see were a lot! Holy crapola! No way I can fund that much candy!
Fit_Doughnut_598 | 13 hours ago
The surrounding area outside of the small city I live in is all pretty rural. That's not great for trick or treating so they come to my street. We get kids from a pretty wide ring up to an hour away. That plus the city activity encourages people to only trick or treat on my street for "safety" leads to lots and lots of kids.
Marten_Head_3000 | 12 hours ago
Sheesh I thought the 1,100+ we got last year was a lot. 3,000 is crazy numbers. We all gather at my in laws for halloween because they live in one of those neighborhoods. My mom always buys a bunch of trinkets from those dollar stores throughout the year and we give those out alongside candy, it helps with how expensive the candy is this year
violentshores | 18 hours ago
I wanted to buy some but I just can’t keep feeding random children those mildly poison treats.
It’s not food. If the only benefit of it is to create gut bacteria that make you crave it so it can survive by creating more.
It just seems like feeding cancerous, gut bacteria, to the children, and it just kind of throws me off now
grandmawaffles | 19 hours ago
My family loves Halloween; usually spend a lot on candy and drinks to hand out. Last year I couldn’t bother and decided to not hand out candy for the first time in a decade; my reasoning was simple. I got tired of helping people in the community that dressed up like MAGA. Fuck em. I had a blast with my family and family friends. This year we’re all doing the same thing; I have 2 boxes of ring pops to put in a bowl that I’m almost positive will be swiped quickly. In a country where 50% of the people hate you, people throttling up the use of slurs, i find myself just not needing to get angry or help.
frozenpissglove | 18 hours ago
I bought two bags. I used to buy a lot more. I moved into my house and the first Halloween I spent there, the neighborhood was banging. Every Halloween since then(6 years ago) has been a significant downtrend.
Last Halloween was on a Friday, I only went through two bags. That was giving generously to kids. I gave out about 10% of the Jell-O shots I made for adults. This will be the lowest effort Halloween I’ve done in the past couple years.
whereitsat23 | 18 hours ago
Krogers by me has already been discounting the candies and making room for Xmas stuff. We don’t participate but I found it telling that the candy is already on sale 2 weeks before Halloween.
LeastSuspiciousTowel | 16 hours ago
When I was a kid my neighborhood went all out for Halloween but the kids have all grown up and the parents never left so now its 70% old folks. The last hurrah for me handing out candy was 3-4 years ago when we had maybe 6 kids stop by over the 3 hours we were out. We were also the only house on the block with our light on sitting out.
AStoutBreakfast | 15 hours ago
Went to Kroger a few weeks ago and I feel like Halloween candy was at least a good $2 to $5 more than it was last year. The last time I was there I did notice that now most of it was on sale for 30% off.
CokBlockinWinger | 15 hours ago
This year I bought a few boxes of Big League Chew to give out. Chocolate in general has been going down hill in terms of taste, texture, and consistency for years now.
doh-a-dear | 13 hours ago
It's more expensive, but we've started doing snack sized chips and juice pouches/boxes. We always had so much leftover candy plus whatever our kid got and it ended up going to waste. Any leftover chips/juice get used by us or for after soccer/basketball games.
SlicedBreadBeast | 9 hours ago
Chocolate was up in price and then came back to normal levels for the most part as a global commodity, over the course of a year. It didn’t stay high and crazy for long. It’s the companies who are shooting themselves in the foot.
SimpleVegetable5715 | 7 hours ago
I work at a grocery store. I notice people buy small bags of candy for themselves. They’re not planning on handing this expensive stuff out to kids for free.
Whocares7x | 5 hours ago
Last 4 years went from 3 trick or treaters to 1 to zero.
My toddler was waiting to give out candy all night halloween last year and not a single kid on the street.
This year we wont even bother. Prob just go to the mall walk around buy real ice cream and real chocolate then go home
Low_Ability4450 | 4 hours ago
This is what inflation looks like in practice: even when some prices fall, consumers still cut spending because essentials take up more of their budgets. Falling inflation doesn't mean households feel better off.
LoserxBaby | 17 hours ago
I bought my candy when Costco first stocked some. They were on sale and it wasn't too bad, but none of it is chocolate. I think I heard kids aren't as into chocolate anymore- not sure where I heard it, though
Ratthion | 16 hours ago
Why would they like chocolate? It’s been ruined by cheapo recipe changes, it’s just not good chocolate anymore.
Rescuepets777 | 15 hours ago
I did the same. This will be the first year I'm not giving out chocolate. Thankfully, most kids like gummy candies and Tootsie Pops.
chaosuniverses | 13 hours ago
I thought my kid was weird because she hardly likes any of the candy her whole childhood. She would go trick or treating, pick out a few, then let me give away the rest to trick or treaters that come to our house later. I think she just likes the experience of dressing up and walking around the neighborhood in a costume more than the candy.
HangingSnowflake | 17 hours ago
Anecdotally I've definitely noticed kids aren't as into chocolate anymore. When I was a kid we thought the best houses were those with chocolate, but since I moved into my suburban neighborhood a decade ago every year I put out a bowl of chocolate stuff and a bowl of things like dum-dums and the non-chocolate bowl always gets emptied out first. Which at first I was like, score, more leftover chocolate for me! - but nowadays it's so increasingly crappy that we end up eventually just throwing it all away. 🥲
This year the gross 'cheap' stuff is so expensive anyway I splurged on upper-mid chocolates (like Godiva-level) for the chocolate bowl so at least spouse and I can stand to eat whatever's leftover at the end of the night.
Nervous_Ladder_1860 | 14 hours ago
Idk all the kids I know still love chocolate, the difference I notice is their parents do not let them have it as much or don't buy it due to cost.
isaiddgooddaysir | 13 hours ago
Lights out for our house this year
Better-Potato-3877 | 16 hours ago
My Costco had two Halloween candy bags. One with miscellaneous chocolate candies and one with the fruity fun candies.
penguin808080 | 20 hours ago
Honestly starting to resent the entitlement culture of trick or treating. I don't have anything free for you, now get off my lawn. I don't even have a lawn.
Am i joking? I don't even know anymore, but I know i don't have candy for your kids
ThePensiveE | 20 hours ago
I always figured the MAGA's would try and get rid of Halloween and make it into something creepy with the kids instead.
I didn't expect them to get rid of Halloween because nobody could afford candy.
NitWhittler | 18 hours ago
We're not buying any candy this year.
We haven't seen any Trick or Treaters come to our house since COVID.
Young couples also got priced out of our neighborhood, so not many kids around these days.
Also - a coyote recently attacked a kid nearby, so that will probably stop a lot of local parents from letting their kids go outside at night.
Ok_Net5303 | 18 hours ago
We stopped buying candy years ago when the prices started going up. We definitely don’t buy candy for Halloween or most any other reason. I’m not spending that kind of money on candy.
mshiltonj | 14 hours ago
The kids are getting candy corn and bazooka joes and that's it! I'm all tapped out, man.
words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words. words.
modernswitch | 19 hours ago
I was talking with a friend and not only buying candy for themselves to pass out , but the school wants a candy donation for their trunk or treat and well as the church for their trunk or treat as well.
It’s good dumdum pops are still a good value
Eazy12345678 | 13 hours ago
bruh. everyone can afford some candy.
they have tootsie rolls for $5 for 33. anything is better than nothing
$5 or $10 more this year isnt going to stop anyone that loves kids
kc3x | 20 hours ago
Ugh people feel less and less safe. Knowing local law enforcement is likely to escalate ANY encounter they have, keeps people inside.
Acab don’t care if you’re carrying your baby DROP the baby and lay down….. some just shoot
DaweiArch | 16 hours ago
The boxes of mini chocolate bars are the same price here as they were the past few years. They are already on clearance as well. I don’t think high prices is the main factor here.