The spookiest time of year is here, and in addition to ghouls and goblins, Halloween also carries a massive price tag.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Americans will spend $9.1 billion on Halloween candy, costumes and pumpkins in 2017. This is up 8.3% from last year.
The biggest chunk of the spending will go towards costumes, with holidaymakers spending $3.4 billion to dress up like their favorite monsters and superheroes. For those impatiently waiting to satisfy their sweet tooth, never fear. Americans are expected to spend $2.7 billion on candy this year.
Broken down, the NRF predicts that each person will spend an average of $86.13 on Halloween festivities, up from last year’s figure of $82.93. All of that spending can seem scary if money is tight, nevertheless, people seem up to the challenge. Just 12.9% say that their spending will be impacted by the economy.
The truth is, there are a handful of other money woes that spook Americans more than shelling out billions for costumes. To find these hidden terrors, WalletHub conducted their own Halloween survey to determine the most pressing financial fears facing Americans today.
It turns out that 26% of Americans fear an unplanned emergency, and the same percentage of people fear not having enough retirement savings. On the other hand, 20% fear losing their job, 7% fear poor credit, and 11% fear fraud.
Indeed, losing your money or being misled is much more terrifying than creepy crawlers, in fact, 72% of people say that data breaches (ahem, Equifax), are scarier than spiders.
We don’t know about you, but all of those financial setbacks sound way scarier than a thriller movie.
Brittany is a reporter at Yahoo Finance.
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