If you haven’t yet purchased that big bag of Halloween candy this year, be prepared for sticker shock.
The CPI for candy and gum is ripping higher. So is the PPI for cocoa, a key ingredient in chocolate.
Cocoa Futures
Cocoa futures traded above $3,700 a tonne, their highest since mid-September and heading towards recent 45-year-highs, on signs of stronger global cocoa demand despite a sharp rise in prices.
Candy Getting Scary Expensive
The Wall Street Journal comments Halloween Candy Is Getting Scary Expensive.
Americans are expected to spend a record $12.2 billion this Halloween on candy, costumes and other expenses, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade association. That is a 15% increase over last year. Consumers are expected to shell out $3.6 billion on candy alone, a 16% increase from 2022.
“I go out and look at these prices and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God,’” said Valentina Casamento of Bayonne, N.J.
Casamento saw a bag of mini Snickers and other chocolates for about $13 at a drugstore. Casamento, a 31-year-old who works as an online clothing reseller, said she has seen the same bag for about $9 in the past.
“Like many industries, we continue to face high inflation and spikes in material costs,” said a spokesperson for Mars, the maker of candies such as Skittles and M&Ms. “We work to absorb these extra costs wherever possible.”
Crystal Johnson is cutting back on Halloween candy this year because of sticker shock. After seeing that a bag of 155 mini chocolates cost $21.97 at a big-box store, Johnson said she plans to buy two bags instead of the five she usually gets. Last year, the bags were about $16, she said.
“You have to sit there and decide, ‘OK do I pay my water bill or do I go buy the amount of candy that I actually know I need,’” said Johnson, a stay-at-home mom in Crosby, Texas. “The water bill has to come first.”
Johnson said her rent this year went up by $300 a month, and she is paying more at the supermarket for chicken, ground beef and bacon. “We’re just having to cut back in places like Halloween candy,” she said.
CPI Rises More Than Expected as Rent Jumps Another 0.6 Percent
On October 12, I noted CPI Rises More Than Expected as Rent Jumps Another 0.6 Percent
For the 26th straight month dating to august of 2021, rent increased at least 0.4 percent.
I repeat the core key theme for something like two years now. People keep telling me rents are falling, I keep doubting. The doubters have it correct again.
Rent of primary residence, the cost that best equates to the rent people pay, jumped 0.6 percent. Rent of primary residence has gone up at least 0.4 percent for 26 consecutive months!
All these “rents are falling” projections have been based on the price of new leases, but existing leases, vastly more important, keep rising.
The Cost of Eating Out is Skyrocketing, Are You Cutting Back?
In October 13, I asked The Cost of Eating Out is Skyrocketing, Are You Cutting Back?
The cost of eating away from home has increased at least 0.4 percent for 25 of the last 27 months! Are you doing anything about that?
In the grand scheme of things, the price of Halloween candy is just a minor irritation.
Besides, Krugman Says “We Won the War on Inflation at Very Little Cost”
So go ahead and splurge. The war is over.
Double the treats you hand out this year unless it means not paying your water bill or rent.
I remember when apples were given instead of candy, back before pins and razor blades were invented. Kids hated getting healthy apples instead of candy. I also remember stories about vacant buildings being burned on Devils Night in Detroit with lots of deaths. link to mentalfloss.com
The best apples were on a wooden stick and covered with caramel and chopped peanuts.
At least Chicago still takes Halloween seriously-
link to wgntv.com
North Side Hipster neighborhoods too –
link to cwbchicago.com
The derivatives problem is the one responsible for 50% of inflation and really about 25% of prices since derivatives were deregulated in the early 2000s. That’s why we have this era of rising commodity prices. Get rid of derivatives and make pricing based on true supply and demand rather than speculation in commodities and you will get very low inflation quickly. Even the smartest people in the world don’t understand the damage derivatives have done.
Pass the buck.
Sorry kids, this year you’ll have to do 3 tricks instead of one.
Do people still make them do that? I still remember having to do a head stand for the old lady that gave out full size candy bars 50 years ago. We loved her house.
I live rural and have a huge halloween display every year. A lot if people come off the highway to look. Its my wifes thing but you know who gets to do most of it. Funny thing is we never get kids and if anyone pulls in they are instantly surrounded by my dogs. Its kinda comical. They arent the kind of dogs to attack people but its funny none the less. They serve a purpose. Too many shananigans out here. They instantly alert me. I usually laugh at the $30 box of candy bars at sams club thinking back to buying candy when I was a kid. Or the $3 mega size snicker at the gas station which now isnt even a full size bar but 2 smaller ones. This country is turning into complete sh*t in many ways.
Once upon a time in a land far, far from what this one has become –
Almost all candy bars cost 5¢.
Except the Mars bar with chocolate covered nougat and almonds that cost 10¢.
But it was really good and worth it occasionally.
Bread was also 10 cents a loaf and cigarettes were 25 cents a pack.
Yes, a carton of 10 cigarette packs for $2.70 all taxes included.
You nailed it Mish. Paying 25% more at Dollar Tree. Add in shrinkflation and I’m getting way less candy for the same amount of money. I passed the skrinkflation on to the kids though. Hoping they didn’t notice 😉
WMT : pomegranate for $1.98/each. This fruit expands arteries and shields from pesticides.
Cosco sells pomegranate juice, which is junk food.
I love pomegranate. But it is a lot of work getting the seeds out to eat.
$1.98 is a rare price around me. Usual prices this year so far are $3.99 to $4.99 EACH.
I planted my own pomegranate tree about 18 months ago. Looks like it will be at least another year before I start seeing any fruit.
Handing out candy to strangers is such a lame tradition on so many levels.
Trick or Treating, and to a lesser extent, Halloween seems like a dying holiday. Some people like to dress up for parties, but they should generally grow out of that at a certain stage. Trick or Treating could only occur in a high trust society.
The good thing about food inflation is that hopefully, people will eat less garbage foods. if not only due to the actual cost but also due to package shrinkage, so they get less for a given price.
For example, people might have previously been willing to pay $1.99 for a bag of potato chips. That bag might have weighed 7.5oz. Nowadays, for that price, the weight is 5.5oz, so there will less to consume at the same price point.
But OTOH, when I see stores selling healthy fruits at $2.99 to $3.99/lb, I fear people will eat less fruit for at these prices, a single piece of fruit, depending on weight, can cost $1.00 to $1.50! This is contrary to healthily eating goals.
Candy is for losers.
Lest we all forget –
“Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”
“Food” for thought.
1) Cosco sells for less. They sell sugar, fructose and yeast at wholesale prices
and in large quantities.
2) The more u buy, the more your children will be hooked on sugar and junk food.
3) Doctors and pharma feast on little children hooked on sugar high. They go wild, crazy, foraging for more sugar. Candies cost little, but the cost of treating chronic disease is high.
4) The upper middle class and the rich store their goodies in expensive frigs & freezers using 5%/10% of their million dollar houses for storage, as Cosco warehouses.
5) The higher your IQ the more u become Cosco gate keeper.
What is this ‘Cosco ‘ you speak of?
Candy is a small budget item in most people’s budgets. Even if you have kids it still should be small. If you are an adult and your candy budget is high then that’s just too bad.
Doug, you obviously do not have a chocolate addiction.
I am a firm believer in each individual having the right to choose his/her/whatever addictions and as long as someone else can make a lot of money out of it. The money you blow rolls back into the economy so it is good.
Less is more.
Doug, the cost of children’s dental problems is high. The cost of mental problems is higher.
Tell me about it. I am comforted by the fact that if society doesn’t have a problem, private enterprise will step in and create one. It’s the magic of the free market.
I have very few revelers show up at my door. One year I gave out cans of soda and shook them when I saw people approaching the house.
Did you keep them cold or at room temperature?
If you do things like that no wonder you acquired a bad reputation in the neighborhood.
I’ve definitely noticed the price increase. I always get mine at Walmart because they have much better prices than the big box stores and grocery stores. Even so, a 240 bag of assorted mini chocolate bars/items is $24 bucks! So I only got 1 of those and multiple of the 240 bag of assorted candy items which are only $11 bucks at Walmart.
Another thing you can do at least at Walmart or Costco etc is buy bulk boxes of fruit snacks (40+ in a box). Kids love them and parents appreciate them.
Long term this is terrible news for dentists and periodontists.
Good MadMen episode is when Don does a presentation to Hersey executives where he explains that he was first introduced to their product as pay for working as errand boy in a whorehouse. Sort of like the stooges in the federal government.
Credit cards to deliquency to bankruptcy. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Many of todays generation know no other method to live. When the size of the US debt stops the US government from bailing out the credit card companies this cycle will slow. 30% interest recovers initial the initial loan outlay quickly enough for Citi and Chase as many consumers will use thier home to get out of high interest credit card debt when the fed starts to lower rates again at the end of 2024 or in 2025. The next big bubble time already on the horizon. It will be as big or bigger than previous bubbles.
You need to wait 7 years between bankruptcies.
A bankruptcy on your credit report kills your ability to get a credit card. You will have to pay cash.
We give out full-size candy bars.
Buy at Costco.
Thought prices were normal.
I give several different mini candy bars to each kid so they can trade between themselves.
An insurance company offers a “Halloween vandalism” policy. For $10, the policy will pay for any damage to your property on Halloween that your homeowner’s insurance deductible doesn’t cover.
“We especially recommend this policy for people who are too cheap to buy candy and therefore face a higher risk of vandalism when kids see their lights are on, but their front door lights are off. It allows these cheap people to hedge some of the risk they take by being so cheap.”
That’s horrible! My Town has notices to not approach unlit homes, for safety reasons of course.
We have gotten actual “thank you” from the kids, who tell us they prefer the money. Parents too in passing!
Here in my neighborhood in Florida a lot of us sit outside with fold up tables and give out the candy from the porch so kids don’t have to knock.
Definitely all the kids here know not to knock on unlit homes or homes that don’t have some kind of Halloween decoration.
Speaking of money, when did kids stop carrying those Unicef boxes that you could put in spare change for charity. I always remember carrying those in the 70’s and still seeing kids with them in the 80s’. But at some point that whole drive seems to have stopped. Anyone know when or why?
I started sitting outside because I grew tired of getting up every time the door rang. Much easier for the kids too. win/win
That seems so “industrial”.
The money can go to buying marijuana gummies!
That earned a chuckle…maybe sit outside at a table and vape with the kids! (Do they still make Chuckles candy?)
Does the insurance include the costs of removal of all the TP in the shrubbery?
Actually, it does not. The fine print in the policy states: Does not cover biodegradable vandalism such as T.P. and ‘burning dog poop in a bag’.
Toilet paper in the shrubbery? We need another scamdemic to make toilet paper scarce again.
Why give out candy at all? Roll up $1 bills (1,2,3,to a roll), and toss them in the bags. Kids & Parents will be happier, and you will spend roughly the same, unless you get lots of kids. Then just shut the lights off.
Or bubble gum cigarettes like they had when I was a kid.
Cocoa production has been hit by disease and bad weather. It’s the type of thing that can happen to any agricultural industry in any year.
$20 for a 90 oz. bag of chocolate candies (Reese’s, Snickers, etc.) at Costco. It is a “Costco” assortment without a brand name on the bag but brand name chocolates inside. It didn’t state the number of pieces but they appear to be about 0.5 oz. each which makes it approximately 180 pieces. Hopefully the two bags we bought will be enough this year.
Krugman said: If you don’t look at prices, there is no inflation.
Looks like some kind of buddhist proverb, maybe he is in a sect.
“We work to absorb these extra costs wherever possible.”
Absorb? They misspelled “pass on”. The problem with inflation is a complete lack of consumer push back. At some point people have to be willing to say no to an 18 dollar hamburger. Costs will be passed on until people start saying no. Consumer discipline has been near zero.
What is the latest price for slave labor in Cote d’Ivoire?
Some people are starting to say “No”. Daily job cuts shows the companies laying off and the companies that are closing. These #’s are accelelerating. I like this website as it gives you the headlines. When you click on the headline it will take you to the source it was posted (i.e. company, newspaper, etc.) link to dailyjobcuts.com
Living is a consumptive act by its very nature. You can only say no so much before you die of starvation. You act like its the greedy hamburger sellers costing so much. They have simply adjusted their retail prices in order to maintain the same profit margin as input costs rise. Making hamburgers is not a charitable church feed the masses situation. They are in it for business.
Sooner or later the ability to pay for these things by the consumer will dry up. At that point the smart hamburger shops will close their doors because all that is left at that point are price wars, declining revs, collapsing profit margins and eventual bankruptcy. Tha’s because CPIflation is not going to stop. It can’t stop. If it does, the entire Global Debt Ponzi will roll over.
$18 hamburger – going rate all year
lucky for me, I’m NOT candy person
and hand out NOTHING for fall festivals
next I’ll here Turkey prices are spiralling(ham) out of control
Its why rates are not coming down for a while….inflation hasn’t backed off, its just sized differently across the landscape