We live smack in the middle of a neighborhood of baby factories. As a result, we get lots of visitors on Halloween. We buy about 6 of the large good quality bags of candy, spending $30 - 40 for them. Last year we bought candy for ourselves so we'd stay out of the Halloween candy, but that backfired. This year we just bought candy to hand out and nothing extra. We've managed to stay out of it so far, even though it's in plain sight.

Iowa has a tradition called Beggars Night. It's the night before Halloween, or October 30th. It's mainly for adults to celebrate Halloween. This year since October 31st falls on a Saturday, a lot of towns are celebrating Halloween on Beggars Night. So instead of the normal Friday night grocery run next week, we'll be handing out candy and listening to really bad jokes.

Jill

 

We don't hand out candy.  I usually buy a bag or two of stuff for the kids, I'd say I spend under $5 on it. 

We live in a good-sized village with sidewalks and small shops, surrounded by farms so we get a LOT of trick or treaters both just walking around the neighborhood and being trucked in from the farms. We have a blast, and provide candy for around 300 children of all ages. We've never had a problem, and while we do get the older kids they tend to show up at the end of the night (and ask, "uh, do you have any extra you want to get rid of?" lol) and are polite and don't get in the way of the little ones so I tend to give them some candy ;) Most of the older kids were the little siblings of my children's friends. I will not admit to the cost of the candy. But I will say it totally blew our budget this past week, which made me turn to eating some of the chocolate to feel better. (I will admit that I do NOT like the grown ups that bring bags and hold them out for candy, but have yet to do anything other than just toss in a piece, and I feel the ones that bring babies and pretend they are asking for candy for them a bit inappropriate but...I do remember taking my kids around and having other parents saying, "hey, you look like you could use a piece yourself," and giving me one, lol, so I try to just have fun no matter what happens. )

sunshinetreva:

The biggest problem we had was that there were a few teens (not many and certainly not the majority) that made it bad for everyone; if you didn't give them big handfuls of candy your house was guaranteed to be egged and you could NOT leave your pumpkin outside if you were hoping to salvage the flesh b/c they would smash it

It's sad that some have so little respect for other people.

 

This year I have only spent about 18.00 on Halloween candy but I purchased, 2 bags of skittles, 3 bags reeses fun size, 1 bag Whoppers fun size,1 bag hershey's fun size m&m fun size,1 fun size bag of snickers and 1 bag of fun size 3 musketeers.  Rite-Aid had the bags for 1.99 but were out of the most so I went to Wal-Mart with the Rite-Aid ad and also had l.00 of 2 bags and also some of the Hershey's I bought 3 and got 1 free so all in all was a good deal for me so I know what I will be doing next Thursday I will be making Halloween bags for the Trick or Treaters because I think I will be going to the football game Friday night so Thursday seems the best day for me to do the bags.

bnfrugal:

I don't know where you live, but I live in a residential community.

I currently live in a neighborhood. Ours is not a trick-or-treating hot spot however. Few people hand out candy here. Our own children go across the highway to another neighborhood to trick-or-treat.

Before moving here, we lived in Mississippi. There were some neighborhoods in the middle of town but most of the area was rural with acres separating houses. Only the houses in the neighborhoods offered house to house trick-or-treating.

I grew up in Louisiana in a community that ran along a highway. There were a few neighborhoods but for the many not living in one, it meant driving to one to enjoy any trick-or-treating.

 

MarthaMFI:

I think you do get too old 17/18 and you can find other things to do

Maybe we need to define what we think a teen is, lol.

I don't consider an eighteen year old a teenager. I consider that an adult since that is the legal age for adulthood. The teens I know who trick-or-treat are mostly 15 and under and usually are with their families.

I have never seen a pack of twenty teens trick-or-treating but I'd probably find that odd as well.

 

 

Well I guess I think because drinking age is 19 here that we tend to think of that as legal age though it is 18.    17/18 most are still in gr 11/12 or have a grace period with their parents lol.

I waited till after I completed my trick or treat bags to post here I spent a total of $24.67 last year buying post holiday for treats and toys but saved $57.91. Over the summer I bought a roll of halloween stickers that were 100 for $1.99 and earlier this month dh and I decieded to give out glow sticks with all the other goodies, we found them at the dollar store 12 bracelets for $1 and bought 6 pks, my total should be around $33 (give or take here and there).

We get about 80 kids from really little (some too small for candy so mom &dad are getting it) to young adults (22-23). Until this year I always made up bags with treats & toys for the little kids then gave the older ones a handful of candy but over the last couple years it's been harder and harder to give away the candy so this every the first 80 people get bags after that  those who show get the handfulls of candy.

Of the 80 bags I made up 60 of them have 1 clacker, 1 spider ring, 2 stickers, 1 sm thing of bubbles, 1 gel bracelet, 1 skull ring, 1 glow in the dark snake, 1 glow stick bracelet, 1 pk pop rocks, 1 mini tootsie pop, 1 eyeball gum, 1 pk neco wafer, 1 box juju fruit, 1 gummie, 1 peanut butter taffy, 1 candy corn flavored taffy, 1 pk rasinetts & 1 chocolate eye ball. The other 20 have 1 spider ring, 2 stickers, 1 glow in the dark bracelet, 1 pk pop rocks, 1 mini tootsie pop, 1 eyeball gum, 1 pk neco wafer, 1 box juju fruit, 1 peanut butter taffy, 1 candy corn flavored taffy & 1 gummie. Those that get handfuls will get whatever left over eyeballs (gum or chocolate), juju fruits, tootsie pops & gummies that I have left.

If for some reason I don't end up getting rid of all that candy one of the dentsit in my area has a program where he buys candy off kids for cash then donates it to the food bank. Maybe I'll have the ds's sell him the extra if he won't allow the parents to sell the extras.

 Sadly, I don't get any Hallowe'en visitors since I live on the edge of a used car lot with Midas Muffler on one side and the State Liquor Store on the other, WalMart and Price Chopper across the street. Commercial district, no families or kids.