Holy smokes! Candy got expensive AF. (TikTok screencap)

  • hansolo@lemmy.today
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    2 months ago

    At this point is cheaper to be the house with full candy bars /s

    Looking at the prices of Snickers from CandyDirect.com you can get 15.8 lbs of fun sized (about 400+ pieces if my math is right with each bar at 17 grams) for $186. $0.46 each. Fuck what a scam.

    Full bars are fucking $2.41 each in bulk. WTF

    Also, some of these bags are huge. 350, 250, etc. pieces for $25, so 7¢ each. The top row center bags are 15¢ per piece. If you’re not expecting a constant steam of kids, one of these might be all you need.

    • Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      A lot of people with, ehem, special needs, buy a shit ton of candy for Halloween so that when there are pounds of it left over they can be like, ‘Oh geeze, I guess Someone has to eat all this candy…’

    • Routhinator@startrek.website
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      2 months ago

      I mean… Those look like normal Canadian prices.

      However, contextually, that stuff in Canada is actually chocolate and many US versions have little to no cocoa, and oils instead of milk ingredients. So its a rip off because its not even chocolate.

    • Dicska@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Considering global coffee and chocolate prices, I’m surprised. Are sizes the same as last year?

      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        Just go for flour/sugar based snacks instead of chocolate then. Few packs of Aldi version of hobnobs, job done.

    • PoliteDudeInTheMood@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      I normally do full sized bars considering how many people we get on average. I normally buy them at Costco Business and it looks like they’re still priced the same. Prices at regular Costco are similar to what I remember of last year too.

      We probably make most of our chocolate here. In the area around where I work there are at least 4 Mondelez plants. I know Mars has a few plants in or around the GTA as well.

    • Aneb@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The stupid shit tho is five years ago the candy would go on sale the day after and it $4 a bag. The candy is not expensive and the candy is probably somehow circulating from 5 years ago. Is all supply and demand, fucking capitalism.

      • indomara@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yeah that’s what’s so shocking about it, these bags would be $5 only a few years ago. And I remember how painfully impoverished large swaths of the country were then.

        I cannot imagine how the average American in the Midwest is surviving at the moment.

        • guldukat@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Wife and I both work, everything is carefully calculated to have us constantly worry about bills and unexpected expenses. If one of us misses 1 day of work there is 1 bill that won’t be paid, which means multiple phone calls from bill collectors. A lot of them are super fast about sending to collections. I no longer fret about my credit score.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I always take call on Halloween so my coworkers who have kids can go out and have fun with their family… This bums me out on their behalf.

    Are prices at places like Costco still decent? Or those restaurant supply type stores? Or some mythical product that isn’t candy and won’t be soul-crushing to a kid expecting candy?

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      “Heres a baggie with a toothbrush, a travel size toothpastea box of raisins, 50 pennies, and an apple”.

    • Duckingold@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I’ve been a full size candy bar house for a while. Buying bulk candy bars spiked in 2021. Boxes usually average about $1.25 per bar, but you can find sales at Costco at $0.60 each if you aren’t picky on exact candies.

      Non-candy options I sprinkle in that are hits are rice krispy treats, bags of microwave popcorn (unpopped) and the packaged 2 pack of cookies.

    • CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      You literally just have to do 5 seconds of planning and not buy from the top manufacturer 3 weeks before Halloween. Everyone is just looking for reasons to bitch with this rage bait.

      • frunch@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Shit is getting stupidly expensive. People are gonna bitch. You’re gonna complain about them. I’m gonna make a comment about that because i can’t help it. We’re all fucked. Let the person air their grievance about overpriced candy. Fuck’s sake 🫠

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    I get about 50 kids in average every year.

    So no matter the price (unless it gets any higher), I’ll spend a couple hundred on candies. I’m not wealthy but I can afford it once a year … I actually prefer spending more on this holiday than for Christmas.

    Plus I loved this holiday when I was a kid. What other time or place do you have an opportunity to see a strangers house and get candy in a safe and public holiday? So I’ve made it a rule in my life that on Halloween when a kid comes to my door, they’re getting a few handfuls of candy. I also don’t care of the kids age … they could be two or twenty (as long as they’re polite and non aggressive) they’re getting candy.

    I once had a group of college kids who were Indian nationality who were just out having fun with some face paint and daring each other to visit houses … I gave them a bunch of candy, told them which houses to go to and made them laugh.

      • mienshao@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Am american and I have never ever heard of someone spending “hundreds” of dollars on halloween candy. 99.9% of americans are not doing that.

        • The_v@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Come to my neighborhood.

          The average resident makes double what the average household income is in the region. It’s essentially the wealthiest neighborhood in the region without gates to keep the poors out. The houses are not too far apart for kids to walk either. So most of the community brings their kids to walk around this neighborhood. I get 400-500 trick or treaters on average.

          As my wife and I both grew up well below the poverty line we are very generous with the candy.

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        I’m not American … I’m in Canada in northern Ontario … we don’t have kids so I have a bit of extra cash, plus I grew up poor so I know what this holiday means to many kids, especially in my area where families don’t have a lot, especially these days.

  • SlippiHUD@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’m a house that buys Full size Candy bars. We average 50 kids in our neighborhood, so generally 1 fundraiser box covers us.

    I still have my 2024 screen shots and as you can see the price went up 31% I know it’s not an exact comparison, but the box I gave away last year appears to have been discontinued. On lower count packs its gone up nearly 45%.

    I was planning on doing Roasted Chestnuts and Apple cider for parents as a fun gag, but now I’m considering doing that exclusively.

  • 13igTyme@piefed.social
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    2 months ago

    My wife bought rice krispie treats for super cheap, dumdums, some lesser known candy, little Halloween toys and stickers, and made goodie bags.

    If you avoid the mainstream big name candy, it’s not so bad.

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      What are you, some kind of socialist? But seriously, people always complain about how things are so expensive but keep buying the same overpriced trash.

      • Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 months ago

        That overprized trash gets flung into everyone’s faces with ads constantly and is placed at eye level in optimal shelf locations so you see it first and can grab it the easiest. It’s placed at the counters when you have to wait (in overpriced small / singular packages), and if the advertising machine detects you might be perceptible to being convinced into buying it (e.g. through analysis of your previous purchases collected by the payback program or store itself together with your social media posts showing you’re sad or depressed) you’ll receive tailored ads at the right moment via Smartphone, websites, Music streaming service and (soon) car infotainment + “smart” camera-enabled digital ad screens in public.

        Don’t blame people for being manipulated by the manipulation machine, none of us is safe against it. Our resources for full awareness are sucked dry and monetized until we’re tired and defenseless; and at that point you can’t blame anyone who just wants to buy something that makes them a littlr bit more happy and less tired. Of course everyone ultimately has free will, but in the dystopia we live in that free will requires phenomenal energy to truly act on.

        Smash the system, not everyone else’s desire to feel happy. 🙂

    • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      Dumdums, sure, but where did you find rice krispie treats that are cheaper than this candy? Just spitballing, but 140 pieces for $20 works out to something like 8 cents per piece, while just a quick search shows prices for rice krispies to be way higher, up to 50 cents per, with a few options scattered that bring the prices close (I think I saw a 100 pack for $21, and a 45 pack for $9).

  • TrackinDaKraken@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I only got about five groups last year, maybe 15 kids total.

    I noticed a couple of days ago that the Halloween candy was out at Walmart, but I didn’t check prices. If this is accurate, then, yeah, porch light off this year. It’s not even worth putting out a pumpkin. Also, I’d end up eating the leftover candy, so that’s not good either.

    If homemade cookies weren’t shunned, then I’d do that, but I can’t imagine parents letting their kids eat them. The fearmongers have won.

  • rumba@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    I just bought 40 lbs (big neighborhood) at US$4.44 a lb for snack-size name-brand ‘chocolate’ at Costco

    Nominal price for the past four years has been $5 a lb here. Given that’s kirkland’s packaging with mars/hersheys candy in it.

    Looks like my local grocer is $24.99 for the 3.4lb bag which is over US$7 a lb so … yikes.