By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – For some people, it's just the last day of the month. But for the rest of us, it's Halloween, the day to be spooked, surprised and even deceived. I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Middays.
So following Christmas, what's the next biggest spending occasion? Now in all honesty, I would have guessed Valentines Day, and I would have been wrong. It's Halloween, so says a survey by the National Retail Foundation. U.S. households will spend an average of $44 this year on candy, costumes and decorations. If you have a kid in the house, your spending will increase to $62, and if you're between the ages of 18 and 34, you'll spend $67. And all those little dollars add up. Sales of all that scary merchandise have skyrocketed to an estimated $6.9 billion this year. In 1996, it was just $2.5 billion. Now a little footnote here, Christmas sales are $200 billion.
Since I'm in the guessing game/bet-you'll-be-surprised mode today, what was the best-selling licensed toy this summer? I'll make it multiple choice. Was it Spider Man, Harry Potter, or Star Wars? I would have said Spider Man and once again I would have been wrong. It was Star Wars. Lucas Licensing Limited announced today that NPD Funworld, the research organization that puts all this data together, found Star War toys sold more than double the volume of their next closest competitors.
So one last, a little more serious question for our Halloween quiz. How much interest should a borrower be charged on a "payday loan?" Before you answer, payday loans are those very short-term, high-interest (hint) cash advances given out by Irving-based ACE Cash Express and other companies. So how high do you think the interest is? Higher than I ever imagined - up to 1000%. But not to worry, federal regulators ordered a small California Bank to stop providing those loans through the offices of ACE. ACE also got fined a quarter million dollars - the bank, a lot less.
Happy Halloween. For KERA Marketplace Middays, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m. To contact Maxine Shapiro, please send emails to mshapiro@kera.org.