From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Classic Q&A With the Duffys: Managing Halloween On A Budget

Episode Date: October 5, 2024

October has arrived, and with it comes the countdown to costumes, candy, and one of many children's favorite night of the year. However, making the most of Halloween can be tricky when prices are the spookiest thing about the season. But have no fear, Sean and Rachel revisit some of their advice about how to have a great Halloween without breaking the bank! Follow Sean & Rachel on X: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. While we love inviting people to join the conversation at the kitchen table, we also love when we're able to sit down, just the two of us, and have a conversation about relationships and kids or just what's going on in the world. With that in mind, enjoy this Encore Solo episode, and we'll be back soon with more conversations from our kitchen table. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life, and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy. Hi, Rachel. Sean, it's so great. It's the end of the week, but it's our favorite time of the week. It's Q&A, and we've had some really good questions come through, some of them very topical,

because they're Halloween-related, which is really fun. And we're all getting ready for that. There's a lot of Halloween, by the way, with our kids because they have to wear certain things for school. Then they have something for the Halloween party. Then they want to be something different on actual Halloween. It's crazy. A lot of Halloween. A lot. That's a lot that I have to go through. I'm going to talk about how I save money on Halloween costumes. I know a lot of people are talking about that. But Halloween, you know, this year has its own flavor. So one of the things that people are concerned about this year, candy is so expensive right now. Yeah, it is. So this is a story that

we pulled from NerdWallet. Love NerdWallet, by the way. Do you go to the site often? I do. So you can calculate your taxes. On NerdWallet? NerdWallet, yeah. So I go there, they go, if you live in this state, how much do I pay in taxes? By the way, if you're in Florida or Tennessee, you don't pay very much.

Or if you're in New Jersey or Wisconsin, how much do you pay? And you pay a lot more. NerdWallet. Now I know what you're doing with your time. Okay, so we're going to use government numbers here. And you and I have talked about the government numbers on inflation. We think inflation is much higher over the last year.

They'll say inflation rose at three point seven percent. I don't buy that number, but we're going to use that number three point seven percent. Candy has gone up seven point five percent. So it's gone up twice what inflation is up. So the question is, why is candy up? Well, there is the cost of sugar has gone up. So you're paying more for sugar, sugars in candy. Also, you have the process. We have laws that say you have to process that sugar in the US, and therefore that drives up costs. But just quickly, not everything has gone up with regard to candy, right? So hot tamales, they're down in price.

Mounds, Heath, Rolos, and Duds, they've dropped in price since last year. However, Airheads, Babe Ruth, Candy Corn, Payday, and Tootsie Rolls, those have all gone up in cost. So if you're looking at trying to save money, go to the Mounds or the Heath or the Rolos or the Milk Clubs. Also, Reese's is down, Milky Way, and Kit Kat, which is always a favorite. So all of those are down. I like the Reese's peanut butter cups, frankly. I love the Kit Kat. I always get the Reese's or the Reese's pieces.

But Reese's I get to give away to the kids at Halloween, which means I'm going to eat the candy for Halloween. So when Sean goes shopping for candy for Halloween, we find out what he likes. Right. Because that's what he buys. Which, by the way, if you're trying to save money and save your physique, getting candy that you may not like might be a really good choice. Actually a better idea. So if you get candy that you don't want to eat, but you'll give to kids, better option

for you not to eat it. By the way- I'm just going to tell you, under the Trump economy, kids did better on Halloween. Yeah, they did. People were more generous because they had a little more money in their pocket and they bought more Halloween. And so instead of just giving one or two candies, they'd just grab a handful and dump it in their bags.

You know, I do miss the Trump economy. Let's talk about it. So when we talk about, again, that is a really tough times for people. Sure is. And kids oftentimes pay the price. But I love the idea that if you work hard on Halloween and go to all these houses and spend hours at work, you actually get rewarded with a lot more candy.

But also we talk about Halloween costumes and they can be expensive. Whether you're going to Amazon or you're going to Walmart and getting costumes and you have a few kids, that gets to be pretty expensive. So how do we manage the cost of Halloween costumes in our home to make sure? Because again, a lot of kids- Yeah, I do have a few hacks on this. That gets expensive.

It does. So here's my hack. So first of all, we had nine kids over the span of 20 years. So with the early kids, I bought nice costumes that, and they've lasted, I save all of them. And so I am repurposing costumes. I have two giant bins full of costumes. And so those are the first ones we go to and what they've held up. I mean, think about it. They only wear them once or twice a year. And, and so, you know, these costumes can last. Last year, my daughter wanted to be the Tin Man and we made the costume. I got a box. We cut, we, we, you know, painted it, cut, we cut it out. We sized it for, I bought her just a pair of little, she, she wore like a silver, she wore silver tights that I got for super cheap on. It was like a body suit,

a silver body suit. And then the box went over her body. And I made her, I made her a little hat, like a cone on her head. And, and she had some little silver boots that already that she had. So she was the tin man. So that was a super cheap. I probably spent $10 on that costume because that's probably how much that bodysuit cost. She did spray paint her face. She had something else on her face. I might have put like silver on her face. But yeah, but whatever.

I mean, I made that costume. You can make costumes. You can repurpose costumes. You can get together with a neighbor or friend who has costumes. So you can trade off like, OK, maybe your kid wants to be. Yeah, you can barter through or borrow through through that. So I think there's a lot of ways to do it.

And also, you know what? I've bought I've bought costumes that are really super nice that were maybe a little more pricey before. The one I made last year is the one that my Marguerite is going to remember when she's 30. The other thing, Sean, that I think is interesting is just how much adults have taken over Halloween. So it's really become an adult holiday, which I kind of hate. I really think that we're not enough of a kid-centric society to just turn over Halloween to grownups. I'm sort of annoyed by that. But what's happened as a result of a lot of adults getting involved in Halloween and turning it into

this billion-dollar business is that, you know, there's a lot of Halloween parties. It's also causing a lot of consternation for businesses who, you know, companies sometimes like to have, like, let's have a Halloween party at the office and people will dress up that day. And it seems like a fun thing to do. And a lot of these sort of like, you know, young adults like that because, you know, they like it. They want to be kids. They want to be kids again. The adolescence continues to extend, but it has brought up some possibilities.

of there's articles now about litigation being an issue because people are super sensitive about Halloween and nobody has a sense of humor. So what you wear, especially if you're an adult on Halloween, has some consequences. So much so that CNN now has an app where you can basically input into their app your Halloween costume idea. And the app will come out and tell you whether, you know, at the end of the series of questions about your costume, will let you know if this is a politically incorrect costume or not. Yeah. And so CNN came up with that. I would expect no other network but CNN to come up with that kind of deal. So it says, should you wear that Halloween costume? Question mark.

This is on CNN. A helpful guide. And then it starts, you have to answer questions to get into the right place where CNN can give you the right PC answer on whether you can wear this costume or not. Is it a creative take on current events? Jamal Bowman, maybe? Mm-hmm. Firefighter. A sexy version of an otherwise normal thing

or a hilarious visual gag. So you have to select one of those. Then it goes through prompts and it'll tell you whether your costume is appropriate or not. And I'm like, is this where we're at in America? That we can't judge. Because, listen, Halloween and Halloween costumes

are made to push the limit. Maybe to be a little funny, maybe be a tad bit offensive. And everyone gets the joke on Halloween. Don't be offended if it's a little offensive. If it was a lot offensive, you know, you can grumble, you can mumble, but then go back home and eat some candy or drink a beer, do what you do. But all of this oversight on the PC police, making sure that we wear the right costume, again, it comes back to this fundamental idea of free speech. Let me do what I want. And if you're offended, that's not my problem. That's your problem. But if you were an offensive costume, make no mistake, someone can get a picture, you're going to get posted online, you're going to get canceled, and you may get fired.

Your spouse might divorce you. Who knows? All kinds of bad things happen. And Halloween is just a perfect example of all the things that have gone wrong in this country with these woke left no funners. We'll have more of this conversation after this. From the Fox News Podcast Network, subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy Podcast. Former federal prosecutor and four term U.S. congressman from South Carolina brings you a one of a kind podcast.

Subscribe and listen now by going to foxnewspodcast.com. Yeah, I was just going to say, to me, it's not even an issue about free speech. It's like, they just, liberals take the fun out of everything. You know, they're the ones that ruined Christmas concerts for kids, where you could only sing, you know, you can't sing

Frosty songs. You can only sing about Frosty or Rudolph. Anything, you know, all of our beautiful, you know, old Christmas Anything, you know, all of our beautiful, you know, old Christmas songs, you know, can't. In fact, most concerts aren't even called Christmas concerts now. They're called winter concerts. You can go on and on and on, on how liberals and woke ideology have ruined the fun on Halloween. So I guess the lesson here is fun burglars. They're fun burglars. on Halloween. So I guess the lesson here is- It's called fun burglars. They're fun burglars. Don't listen. Have fun. By the way, make it a kid holiday again.

Kid-centric. Kid-centric. They deserve it. To make the experience for the kids better. I do that. I dress up like Mary Poppins. I do it for my kids. You're not going to the bar. You're not going to some party. You're like, you're dressed up to be Mary Poppins and go trick-or-treating. I know a lot of Christians have problems with Halloween.

I know a lot of adult Christians who never experienced Halloween because they weren't. I'm not like that. I kind of love Halloween. I don't mind it at all. Life's so short. Just have fun. You can be dressed up. But anyway.

It's a good round of set of topics. I'm looking. I'm doing the bottom line. I don't get home in time for Halloween this year. I'm so mad. I've been talking to you about wanting to take that day off. I enjoy being part of

the whole operation of Halloween. It's so fun. Rachel's going to have to do it on her own which she's not happy about, but I'm sorry. Sometimes duty calls. Coffee has to work. Well, I don't know.

Maybe you should talk to your boss today. See if you can take Halloween off. Halloween is a federal holiday in the Duffy household. There should be a rule. If you have more than three kids. Under 10. Under 10, you have to have Halloween off to help your wife or your husband.

That's not going to fly. Listen, great conversation. I hope everyone does have a great weekend, whether you're watching football, starting the World Series, or you're prepping for Halloween or going to Halloween parties. We are on Sunday. We are.

Can't wait. We hope you enjoy yourself as we roll in from fall going into winter. We appreciate you tuning in to The Kitchen Table. We love doing our Friday Q&As. If you like our podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. Please subscribe. As Rachel says, you always get a notice when our podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcast.

Please subscribe. As Rachel says, you always get a notice when our podcast drops. We drop Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And we always appreciate you sharing. Usually have a cup of coffee. I didn't have one today, which is kind of a bummer, but a little coffee in conversation. So thanks for being with us. And until next week, have a good one. Bye, everybody. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. The world of business moves fast.

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