Halloween By the Numbers

Halloween is fun for candy lovers, fans of scary movies and trick or treaters. And it's big business too.

The numbers are pretty staggering for one of our most popular holidays. Let's check out Halloween by the numbers.

Try to digest these figures published by msn.com. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated in 2013 that there were about 41 million kids between the ages of 5 and 14. That's a lot of trick or treaters, and a lot of costumes for parents to buy. And buy they did, to the tune of $1 billion in costumes for the kids alone.

And it's not just the kids. The National Retail Federation says that in 2014 the overall money spent on Halloween costumes was $2.8 billion. Now that's scary!

So, how big is Halloween for business? Only Christmas is bigger. The National Retail Federation says that when you add up the costumes, decorations and all things Halloween, consumers dropped a whopping $7.4 billion a year ago.

It really amazes me. I think we know that we spend on Christmas. Many of us budget for it and we're very aware of the dent to our bank accounts that's about to happen. I just wonder if we all realize how much we're ringing up for Halloween. Well, if you're reading this, you do now.