I've been buying Halloween candy for weeks now. My strategy is to buy two bags every week when I go grocery shopping starting the first week in September, that way I'm not hit with a huge "budget-buster" the week before Halloween. Friends tells tell me they would never be able to do that because they wouldn't be able to stay out of it. But, even with my sweet tooth, I manage.

Have you noticed that Halloween candy is costing more this year? There are reasons. TIME.com discovered that the cost of Halloween has gone up. In fact, they say the consumer price index for candy and gum rose 2.1% in September, the biggest increase in three years.

They site 4 developments that may account for the change.

1. Ebola fears caused a temporary spike in cocoa prices. The world’s No. 1 producer of cocoa, Ivory Coast, is surrounded by Ebola-stricken countries. So is the world’s No. 2 producer, Ghana.

2. A trade spat with Mexico has driven up sugar prices.While the rising cost of cocoa is probably the main reason candy prices are up, sugar has gotten pricier too.

3. There’s a lag time before candy gets more expensive.While the retail price of candy remained relatively steady until recently, the cost of raw cocoa has been rising for the past several years:

4. Newly prosperous Asian consumers want more chocolate. If you want to know why the commodity price of cocoa is rising, look to Asia. Consumers there are hungry for Hershey’s. Over the past several months, manufacturers have built additional processing facilities in Indonesia to meet the rising demand in China and Southeast Asia. That demand is driving up the cost of chocolate for everyone.

[TIME.com]

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