How Many Days Until Halloween? 14 Days Left on Oct. 17

Exactly two weeks from today is Halloween. Fourteen days separate October 17 from October 31, leaving ten weekdays, four weekend days and one Saturday before the holiday.

This is the weekend the candy decision stops being theoretical, and the arithmetic behind it is simpler than the anxiety it produces.

How much a house needs, and why most buy too much

The working estimate is one to two pieces per visitor multiplied by the number of children expected. A house that sees thirty children and gives two pieces needs about sixty pieces, which is roughly two party-size bags of fun-size bars. A house that sees a hundred needs about two hundred, or three to four large bags, with a spare bag held in reserve.

Overspending happens because the bowl controls the pour. A half-empty bowl makes people give more generously than a full one does, since nobody wants to be the house that ran out. Keeping the reserve bag inside and refilling from it controls both the pour and the total, and it also means the last visitor gets what the first visitor got.

Buying this weekend is better than buying in the final three days. Selection is still complete, which makes a mixed bowl possible rather than a bowl of whatever survived. Prices are usually as good or better than they will be later, because demand peaks in the last week rather than now.

Where the bowl goes, and what it cost

The bowl belongs where it can be reached without climbing steps and where the household can see it. A bowl at the bottom of a dark path gets emptied by the first group that finds it. A bowl on a lit step beside a chair gets used one item at a time.

Buying this weekend also means reading unit price rather than bag size. The largest bag is not always the cheapest per piece, and the count printed on the front rarely matches the count inside. Fifteen seconds with the price and the piece count settles it.

The tax, and where to keep it

Every household with children operates some version of the parent tax, the handful of items removed from the bag on the kitchen table after bedtime. Buy two extra bags rather than negotiating over it.

Storage decides how the candy tastes on the thirty-first. Chocolate holds for months in a cool dark cupboard and turns pale and grainy near a radiator or a sunny window. Hard candy and gummies keep effectively forever. Put the bags somewhere the temperature does not swing, and open only the bag being used.