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How do you figure out the perfect amount of Halloween candy to buy? If you leave it up to your kids, they’ll want enough to last until Christmas, while the grown-ups in the house may prefer fewer sweet treats leftover after Halloween. And no one wants to be the house that has to turn the porch light off early and disappoint trick-or-treaters because you’re out of candy. Luckily, a candy company has created a formula to calculate how much you’ll need.
Mars, Wrigley, and Shipt have teamed up for the equation that should ensure your candy bowl stays full all evening on Halloween. The candy formula is: “(T*K*G) + (D*F*S) = Candy Pieces divided by 30 = ?? Bags of candy.” But before you start having algebra nightmares, here’s how the brands break down that calculation:
- T = the time, as in how many hours you plan to pass out candy
- K = estimated number of kids per hour that will be trick-or-treating
- G = the generosity factor, or how many pieces you’ll give to each trick-or-treater
- D = how many days between when you buy the candy and Halloween
- F = the number of family members in the household
- S = the sneaky factor, this is how many pieces of candy each household member will sneak per day