Price tags · Puzzle #23 · Thursday, October 22
Price tags: the answers
Four questions, each with one true number. Here they are with their answers, how to reason each one out, and where the number comes from. Play today's Price tags.
1. Halloween costumes: How much were Americans expected to spend on Halloween costumes in 2026, for kids, adults and pets combined?
- Shoppers buying costumes
- 71%
- Top kids' costume
- Spider-Man
The answer: about $4.4 billion. Adults outspent kids: $2 billion on adult costumes against $1.5 billion for children.
Napkin math - 165Mpeople who dress up (about half of us)
- ×$25a costume
≈$4.13B
The answer comes to about $4.4 billion (National Retail Federation). To reason it out, take 165 million people who dress up (about half of us), times $25 a costume, and you get about $4.1 billion. The estimate is 1.1 times too low, close enough to score 9.7 out of 10. Any guess from $2.2 billion to $8.8 billion scores 7.0 or better, because the game only counts how many times off you are.
2. Nike in America: How much did Nike and Converse sell in the United States in Nike's fiscal year ending May 2026?
Photo: La première version a été uploadée par RapidAssistant sur en.wikipedia. La dernière version a été uploadée par Iain sur en.wikipedia., Public domain - US share
- About 44% of Nike's worldwide revenue
The answer: about $20.4 billion. Nike's worldwide revenue was $46.4 billion that year, about flat with the year before.
Napkin math - 330Mpeople in the US
- ×$60each a year
≈$19.8B
The true figure is about $20.4 billion (NIKE, Inc.). On a napkin, take 330 million people in the US, times $60 each a year, and you get about $20 billion. That is almost exactly the real number, and a guess like it scores 9.9 out of 10. Any guess from $10 billion to $41 billion scores 7.0 or better, because the game only counts how many times off you are.
Source: NIKE, Inc. (SEC Form 10-K), Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2026
3. The Louisiana Purchase: How much did the United States pay France for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, in the dollars of the day?
Photo: BioKnowlogy, Public domain - Bought from
- France, 1803
- Size
- 828,000 square miles
- Today
- All or part of 15 U.S. states
The answer: $15 million. That $15 million bought about 530 million acres, roughly doubling the size of the United States.
Napkin math: A young republic with a federal budget in the low millions could only stretch to a few years of revenue, so think tens of millions at most, not billions.
The true figure is $15 million (U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian). There's no tidy chain of numbers for this one, so the skill is a sense of scale: the answer is in the tens of millions. Because only the ratio counts, anything between $7.5 million and $30 million was worth 7.0 or more.
Source: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Louisiana Purchase, 1803
4. NYC fire-hydrant tickets: New York City wrote about 670,000 tickets for parking at a fire hydrant in its 2025 fiscal year. What were those tickets worth in fines?
- The rule
- No parking within 15 feet of a hydrant
The answer: about $77 million. Hydrant tickets were the city's sixth most common violation that year.
Napkin math - 670ktickets written
- ×$100a ticket
≈$67M
The answer comes to about $77 million (New York City Department of Finance). On a napkin, take 670,000 tickets written, times $100 a ticket, and you get about $67 million. It's 1.2 times too low, which as a guess would still have scored 9.4 out of 10. Any guess from $39 million to $150 million scores 7.0 or better, because the game only counts how many times off you are.
