What Scares You the Most About Halloween -- and Credit Cards?

Consumer finance website WalletHub asked more than 500 Americans not only what they planned to spend this year, but also what are the things about Halloween that scare them the most and what are their biggest financial fears. Not a usual pairing, but interesting.

The scariest parts of Halloween, according to survey respondents, was having strangers ringing your doorbell (34%), spending money (31%), movies (30%) and costumes (5%). On average Americans will spend on 44% of their Halloween budget on candy, 25% on food and alcohol, 18% on costumes and 10% on decorations.

And what were people’s biggest financial fears? Unplanned emergencies and insufficient savings for retirement topped the list (26% each), followed by job loss (20%), fraud (11%) and poor credit (7%). In fact, 72% said they feared data breaches revealing their personal information far more than they feared spiders (28%).

WalletHub also asked respondents to name the scariest thing about credit cards? Fraud (33%) and interest rates (31%) topped that list, while overspending (19%), losing the card (11%) and fine print (5%) also raised fears. A third say they use their credit cards too much and 81% said that not having a credit card was scarier than having one.

In that vein, WalletHub lists the worst (scariest) credit cards available in seven categories and offers six tips to help consumers avoid those cards. Visit WalletHub’s website for all the details.