Unnecessary Spending on Halloween

As Halloween comes around the corner, so does the spending. Thousands of dollars are spent on candy, decorations, and costumes. Yet what good does it do to the ones in poverty? According to Mobile Cuisine, “Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy a year for Halloween”. Ever wonder how much is spent on that candy? USA Today says that “$2.6 billion on candy”, and that contributes to a much larger sum for the entirety of the spending. However, people in America, and many other countries I’m sure, are still facing poverty. Why is this? It is because we’re spending money on frivolous things like candy. It’s not just candy, though, it’s also costumes that people would wear once a year, decorations to “spook” people, and more. So just how much is spent on these things? USA Today also states “Of the $9 billion spent on Halloween...” and nine billion dollars is a lot of money. What benefit is it for society if we just continue to spend money on these things, while people who are less fortunate than us don’t have time to worry about Halloween? If we want to end poverty in the world, maybe we should start by cutting back on our expenses on things we probably could live without. Oh, and poverty isn’t the only issue that’s hindered by spending on small, needless things. We could use that money to end a lot of things, actually. Such as higher education, providing clean water to regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, and cleaning the already trashed oceans. $9 billion is a lot, and we could use it on a lot more than just candy, costumes, decorations, and gift cards.
Islam gives clear guidance to Muslims as to how they should spend their money. The Holy Qur’an states:
“And give thou to the kinsman his due, and to the poor and the wayfarer, and squander not thy wealth extravagantly” (Holy Qur’an 17:27).
So basically what God is telling us is that we should not only use money for our own needs, but for the needs of mankind. We shouldn’t be wasting it on frivolous things and instead focus on the faults of our world, and work to fix it. Seeing as there are so many things wrong, such as global warming, landfills, literal mountains of trash in the oceans, we should at the very least attempt to fix it with the money we have instead of using it on things we want but do not need. We insist on upholding traditions that aren't what they used to be, and continue to squander our money. Halloween is just one day, so why spend so much? What is the reasoning behind it? If there is none, then why spend it on those things in the first place? Why not spend it on charity, on organizations that strive to make the world, as well as life for humanity, better? Wouldn’t it be better to spend money for the betterment of humanity, than to spend it on small trifles that would only be used once a year? The former would be a better choice, wouldn’t you agree? Now, I am not saying that buying candies once in a while is bad. That’s fine, but when you buy pounds and pounds of it, it starts to become unnecessary. We, as Ahmadi Muslims, want to make this world peaceful and beautiful again. We want to prevent this world from becoming a landfill. We want to be able to see the diverse wildlife that exists here. And when we spend money on things they don’t need to be spent on, those dreams grow farther and farther away. However, when we make the right decisions, and put what’s most important first, I think that those dreams could, very much so, become reality.