NEW YORK — Days of finding a quarter under your pillow are long gone. The Tooth Fairy no longer leaves loose change.
Kids this year are getting an average of $3.70 per lost tooth, a 23 percent jump over last year's rate of $3 a tooth, according to a new survey by payment processor Visa Inc., released Friday. That's a 42 percent spike from the $2.60 per tooth that the Tooth Fairy gave in 2011.
Part of the reason for the sharp rise: Parents don't want their kids to be the ones at the playground who received the lowest amount.
"A kid who got a quarter would wonder why their tooth was worth less than the kid who got $5," says Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist and professor at Golden Gate University.
To avoid that, Brian and Brittany Klems asked friends and co-workers what they were giving their kids. The Klems, who have three daughters and live in Cincinnati, settled on giving their 6-year-old daughter Ella $5 for the first tooth that fell out, and $1 for any others. They say that $5 was enough without going overboard. They didn't want other families to think they were giving too much.
Then Ella found out that one of her friends received $20 for a tooth.
"I told her that the Tooth Fairy has only so much money for every night, and that's how she decides to split up the money," says Brian Klems, 34, a parenting blogger and author of "Oh Boy, You're Having a Girl: A Dad's Survival Guide to Raising Daughters."
Confused about what to give?