Inflation seriously affecting what the Tooth Fairy is paying for teeth

A new survey on how much parents pay their children for losing teeth suggests inflation has skyrocketed in the Tooth Fairy's line of business.

Call in Santa Claus for backup funds, because kids are receiving much bigger gifts than last year when they lose their teeth, the Canadian Press reported from a survey by Visa.

The survey found children received an average of $3.70 per tooth in 2013, which represents a 23 per cent increase since last year. A child who's savvy about saving tooth money could collect a total of $74 for 20 teeth, the survey notes. That's a lot of candy.

"The Tooth Fairy is throwing money around like pixie dust," Nat Sillin, the head of US Financial Education for Visa, is quoted as saying in the survey.

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Visa also released a Tooth Fairy calculator to help determine how much "fairies" in different demographics give on average.

At the higher end of the scale, the Canadian Press spoke to parents who gave their kids up to $20 — and one family who gave $120 — though most of it went into a college fund. Another family gave their child an antique typewriter, according to the news wire, which must have made for an uncomfortable night's sleep.

The results are from 3,000 telephone interviews conducted in the US last month, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus three percentage points.

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