In NJ, even the tooth fairy is expensive. Here's the going rate

Property taxes? Highest in the nation.

Car insurance? 7th highest in the nation.

Rent? 4th highest in the nation.

Housing is 31% higher here than the national average.

Cost of living is 13% higher.

Cost of utilities 8% higher.

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So it would follow that important stuff like tooth fairy payouts are costing New Jersey parents a fortune too, right? You just can’t catch a break.

Yes, they actually track this stuff. My 6-year-old boy Cooper just lost his second front tooth.

Jeff Deminski photo

As adorable as this double gap is, it’s costing me money. It’s been a while since I had to underwrite the tooth fairy so I wasn’t sure what the current average fairy rate per tooth was. To the Google!

Well wouldn’t you know it, we made it to the top 10 most expensive even for this.

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According to wisevoter.com the average tooth fairy payout per tooth in New Jersey is now $5.61. Will I get get-off-my-lawned if I point out we used to get a quarter max?

Children have 20 baby teeth. This means kids can score over $112 total? Whereas we scored 5 stinking bucks? Are you kidding me? That’s almost three times the rate of inflation! All things even it should work out to $39.57 today. What happened!? Why are kids’ teeth more valuable now than then?

So we’re 10th for most generous tooth fairy payouts. Delaware is number one with $8.91 per tooth on average. Believe it or not Mississippi is ahead of us. Wait. They have teeth in Mississippi? Well, baby teeth anyway. There it’s $6.17 per tooth.

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The cheapest state for what goes under the pillow is Iowa. There the tooth fairy only pays $2.30.

If our governor’s baby teeth were anything in proportion to his current teeth they would have garnered $26,856 per tooth. Come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t the Goldman Sachs money that made him rich.

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Gallery Credit: Bethany Adams

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Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

You can now listen to Deminski & Doyle — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite afternoon radio show any day of the week. Download the Deminski & Doyle show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now.

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