I think we spent some $30 on fireworks in 1979. Got kind of bored with them after that. May have bought some as recently as 1981. Now we just let all the bonehead neighbors blow their wads. All damn day long. My cat hates this day. After it gets dark, this area will be blanketed with constant noise until probably 2am.
Zero. Ever. I think anyone over the age of about 11 who thinks backyard fireworks are cool is a retard. (Yes, I used that word, and meant it.)
It sounds like a war zone where I live right now. Despite laws, it’s been like this for over a week and will continue for another week. It’s a lengthy fucking celebration here. Every. Fucking. Night.
I think if everyone who lets off fireworks were to be instantly vaporized, the local collective IQ would jump by about 20 percent overnight. I seriously would be OK, even happy, if everyone in my zip code blasting fireworks this very minute were to die. I am serious.
None. I was scared of them as a kid and now as an adult I spend the entire week trying to calm my freaked out dog. So fuck fireworks.
Thankfully my current dogs are immune to fireworks, thunder, etc. but I had a previous dog who was was seriously freaked out by all that. And I just got done talking to a friend of mine in the same zip code whose dog has spend much of the last week in the bath tub, because that is his safe place. Poor guy. And yeah, fuck fireworks.
I think the most I’ve ever spent (in areas where they are legal) was $400. I loves me some rockets red glare.
I’m with Shagnasty. ↑↑↑
Never spent a lot. Maybe $200 once, they were legal and the kids wanted to.
WAY back when I was a kid, the M80’s were real M80’s, cherry bombs could also really hurt you, the full size Black Cats could lift a 5 gallon can a little bit, the roman candles worked a 500% better than anything today.
We built rock lined fox holes and used wrist rockets ( bean flips ) and cherry bombs as weapons. You could not wait too long after your ‘light the bomb’ guy did his thing before you let fly.
Ants and tin cans hated the fourth of July. he he he
For a coupe of years the older boys from two families got to use the leftover dynamite cut into 1 inch chunks to blow rocks and whatever else we could dream up. Why the folks had so many blasting caps & fuse line I did not trouble myself to ever ask.
Both families had sailboats and we made a 4 gun rack with ½" pipe mounted kind of like 17th century cannon on sailing war ships, the over sized Black Cat looking fire crackers, wadding & glass marbles for ammo. We would then chase the older sisters around the lake trying to shoot holes in their sail. It was all fun & games because they had a faster boat. We were stuck on the ‘Snipe’ we had.
The next year we got smarter and stayed downwind of them but between them and the docks. We got them then. The neighbor & my Dad put an end to it when we actually started putting holes in the sail. ( We actually were very careful to always fire high enough to not hit the girls. )
Those two young women, older than us, were no shrinking violets either, no crying to parents or quarter would have been given to us if they could have caught us on the water. What happened on the water stayed on the water. ( I was by far the better sailor so even with a faster boat they could not trap me. ) They could out run us though.
Aside: When Dad saw us making grappling hooks, he said , “Not even, no way.”
Bawahahahaha, we were real serious about being pirates. Had a flag, real swords & knifes. Raggedy clothes, etc…
Those were fun summers…
Mine too. My ex-wife was born on the 4th of July, so for years it was combined birthday/Independence Day. When she was a child her father told her everyone was lighting fireworks all across the country in honor of her birthday.
My kids turned 3 and 5 this year, so for the first time, the Mahaloth family put on a small-time fireworks show. We don’t use any big ones and nothing that shoots up in the sky. Just those standup ones that shoot out sparks.
I bought one of those packs of them. It was $30, but $10 came off at the register. We had fun for about 45 minutes. 
Total spent:
$24 - I also bought those little snaps you throw on the ground.
Never bought any, but I love fireworks. I don’t mind the neighbors doing their own (except when we’re in the middle of a drought like a few years ago - THAT was scary), and if it weren’t for the crowds I’d go watch the public show.
My dogs and horses couldn’t care less about them, thank goodness!
Last year one neighbor put on a huge show, it was pretty cool. This year I have a sneaking suspicion that something went wrong, and I just hope no-one was badly injured. As it got dark there was a furry of firecrackers and smaller stuff, and I figured they were ramping up for the evening. Then there was a loud bang, a whole lot of agitated voices, and then nothing. I can’t see their yard from mine and I don’t know them, so I’m not really sure what happened, just that it was a lot quieter here than last year…
$50 wouldn’t have gone very far when I was a kid (about 10 years ago now, and more!). My dad spent about $200-300 on fireworks each year, I believe. And that was enough that when combined with the neighbors and friends who also spent a couple hundred, we had a really nice hours long show. Lighting your own fireworks is a lot of fun, sitting in a small group of friends and family eating BBQ and such. No traffic to fight and no idiots to deal with.
Giving your kid only $50 for fireworks is basically nothing these days. However, if you regularly give him/her allowance, then they should have been saving up for it with that anyway.
We would put on goggles and have roman candle fights.
It was kind of awesome to see that fireball heading right towards you and then just zip past your head barely missing.
My neighbors bragged that they spent $400 on fireworks.
Except they’re not fireworks in the sense that something goes up in the sky and produces a pretty sight. Theirs are the noisy ones that whistle and produce sonic booms that shake windows. (Their windows that have mismatched bedsheets hanging in them.)
$0.
I loathe amateur fireworks.
Nothing. I am not a fan of lighting them but watching is fun. We usually go to the town show but this year we have new neighbors who must spend hundreds because we sat out on the patio and watched them play for over an hour.
When the kids were younger we would load up on fireworks. Often, we would get free or discount ones from our friends on the Reservation. Some years we spent $200 to $300 on fireworks. Although it was fun at the time, I have lost all interest in lighting or watching fireworks.
$30 this year. In Minnesota, nothing that shoots is legal - so i buy a few fountains for the ground - the kids light them off (my son said “Minnesota fireworks suck” and didn’t this year, my daughter did though).
We have a few in our neighborhood that go to more “anything goes” states for purchase and come home with some big fireworks - and then seem to have a “who can break the law more spectacularly” contest.
Fireworks aren’t really my thing either.