Tooth Fairy Inflation! Lost Tooth Now Nets Nearly $4

The Tooth Fairy doesn't deal in loose change anymore.

A new survey by Visa Inc. finds that kids nowadays get an average of $3.70 per lost tooth - a whopping 23 percent jump over 2012's rate of $3 a tooth. And that's a 42 percent spike from the $2.60 per tooth given in 2011.

Part of the reason for the rise is that 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," Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist and professor at Golden Gate University, told the Associated Press.

For those parents confused about what to give, Jason Alderman, a senior director of financial education at Visa, suggests asking other parents what they give. That can at least get you in the ballpark of what your kids' friends are getting, he said.

How much kids get also depends on where they live. Kids in the Northeast get the most, according to the Visa study, at $4.10 per tooth. In the West and South, kids get $3.70 and $3.60 per tooth, respectively. Midwestern kids make do with only $3.30 a tooth.

Visa also has a downloadable Tooth Fairy Calculator app that will give you an idea of how much parents in your age group, income bracket and education level are giving their kids.