10 Ways to Save on Halloween
The scariest part of Halloween is spending too much on your decorations, costume, or party. Cut back without cutting out the fun of the holiday by following our 10 tips!
It’s almost time for the scariest time of the year – Halloween! That means that it’s time to pull out the spooky, scary skeletons and restock on fog machine liquid. We think that most people can agree with us when we say that Halloween is one of the best holidays of the year. Think about all that you can do during this single day. You get to dress up in costumes, eat all the candy you can get your hands on, and some of us drink any alcohol that’s in sight. Okay, sure, a lot of us turn it into a whole month of festivities, but the point remains the same: it’s the best.
That being said, what’s not so great about this holiday is the fact that it’s so freaking expensive. Considering most of the items need to be purchased from Halloween stores that have a monopoly, something as simple as decorating your house can turn into a significant expense. Between candy, costumes, and creepy-fying your place, the costs of Halloween can become a problem.
Fret not! Leave that for the little ones that walk across an animatronic witch. We’ve made this slideshow for you. Like every holiday, you can actually cut costs on decorating and plenty of other parts of this pumpkin-y time of year. From shopping around to DIY, we’ve got 10 tips that you can use to help decrease your Halloween costs.
We’re just going to say that saving money on decorating and costumes means that you can buy more candy. Perfect, right?
10. Prepare for next year after this year’s festivities.
Are you trying to buy enough skeletons to build a full cemetery in your yard? That’s a respectable goal. Stock up on the necessary reusable decorations by shopping ahead. As soon as the stores open on November 1st, hit the Halloween clearance rack for next year’s festivities and stuff your closets with so many skeletons that people will think you have issues.
9. Forego the costume in favor of face paint.
Or if you’re very skilled with the makeup brush, opt for that instead. You can build a costume around pieces you already have in your closet, and then finish up the look by painting your face. Looking for ideas? Throw on a striped shirt, black pants, and paint your face like a mime. Find a flannel and jeans, then draw on a scarecrow face. Put on any outfit and transform into a zombie with grey face paint.
(image via Nicole Abalde, CC)
8. Deck the halls with haunted portraits.
Make black and white copies of your family portraits and replace the original prints with the new copies. Before you swap them out, cut out the eyes with a hole punch and tape red construction paper behind the photos. Instant possession.
7. Serve a spiked punch instead of buying liquor.
Everybody gets a little wild on Halloween, and when your trick-or-treating days are long behind you, the night can be spent much differently. Instead of buying a spread of hard liquor, conjure up a potent witches brew instead. Peel grapes and freeze them to make an eyeball alternative to ice cubes, or leave an icy severed hand in the punch bowl. Just fill a plastic glove with water and freeze it to make a chilling solid hand.
6. Add subtle, spooky touches to your own haunted home.
There is middle ground between going all-out and simply setting a pumpkin by your door. You don’t need to spend an arm and a leg to decorate your house, but you can put your two hands to work. Paint your hands blood-red and leave streaky handprints on your windows. Add some yellow crime scene tape for an additional touch.
5. DIY Your Costume
Why would you pay upwards of $40 for a flimsy, retail costume that will disintegrate before next year’s Halloween party? You can find plenty of DIY costume ideas online—and many of them don’t require any sewing expertise. Make (or thrift) your own quality costume for a fraction of the retail price.
4. Vintage is scary cool.
A lot of Halloween décor tries to imitate the centuries-old haunted house aesthetic. Why pay full-price for unauthentic, cheap pieces when you can go through the attic for the real thing? And if you can’t find anything in your home, hit the thrift stores. If you need to spruce up a dessert table, stack some secondhand Poe books, drape some gauzy web over the books and top it with a fake raven. If you have some plastic little spiders, tangle them into the web.
3. The Dollar Store is your friend.
If you’re aiming for a look that is more macabre than cute, you don’t need to visit the home décor stores. Your local dollar store will have heaps of spider webs, cheap candy, and plastic creepy crawlies. A little web can go a long way.
2. Purchase plastic pumpkins.
You can still go to the pumpkin patch and enjoy a haunted hayride, but you should spend your money on some long-lasting gourds. Let’s be real—pumpkin carving is goopy, smelly, and the finished product has an expiration date. Buy plastic pumpkins that can be reused for future Halloweens and throw a pumpkin painting party instead of the carving date.
1. Reuse other pieces of decoration.
Do you have a lot of mason jars sitting around from a summer shin-dig or a spring wedding? Put them to good use! DIY some spooky ghost votives: paint the jars with a translucent white paint or cover them with gauze, then add a couple of eyes and a round mouth. Drop in a super cheap tea candle and voila! You have a glowing ghost of your very own.
(image via salmonwright)
