Halloween can get expensive, especially if you have little kids. We’ve done the research for you to find the best budget-friendly Halloween tips.
Buy the kids’ costumes early (and with a coupon). Online coupons abound in September for Halloween costumes. ChildrensPlace.com and Target.com are offering particularly good coupons/promotions on costumes right now.
Buy your candy early (with a coupon) and check out the bulk food stores, warehouse clubs and dollar stores. Here are printable supermarket coupons.
Buy any non-candy items at OrientalTrading. This site is fantastic for great goodie bag items. They have all sorts of fantastic Halloween knick-knacks and crafts for an extremely low price. And they offer frequent online coupons and promotions throughout the year (mostly for free shipping with a $49 order.) Current OrientalTrading coupons are here.
Saving on Halloween parties
Whether you’re having a full-fledged party, or you just want your home to be a particularly festive stop for trick-or-treaters, save money with the following tips:
Invite your guests to bring their favorite Halloween party snacks. If you’re having a party, this will save you a lot of time and money preparing snacks and you’ll get to enjoy all of the creative snacks people bring. You can then devote your attention to making scary but delicious punch, and decorating.
Invite Online – You can use an online invitation system like evite.com to send email invitations to your Halloween festivities, or if you like old school traditional invitations consider making them yourself. A cut-out black spider from construction paper, glued onto a white note card, is a simple and attractive invitation. You can also make them on your computer if you’re not crafty.
Set the mood with music. Fortunately, music is now quite inexpensive. You can download a Halloween album or scary sounds for just a few bucks. Plug in your iPod or MP3 player, hit shuffle and repeat and your music is set. You can also position speakers in the windows on the front of your home to set the mood for partygoers as they approach your house.
Carve pumpkins – This makes both a great decoration for the party and a fun yet inexpensive activity for party goers.
Speaking of decorations, you can find them quite cheaply right after the holiday for next year. Also check on auction sites for decorations. Another option is to make your decorations yourself. Sheets, black dye, cotton balls pulled out to make spider webs and other items you can find around your home are enough to create a scary scene. And if you don’t want scary (maybe the children are too young) you can create cute Halloween decorations too. Spiders, bats and Jack O’Lanterns – oh, my!
With a little planning and creativity, it’s easy to enjoy a Halloween party on a budget. Be prepared to plan ahead, ask others to contribute, and embrace your crafty side. This holiday only happens once a year; go ahead and make the most of it.
