Spill the beans... on your Halloween MoneySaving tricks 'n' treats

Butterwell

Cheapest way to manage finances of Halloween is to not get caught up with the hype - Do not get sucked into the consumerist export version from US. When I was a kid we loved all the apple bobbing, home-made toffee apples, telling each other ghost stories and looking out for witches flying across the moon - none of which cost us anything extra.

NKLK

I still can't believe people let their kids take sweets from strangers.

A.Jones

Buy a pig's or cow's heart from a local butcher. Wear a white apron, cover it in blood and open the door holding the biggest knife you've got, while pretending to eat the heart. Kids don't stay long and you get some fun scaring them.

CupcakeSquirrel

One year, we'd forgotten it was halloween and had some little callers. I'd left a job a few weeks previously, so ran upstairs and grabbed a handful of chocs to give them. They looked at me, disgusted, and said "have you not got any money?"!!!!!! Cheeky blighters.

Living in a block of flats keeps most away (they can't get in!), but otherwise we get one or two at most. I won't be in this year tho.

Been invited to a fancy dress party, but costume is dirt cheap! Going as a witch this year which will consist of a black and purple dress I already own, black tights, black jacket and jewellery (all stuff I already have) plus a hat I bought for £1.50 in Sainsburys. And if that's too much, Tesco have 20p hats! (Am considering a £3 cat to accompany me (also Sainsburys), but am so far managing to resist...)

Previous years cheap costumes:

Spider: purple and black dress I already had, 2 pairs of over knee socks (Primark, about £2), stuffed with stuffing I bought in hobbycraft, pinned on with safety pins. The 3rd and 4th pair of legs were my arms (in a black shrug I already had), and my own legs (in black tights!). Joined all "legs together with wool. Fab!

Bat: Black dress I already had; furry boots I already had; cape I made with about £5 of cheap black fabric and some ribbon; ears made from felt stuck on a black hairband.

Cat: black trousers/jeans and t-shirt/top; tail and ears made out of a scrap of black fake fur and a hairband; black gloves I already had, boots. Total cost - about £6.

Costumes on the cheap are a challenge I LOVE! Compared to a friend who is thinking of spending £20 on a shop bought costume I think mine are WAY better, and I have more fun putting them together.

TrixieB

My boyfriend is attedning a party this weekend dressed in my old wedding dress, with flowers in his hair, garish makeup, garish beads and his work boots, he already has longish curlyish hair and a beard - voila! "I'm a Layyydeeeeeee!"

hilstep2000

Look at: http://www.dltk-kids.com/
Made loads of halloween things with my neighbours little girl yesterdaay!

natlie

Hi
I make a big pot of carrot soup for tea - extra cheap and orange! then we spend the evening making sweets in silicone ice-cube trays we got skulls and pumpkins moulds from aldi for £1 each and cheap bars of chocolate, all the kids who call get homemade chocs and we dont get that many callers as they all tend to be with us making sweets anyway! We reuse all costumes between the girls. I dont like the kids going trick or treating its as annoying as door to door sales, sponsoring etc

Frankspeaking

If you are going to cut out a large pumpkin as a lantern or self portrait, use the cut out bits for pumpkin soup. Or, if you are going to cut up a pumpkin for soup, cut it out as a Halloween Lantern or self portrait whilst you are on.

Tasty recipe at the bbcgoodfood site :T
Fascinating 'facts' at the pumpkincarving101 site.

MummyYummy

We also don't get many callers and I don't allow DS to go trick or treating - we don't know many people on our road unfortunately.

I think i'll make pumpkin soup on Sunday and reheat on Monday evening for DH and I, with some lovely homemade crusty bread yum! DS is going to a Halloween party held by a close friend so he'll probably be full up on junk lol.

RandomRainy

It's taken a bit of time but, I bought several various packs of Tesco Value Sweets (at around 35p each) and wrapped 1 of each sweet in some plain wrapping paper. It's cost around £2.50 for approx 40 bundles, therefore costing <7p a bundle, and as some packs contained more sweets than others my kids got the spares!