What it's worth being frugal about?

VfM4meplse

GreyQueen wrote: »

have my chazzering built into my everyday rounds

Brilliant! How long before this word enters the OED?

Towser

Halloween

I will be getting out all the Halloween tat (ornaments, decourations ect ) out - all collected from Freecycle and put that up usually with some balloons from the pound shop. I store everything every year just like Christmas things.

Putting up any artwork, craft items Halloween related that the children have made.

Pumkins from Aldi carved as an activity and put outside with candles inside.

Costumes the cheapest are usually Tesco. Although one year my eldest only needed a bath sheet with holes as he really wanted to be a ghost.

Put the trick or treat sweats from Aldi in a bowl by the front door.

Go out trick or treating meeting the whole village as we pass each other by.

Made the most frugally I possibly can and definitely worth it as the kids have so much fun.

[Deleted User]

Halloween, we grow pumpkins, we do every year so the carved one is the biggest one we produce. This year I'll be away from home at DDs cat sitting while she takes a school trip to second world war Berlin over half term and we don't buy sweets and special Halloween theamed goodies, I'll be making ghost biscuits covered in white icing and chocolate cupcakes with big spiders on top made from marshmallows and strawberry laces with iced on eyes by the trayful, they always go down really well with trick or treaters and it's mainly from ingredients we have already, so frugal Halloween it is!!!

thriftwizard

I'm afraid I'm a right spoilsport & stay out of trick or treat now; it's gone wrong too often round here, with eggs & flour being thrown at moving cars and even paint in one case. So we stay indoors with the lights on the road side off; I've been told before now that our house is too "creepy" for anyone to bother us on 31st October - overgrown (but very productive) front garden, tall chimneys, bats swooping round the trees, no lights...

However - pumpkins? Bring 'em on! My old next-door neighbour was from Oklahoma, and had a huge repertoire of pumpkin recipes that she shared with me. I have no objection to people carving pumpkin lanterns (or mangle-wurzel lanterns, for that matter) as long as they don't waste the insides! Even the little, mostly tasteless ones you pick up in the supermarket are full of useful vitamins, fibre & minerals & will bulk out a soup magnificently. Bigger, properly-grown ones can be roasted in chunks & pureed for use in all sorts of tasty things like pumpkin spice cookies and pumpkin bread, which is a sort of moist fruitcake. Far too good to chuck out!

Caterina

thriftwizard wrote: »

I'm afraid I'm a right spoilsport & stay out of trick or treat now; it's gone wrong too often round here, with eggs & flour being thrown at moving cars and even paint in one case. So we stay indoors with the lights on the road side off; ...

I am with you on the trick or treaters, there have been a lot of incidents with very frightening big teenagers scaring children while wearing masks and behaving menacing to householders. We have had eggs thrown at our door before.

We stay in the kitchen, that's at the back of the house, with the door closed, then go to bed upstairs and read, so it looks like nobody's home.

zaxdog

Caterina wrote: »

I am with you on the trick or treaters, there have been a lot of incidents with very frightening big teenagers scaring children while wearing masks and behaving menacing to householders. We have had eggs thrown at our door before.

We stay in the kitchen, that's at the back of the house, with the door closed, then go to bed upstairs and read, so it looks like nobody's home.

You poor soul, you must live in an awfully lawless area :eek:

The big ones here bring the wee ones round and watch they don't take too many sweeties.

I love it so we'll put the porch light on and get as many guisers as we can. Lovely to see the old traditions still going :j

Caterina

I live in London and our area is not bad at all, compared to others, normally. It is a leafy, quiet and middle class (ish) suburb. But Halloween seems to bring out the worst in older kids! They think it's funny, the recipients find it appalling and frightening. It spoils it for children like mine and many more, who do it as innocent fun, accompanied by parents. The few ruin it for the many, as it's often the case.

GreyQueen

thriftwizard, my previous home was part of a very dilapidated Victorian house, which, my Dad always joked, looked like the Munsters lived there. Although it was on a main street, it never got trick or treated.

People are going to have very individual experiences of the t or t phenomenon. Those who have delightful ones will think that anyone who hides from t & t-ers is a miserable s0d. Those who have pretty horrific experiences (and egg is a bu88er to get off windows and doors never mind cars) will feel entirely justified about wanting to avoid the confrontation.

There's an unpleasant side to t or t-ing which involves harrassment and criminal damage and it isn't made any easier to bear because the perpetrators are kids.

I live in a rough neighbourhood in the city centre. Most people don't answer their doors to people they're not expecting here, at any time.

I'm looking forward to buying heavily-reduced pumpkins shortly, to cook with the pulp and roast the seeds. Lots of good eating on a pumpkin. If you're carving them for Halloween, be sure not to waste all that tasty goodness.

Spendless

Started reading this thread and the first thing that has shocked me is that places charge to walk round a car-boot! Really?? :eek: I'd never heard of such a thing. We have a very large car boot that runs here all year round and it's free to look around.

I've discovered a cs that has a £1 section and that has been very useful for my DD's costumes for her drama group.

Meal planning and a shopping list, substituting or omitting ingredients if you don't have them in and can get away with it on a recipe.

Making sure you have bags with you when shopping so you don't have to pay for them.

If driving, doing everything within a round robin. Our current only Aldi, which is my preferred discount supermarket is the other side of town for me, but not too far from DD drama group, so during the 90 mins she's there, I do the weekly grocery shopping.

[Deleted User]

I think it's a very individual choice as to whether you join in because it's fun for the kids (me too) and a giving something back to the village where I live that adds to the lives of the youngsters or whether you feel it's completely wrong, immoral and that there will be more harm done to their property, the young people, the community than it's worth joining in for.

I can only speak from many years past experience, we have fun, put solar lanterns and a 'sheet' ghostie in the apple tree on the lawn, line the drive with tealights in jamjars so the littles can see where they're going and make the biggest pumpkin lantern I possibly can to go in the window. I make all the 'treats' biscuits, cakes, brownies, etc and sit in the front room behind the pumpkin so I can see when people are coming up the drive.....and get there to open the door just before they ring the bell.....spooky!!! We get tiny ones and their parents, usually all (including parents) dressed up just as it gets dark, we get middlies up to 7.30ish and we get the older ones until 8.30ish and when it all slows down we blow out the candles and draw the curtains. I've never had any sort of a problem with aggressive or bad behaviour, I've always had thank you's from every age and I've been thanked by mums, dads, kids of all ages over the next few weeks for the whole thing. The village here has very little for youngsters to do in the evenings and my personal take is to give them one evening in the year where they can dress up, have fun safely outdoors and get some yummy treats to enjoy as well. I think that does more good than harm and thoroughly enjoy the whole thing!