Gift Cards Travel Halloween Savings Guide

Holidays are fun, but they can get pretty expensive. Especially for a one day celebration, it would only make sense that you save as much money as possible. Of course, it’s never a bad idea to start putting money aside each year for the holiday, but if budgeting for Halloween seems like a waste of a savings, check out these other tips on how you can still be in the spirit while saving money! 

 

Decorations 

The best time to buy Halloween decorations is, of course, immediately after Halloween. Home Depot and Lowe’s typically have Halloween decorations for 75% off after Halloween and all the way through November. So buy late for this year, and early for next. 

Another money saving tactic is to simply make your own Halloween decorations. For example, taking some old clothes and stuffing them with straw and hay saves you an enormous amount of money when it eliminates the extra money spent on plastic hanging ghosts and lights.

If a scarecrow isn’t quite good enough, add some pumpkins. Pumpkin patches are fun, but places like Home Depot has pumpkins for as little as $2. They also have pumpkin carving tools for less than $10 so the family can have fun carving their most Halloween inspired pumpkin. 

And of course, top it off with a candle and your Halloween decorations of $20 or less probably dominate those $50 light up purchases!

 

Costumes

Store bought Halloween costumes typically cost anywhere from $50-$100. Indead of falling into the black hole of a perfect costume and, especially if you have more than one child, give each of them $30 and create a game. Bring them to a discount store such as Walmart, and tell them that they have $30 to find the best costume they can for whoever they are trying to be. 

 

Instead of $90 per costume, you can get 3 costumes for the same exact price. 

If you don’t have time to let your kids shop, websites such as Hollar have costumes for kids and adults starting at just $7. And if you sign up now, you will receive a $2 credit for free! 

Don’t leave out the idea of trading customers with friends and family because, well, it’s free! 

 

Candy

 

Since the entire point of Halloween is the incentive of trick or treating, candy is an unavoidable purchase. The first and most important thing to keep in mind when buying bags of Halloween candy is this: do not buy candy in the month of October! Retail stores jack up the price of candy specifically because they know that, despite the increased prices, people will still buy bags of Halloween candy in October.

Furthermore, many people seem to think that purchasing candy in late September or early October is a method of planning ahead to save money. Unfortunately, the price increase starts at the end of summer and goes up accordingly. If you want to save money by planning ahead, start now by buying candy in the beginning of summer!

When it comes to Halloween candy, coupons are your best friend. Websites like TheKrazyCouponLady and Coupons.com have year round manufacturer coupons as well as store specific coupons that you can use and stack on top of each other for maximum savings. Groupon is another website that allows you buy in bulk and only pay about a quarter of the original price. 

Another thing you can do is think outside of the box! Instead of candy, give out unpopped bags of popcorn. Even just on amazon, a bulk box of popcorn containing 44 unpopped, microwaveable bags is only $20. When you think about how much Halloween candy sells for which, can be about $10 per bag, with 2 pieces of candy per trick or treater and only about 30 pieces of candy per bag, you would be spending twice as much on candy as you would buying popcorn in bulk. And, let’s face it, everybody loves popcorn!

If you’re a die hard candy or nothing kind of person, don’t be. Buy some glow sticks and watch the kids faces light up!