Frugal Halloween Costumes $10 or Less

Halloween is a fun holiday for kids and adults to dress up and eat treats. Halloween costumes don’t have to cost a fortune. You can create your own Halloween costume, purchase makeup and accessories to put together a frugal costume or purchase a costume that is very inexpensive if you shop around or wait to the last minute to make a purchase. Below are some ideas on how to make or purchase a frugal Halloween costume for $10 dollars or less:

Make your own costume

Making your own costume is a great idea because you can become anything you can imagine. If you or family members know how to sew, you can sew together a costume by simply purchasing inexpensive fabric, some thread and a needle. You can purchase inexpensive fabric from Wal-Mart or Jo-Ann’s fabrics.

If you’re not a gifted seamstress there are still plenty of other ways you can make an inexpensive costume. For example, use articles of clothing you already have like tights, t-shirts, pants, leotards or sweats. If you don’t have anything you can use from your own closet go to a second hand store like Goodwill and purchase cheap clothing items for your costume there. Costumes you can easily put together on your own include things such as:

Use makeup and accessories to put together a costume and to make it look more authentic or scary. You can make your own makeup and use items around your house that you already have to accessorize a costume. In order to make your own makeup you will need the following ingredients:

 ·   ghost (using a white sheet)

·    vampire (using black and red colored clothing, fangs and fake blood)

·    Count Dracula (similar to vampire, also incorporate a black cape with raised collar)

·    zombie (old torn up clothing, fake blood)

·    clown (decorate sweat pants and shirt that is too big for you with markers or fabric paint)

·    scarecrow (using old washed out blue jeans and flannel shirt and a straw hat)

·    hippy (using bell bottom jeans, tie-dye shirt and anything else tie-dye, peace sign necklace and a long wig)

·    Miss America or a princess(use an old bridesmaid dress or any formal dress, wear a tiara and a sash, jewelry, heals and makeup)

·    Mummy (wrap yourself in white gauze)

·    Pirate (get an eye patch and bandana, wear a striped shirt with sailor pants or jeans)

·    Cowboy/Cowgirl (wear jeans with a flannel shirt and a cowboy hat and boots)

·    Secret agent (wear a black suit or black dress and dark sunglasses, and carry something that could be potential spy stuff like an unmarked pen)

·    Roman emperor/empress (using a white sheet to wrap around you as a toga, wear a pair of sandals and get some fake flowers to make yourself a crown or to wrap around you)

·    Hillbilly (wear a pair of overalls, flannel shirt and wear your hair in braids or pig tails if you’re a girl)

·    Cardboard box costume (take a cardboard box and make it literally anything you want, to get some ideas check out About’s Family Crafts that shows pictures of many different cardboard box costumes)

·    Duct tape costume (Read this article about Duct tape costume ideas and how to make them)

Makeup & Accessories

Use makeup and accessories to put together a costume and to make it look more authentic or scary. You can make your own makeup and use items around your house that you already have to accessorize a costume. In order to make your own makeup you will need the following ingredients:

           2 tablespoons of soft shortening
           4 tablespoons of cornstarch
           Food coloring 

Mix the shortening and cornstarch, then add food coloring.

Use items you might already have around the house to accessorize with like bandanas, jewelry, makeup and fingernail polish.

Dollar Tree & Dollar Stores

Shop the Dollar Tree and other dollar stores in the area for inexpensive makeup, accessories and costumes. The Dollar Tree has so many accessories for Halloween right now like tiaras, fake jewelry, hats, masks, fake handcuffs, colored hair spray to change the color of your hair, wigs and fake bunny ears and bunny tails.

EBay & Online

Check EBay online to see if they have any costumes at a frugal price. Many people purchase costumes that were not sold in the previous year and resell them on EBay for a fraction of the cost.

Buy Costumes.com website currently has nine pages of kid’s costumes for only $9.99 and they are some very adorable costumes at that! Be sure to check out their website if you’re in the market for a cute kids costume and don’t forget to search for coupon codes online to possibly get free shipping or a discount on your purchase. Use Retail Me Not to find coupon codes for various retailers online.

Wal-Mart/Target

Check with our local Wal-Mart’s and Target’s who always have costumes and accessories at reasonable prices. Also, check their websites to see if they have any specials on costumes leading up to Halloween.

Wait & Get a Deal

Wait until the day before or the day of Halloween and check all the local stores that sell costumes like CVS, Walgreen’s, Wal-Mart, Kroger and Target. If you wait until the last minute and you’re not very picky about which costume you get you can get a great deal on a costume because stores generally mark costumes and other Halloween items down right before Halloween and right after Halloween. You could get a costume for half off the original price or more.

The best part of Halloween is that you can be anything you want to be. Your only limit is your imagination. So what do you want to be this Halloween?

Find out more costume ideas and where to get spooked on our Halloween Guide!

Amanda Bradbury is a freelance writer in Richmond, VA who enjoys frugal living, coupon clipping and saving money. To learn more about Amanda, visit her blog at http://allfrugalstuff.blogspot.com and follow her on Twitter @mandasparkle.