5 Fun Ways To Have A Frugal Halloween
Halloween is popular, but it can get costly. Here are five fun ways to have a frugal Halloween without breaking the bank.
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Trick-or-treating is, of course, the highlight of this “boo”-tiful holiday, but the preparations of decorating, creating clever costumes, baking spooky treats, and hanging out together with friends and family in the pumpkin patch or at a neighborhood fall festival are where spooktacular memories are fondly made.
Regardless of what age your ghouls and goblins are, Halloween can truly be a memorable celebration.
Here are five favorite Halloween time-savers that will add spook and whimsy to your family’s Halloween in half the time without breaking the bank.
- Five Halloween Holiday Fun Facts
2. Hearty Prep Ahead Dinners
3. Decorations on a Dime
4. Light it Up
5. Pumpkin Palooza
Tip 1: Five Halloween Fun Facts
I’ll be honest I never really embraced Halloween until I had kids of my own. Most of my babies were born in late summer, so one of the first things I did as a new mom was to invest in an adorable infant pumpkin costume. Six of my eight kids did get to wear it, so I certainly got my money’s worth. That little pumpkin costume paved the way for my newfound love of Halloween.
Once I became enamored with the holiday, I began to pay attention to trends and fun facts. Here are five pieces of trivia you can wow the Halloween die-hards in your life with:
• Approximately 35 million pounds of candy corn will be sold this year.
• Halloween is the #2 commercial holiday in the country.
• There are more than 45 varieties of pumpkins, and they grow on every continent except Antarctica. China, however, is the biggest producer of pumpkins.
• Reese’s Peanut Butter cups are still the most popular candy of Halloween.
• Ireland is believed to be the birthplace of Halloween.
There are dozens of Halloween fun facts to be discovered, but these five will get you started if you’d like to be the “boo” of the ball and impress the other Halloween lovers in your life.
Tip 2: Hearty Prep Ahead Dinners Make for a Frugal Halloween
When my kids were wee trick-or-treaters, they could hardly contain themselves during the day of Halloween. The moment they got out of bed, they wanted to put their costumes on—costumes which, of course, they had already tried on at least 50 times between the time we bought or made them and Halloween!
I had to pull out all the stops to keep them engaged and busy during the very long day waiting for dusk so we could hit the neighborhood and begin gathering all those delicious treats.
One of my favorite Halloween hacks is being prepared on Halloween day for the evening’s festivities by ensuring an easy, filling dinner is made in advance. The day before Halloween, I make dinner for the following evening so I wouldn’t be stuck in the kitchen serving a meal all while trying to put the finishing touches on my gang’s costumes and make-up.
Some of our favorite meals were pulled-pork sandwiches (so easy in the crockpot), Dracula’s lasagna (served with a set of plastic vampire teeth), and Monster Mash meatloaf and potatoes (complete with witch’s gravy and eye-of-newt corn on the cob). One year I made scarecrow spaghetti and meatballs and let them eat while sitting on little bales of hay around a picnic table.
I cooked up goofy menu plans related to Halloween so they’d be more inclined to sit and eat. We all know that kids indulge in a bit more sugar on Halloween, so when they’ve eaten a hearty dinner, they might not be as tempted to unwrap quite as much candy. (It’s a good idea, right?)
– Can Can Mom, Cheryl L. Butler
3. Decorations on a Dime
In the past, we had piñatas, large cardstock cutouts of pumpkins and spiders, and lots of orange and black crepe paper streaming through the house.
Now, dozens of actual Halloween retail stores open in late summer to give eager Halloweeners a head start. We have sites like Pinterest where hundreds of ideas for costumes, home decorating, and recipes galore are ready to be browsed and shared. We have magazines and specialty holiday websites that devote large sections of content to all things Halloween.
The sky’s the limit when it comes to how decked out you want your home and yard to be for Halloween. My family invested in some electronic decorations that we excitedly display each year, but there are plenty of other touches that we add to our home that are inexpensive and adorable.
Here are a few ideas:
Outdoor Tree Decorations. If you have a tree with low-lying branches (or don’t mind getting up on a ladder), you can add lots of whimsy with ghosts. Take tall, white kitchen garbage bags (Dollar Store) and stuff approximately six inches with bubble wrap (enough to make it look like a large head). Using white pipe cleaners, cinch the head closed. Decorate the face with a black Sharpie marker and hang at random intervals on your tree branches.
Toilet Paper Pumpkins. I have enjoyed these two easy pumpkin crafts for years now. Use construction paper to cut two scary eyes and a mouth and tape to your stacked toilet paper rolls for a ghost-like appearance. These are cute in your bathrooms as well as to decorate your kids’ bedrooms.
Fabric Covered Toilet Paper Pumpkins. These are so much fun and easy to make. Take a “fat quarter,” which is a standard-size cut of fabric (18″ x 21″). You can buy these pre-cut in fabric or craft stores because quilters use them. (Choose orange or other fall colors). Simply open the fabric square, place the roll of toilet paper in the middle, and begin by taking one corner of the fabric and gently pushing it all the way in the middle of the roll of TP. Do this until the fabric is completely inserted in the middle of the roll. Use an actual portion of a branch for the stem (or a cinnamon stick) and tie a paper or artificial leaf to the stem. You can literally create your own floral pumpkin patch to decorate your fireplace mantle or a side table in your family room, and if one of the kids knocks them over by mistake, no worries! This article will give you a great overview.https://www.smartschoolhouse.com/diy-crafts/toilet-paper-pumpkins
Pool Noodle Witch Legs. One of my friends found this idea on Pinterest, and it has become a standard decorating staple for so many of us. Simply take a pool noodle, cover two halves with striped stockings, and add shoes. Prop it up in the corner of your porch or in front of your garage near a planter, and it will look like our friend, the witch, wasn’t paying attention to where she was flying.
Tip 4: Light It Up
Nothing says Hallow’s Eve like a walkway of beautiful luminaries. One of the first decorations I ever created with my kids were milk jug ghosts. Except for the cutting of the opening in the back of the jug where the mini lights or battery-operated tea lights are inserted, this is a fun and easy project that the kids can help you make.
I start saving empty milk jugs in late summer as I like to line both sides of our driveway with them, so I need about 25 empty jugs. It’s as simple as rinsing out the jugs and letting them dry completely. Next, draw a ghost face on the milk jugs with a Sharpie marker—here is a link to 25 pumpkin templates.
On the opposite side of the face, cut a three-sided opening flap just about two inches wide and two inches tall. Place a few rocks at the bottom of your milk jugs to weigh them down. In the same opening, add part of the string of lights in it. Then lead the lights to the next opening in the next jug. I string about ten jugs together and then plug them into an outside extension.
You can do something similar with Mason jars, but because these are glass, I use mine as inside decorations. We paint ours white or orange, draw a face on them, and then fill them with a votive candle or mini lights. Makes a great night light in the bathroom or kitchen.
Tip 5: Pumpkin Palooza
Pumpkins and Jack-o-lanterns are Halloween staples. There’s something special about going on a hayride with your kids into a pumpkin patch and selecting the perfect pumpkin. My kids still talk about the times we did this as a family, and, in fact, my teenagers still enjoy this rite of fall passage with their friends.
Pumpkins are fast becoming a popular staple here in America, with sales for Halloween totaling more than 33 million dollars in 2022! Pumpkin Pie and carved Jack-o-lanterns are only two of the many ways you can enjoy a pumpkin.
One of the easiest and most creative ways to enter the Halloween spirit is to embrace this vibrant fruit! One of our new favorite ways to decorate pumpkins is to use melted crayons (a great way to use up those broken crayons we have floating around the house!). Cut up the crayons or place the broken crayons on the top of the pumpkin. Use Tacky glue to keep the crayons in place, then use a blow dryer to melt the crayons. (Put a garbage bag under your work area, as this can get messy.)
My now 17-year-old daughter loves her bling, so she enjoys decorating mini pumpkins with arts and crafts supplies. She just glued a lot of rhinestones all over those sweet mini pumpkins and sits them on her windowsill. When the sun streams through the window, they glisten and look absolutely beautiful.
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Can’t Have Too Many Pumpkins!
Take advantage of the current supply of pumpkins and brainstorm some fun ideas with your kids for decorating and creating some fun new recipes—like Dinner in a Pumpkin (individualize recipes online—actually cook in a pumpkin or use cooked pumpkin as a serving dish). And don’t forget to take lots of photos!
How do you get creative with Halloween? For all kinds of mom-centered creative ideas, visit me on Instagram at CanCanMomCB or on Pinterest at theCanCanMom. If you have questions or suggestions, email me at cheryl@cancanmom.com or leave a comment in the box below.
