Halloween is one day of the year that children don't want to miss, but it can be a costly time for parents, so I spoke to Mad About Money founder, Maddy Alexander-Grout for some tips on how to keep the cost of Halloween down, while making sure the fun levels remain high. Here's what she suggests.
Costumes
Make your own costumes - Find old pillowcases, sheets (they make a great zombie) use marker pens, ripped up cotton wool, anything you have lying around. Or, use previous costumes and adapt them, you don’t need to have a sewing machine or posh material, big hand stitches make stuff look more spooky.
If you can afford to make a costume, go all out on the face makeup. You don’t need to buy special face paints, just use an eyeliner and look online at TikTok or YouTube tutorials.
Decorations
Cotton wool rolls make really good spiders webs and you can make scary paper chains (like the snowflake ones you make at Christmas) just by cutting out ghost shapes. Perfect decoration with no spend. Check out Pinterest and TikTok for loads more ideas.
Treats
Don’t buy big tubs of large sweets. No one cares about the size of the sweets just that they get sweets, so buy larger packets of toffees and wrapped sweets and just put them into a tub. Don’t leave the tub outside for people to just take, instead go to the door and monitor. That way the sweets will last longer.
If you can, buy in bulk from places like Costco and buy with plenty of time before Halloween, before they put the prices up. Check the price per kg on sweets - remember buy one get one free offers are not always the cheapest, and compare supermarket prices - don’t forget places like Poundland also do sweets which may well be cheaper.
Pumpkin
Pick your own pumpkin - It’s a day out which makes the process more memorable and it won’t cost you much more than buying from the supermarket. Also, you are supporting a local farm.
Make sure you re-use the pumpkin too. Spiced pumpkin soup is really yummy, but there are lots of pumpkin recipes about.
Maddy Alexander-Grout is a mum of two and founder of Mad About Money Official
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