Thread: Halloween Budget

Tweet

Just wondering. Do you all have a budget for Halloween or do you do what some people do at Christmas and just go crazy. I myself try to keep within some sort of range but I find myself always saying "I need just one more thing". Sometimes I do very well because I often find that the less you allow yourself to spend the more creative you become, often with better results. But there is one day when I get temporary insanity. That is Nov. 1. All of a sudden at 50 to 75% off I need everything for next year. I do save money and I end up using it though. (see more excuses) I'm hoping that this year I will have a little more control. What do you all do regarding the cost of Halloween. By the way, if you go into my garage I have 27 totes of Halloween and that's what is not permanantly stored in my haunted house. I have 3 Christmas ones.

In the beginning, I would try to set a budget and end up going way past as I found more stuff.

Now that I have refined my theme, if I can't figure out how something would fit, I don't buy it. It's gotten much easier to stick to a budget.

It also helps that I'm building more of my props and decorations. I don't want to buy things that my neighbors could buy; I'd rather use raw materials and my own imagination to come up with something unique.

Yea that's pretty much what I do. Of course the Home Depot receipts add up as well. But things like Buckys are expensive and I could NEVER make one of them. I've never found one of those after Halloween. Too Bad. Animatronics like Gemmys are worth the money because you can put a mask on them and new clothes.

No budget and no self-control either! Not when it comes to Halloween anyway. For everything else I'm a real tightwad though so it all balances out...

HA I hear you sister. I feel like the more money I can save on everything else, the more money I have to spend on Halloween.

No real budget here. I go to thrift stores all year long and to yard sales all summer.So with the spending on paint and screws and lumber in september and october,.. Iam not sure I wanna know the real total!

Originally Posted by Frankie's Girl

Now that I have refined my theme, if I can't figure out how something would fit, I don't buy it. It's gotten much easier to stick to a budget.

It also helps that I'm building more of my props and decorations. I don't want to buy things that my neighbors could buy; I'd rather use raw materials and my own imagination to come up with something unique.

Same here. I don't really have a set budget but I do figure out what our theme is going to be and then make a list of what we will be making and what supplies we will need. So from there I pretty much have an idea of about how much I'll be spending. Ever since we started setting themes for our haunt and building our own props I've found myself buying less and less store Halloween items. Which has helped because I don't find myself randomly grabbing up things like I use it. If it doesn't fit the look and theme of our haunt than I don't buy it.

I did something different this year by start really early with my big projects. This way I could spread out the cost and not really worry abou it. Unfortunately, the big projects cost A LOT more then what I had expected. I saved all my Lowe's reciepts but I also don't want to add up all the supplies I needed. I still need some more things and realised that I have to pass on the web shooter this year because, it just isn't in the budget. I will be a big lose to the spider theme but, the out of state family reunion comes first. I guess you just have to have some priorities and not go completely insane. I also helped that I had a theme this year and stuck with it. That way I wan't just buying any ol stuff.

No budget here either. It gets crazy Nov. 1st because that is the only day the we tend to spend a few hundreds in just a few hours. This year I found the joys of using 40 and 50% off coupons =) so I've been spending money smart. Also since last year, I've been building more and more of my props, hopefully that'll bring my expenses down.

yeah, this year we are going to build more than buy becaue last year when we did our haunt for the first time we bought ALOT.