Thread: $20 a Month Challenge!!!!

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Ok.....here is a HYPOTHETICAL challenge for everyone. It's November, all your props are gone and you have to plan a NEW yard haunt for 2012. Problem is you only can spend $20 per month ($240 total!). How would you set it up? What would you build? What would you buy? Assume you can only use YOUR skills/tools etc to make the props you need.

I'll make it a bit easier.....assume you can use your current lights and fog machine.

I'm just trying to get the creative juices flowing for those who don't have money, but they have heart and time!!!

This sounds suspiciously like one of those fake-hypotheticals, "say I have a friend, with a drinking problem..." $20/month is pretty meager. I think I'd save the money from each month up to September then go spend it all at the Home Depot and Dollar Tree. I would built a swamp, complete with roaming wooden plank pathway, lanterns, bubbling water with creepy things in it.

Sure, money is an issue. But I think most of us run out of time or ambition first.
For me, I spent more time this year reading threads and viewing all the AWESOME props everyone was building. Each thread gave me new ideas for more props I wanted to build. It quickly became more of an addiction than prop building itself.
But, there is always next year.

I agree with Camsauce

In addition, I would hit up thrift stores, yardsales, ebay, craigslist.... and look for curbside finds.

I know a lot of haunters who dismantle discarded furniture for wood, screws, brackets etc.

Plus I would repurpose anything I could around the house. And trade or sell old props I didn't need.

And put out requests to family, friends, coworkers etc.

I think that I would do the following:

1) Tombstones: buy a few sheets of foam and carve them out ($40 plus paint I have around the house)
2) Fence for Graveyard: make from pallets. (free from Craigslist)
3) Skeletons/ground breakers/etc: I'd use paper mache, pvc, old clothes from thrift store ($50....assuming I buy a gallon of spar urethane)
4) I would make "scream tubes" using PVC Pipe and fittings ($20...but needs a scarator to operate)
5) Axeworthy Ghost: Ceiling fan motor ($10 from Craigslist), Sypderwire ($15), recycled bicycle wheels for pullys (free), mounts for pullys (made from recycled bed frame ($0-10 from Craigslist), ghosts (food lion bags/tissue for free).

That's all I could probably do in one year given my time. That's around $145 (maybe a little more or a little less) and that leaves me with around $75 to spend of other things. I already have lights and a fog machine, but if I didn't, I'd spend it on some green and blue LED flood light bulbs (around $6.50 apiece plus the cheapo outdoor fixtures.)

I imagine the remaining would be spent on coffee.

Since I have about 25 pallets left from this years haunt and plan on doing nothing but homemade props next year. This challenge I think I could do. I will probably do the carnival theme or from the movies theme. Lets see if we can do this.

Bump me up to $50 a month, because I have RIDICULOUS AMBITIONS for next year's creations!

Deal Bryan! But you have to send pictures!

At $17.98 for a sheet of 1" blue foam and $7.49 for 3/4" white, I could build a LOT in a year!

$20 a month? I need a raise in my allowance. lol