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HALLOWEEN SHOPPING TIPS & BUDGETING |
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How many times have you waited for the stores to
finally receive their Halloween stock only to find yourself short of cash? Or had some unforeseen
event drain your pocket book at the last minute? The key is to build your
holiday spending money through-out the year, not just in October. Budgeting for
Halloween can be a difficult task, and with only two months
separating it from Christmas, it's even harder. There are so
many great Halloween props, costumes and decorations to buy
or make and so little money these days. Below are some tips for
collecting extra cash for Halloween.
Start A Pumpkin Bank
 Always trying to find new ways
of having more funds
by Halloween, my wife and I bought a small plastic pumpkin several years ago to act as our
Halloween savings bank. At the end of each day we both drop our change into the
"pumpkin
bank".
You can collect a lot of change over the course of a year and throwing it into a
jack-o-lantern reminds us of what we are saving for. If you collect the amount of change
that we do, you may have to empty it a few times. Just remember to save it for Halloween.
We average well over a hundred dollars ever year!
You can roll
the coins yourself in paper coin rollers and exchange them
at the bank for paper money or use one of those coin
machines located at some grocery stores. Rolling them
yourself takes more time but you get to keep one-hundred
percent of your cash, whereas coin machines will keep a
percent of your money as there fee. What we do is roll all
of our nickels, dimes and quarters ourselves, but use a coin
machine for the pennies, which are the most plentiful, but
lowest value.
Open A Halloween Savings Account
You've heard of the old Christmas Club Accounts, why not
a Halloween Account. Open a savings account at your local bank or savings and loan. From
every pay check make a deposit into the account. Even if it's a small amount, ten
or twenty dollars, you'll end up with a nice chunk of cash that will come in
handy by October.
Have A Garage Sale
Holding a garage or yard sale in August or early
September is a great way to infuse your pre-Halloween funds. Plus it clears out more space
in your garage for Halloween stuff! When picking things out for your garage sale, always
remember "If you haven't used it in a year, seriously consider
sell it!"
And think of all the
wonderful things you'll be able to build or purchase for your upcoming
Halloween haunt! If you have
neighbors that want to get in on it, make a co-op out of it. It's a great way to get your
neighbors on your street to dress up their houses for Halloween as well.
Some quick
sellers at most yard sale's include Books
you don't intend to read again,
Old Computer and Video Games,
Video Cassette Tapes and DVD's,
Music CD's, Cassette Tapes and Vinyl Records,
Dolls, Action Figures and Toys and
Unwanted Clothing.
Here's a
perfect example. We recently went through our storage boxes and found that we had over three
hundred movies on video tape, all of which we had already
replaced with DVD's. We priced these for only a dollar a
piece and sold them all the first day of our garage sale.
Auction Off Unwanted Items
You probably
have hundreds, if not thousands of dollars worth of unused
items just
laying around the house, in the basement or stored in your garage that you
can auction off on eBay. You may not think that anyone would
possibly buy the things you intend to discard, but remember
the old adage, "One person's' trash is another person's
treasure".
While selling online does take more attention and
time, you can often get more money for your unwanted stuff
than you would selling them at a garage sale. Selling off
these things will also help to will cut down on clutter in
your home and storage.
Recycling
 Be
sure to save all of your aluminum
cans, plastic containers, glass bottles and other recyclables
through-out the year, so that you can take them to a recycling center
in October and trade them in for cash. We keep a tall
plastic trash can in our utility room specifically for
putting all of our recyclables in. When it fills up, we
transfer its contents to large lawn bags and store them in
the garage until we take a trip to the local recycling
center for our reward.
Of equal importance to having extra
money to buy Halloween products with, is that recycling is a great way to help
preserve our natural resources and protect the environment.
Homemade
Halloween Crafts
If you enjoy crafting, make some extra cash by selling your
Halloween crafts.
Many
communities hold a Fall Festival or Craft Fair where
you can rent a booth to sell your spooky wares. Homemade Halloween
wreaths, centerpieces, jewelry and spooky signs tend to be good sellers
at these types of events. You will want to start making
your products several months before the scheduled event.
Take
Advantage of After Halloween Sales
And be sure to save some of your Halloween
budget for the after Halloween sales. You can find some great deals and you'll kick
yourself if you have to miss them. We know, we do it every year!
The first week or two after October 31st. is a great time to look for
some great bargains on Halloween decorations, props and costumes.
Retail
Stores
Both online or traditional brick-and-mortar stores,
including temporary Halloween stores usually have a sale on there left over stock
beginning the day after Halloween. Its
usually cheaper for them to sell their unsold stock at a discount, than to
transport and warehouse it for eleven months.
Discounts
starting at 50% off and more
are not uncommon and should be taken advantage of...if you
find items that you will actually use. Don't buy
something just because its on sale or you may end up trying
to sell it at your own garage sale some day.
Obviously you
don't want to buy candy for next Halloween, I mean giving
out stale, year old candy is beyond cheap and a real bad
idea. However, we always buy a few bags of discounted candy
that "we" like to eat. Plus, miniature size candy is always
a sweet addition to Christmas stockings.
Garage
& Yard Sales
Particularly in a bad economy, many people will sell some of
their Halloween items to garner extra money for Christmas or
just because they need the extra cash.
Other people may be moving from one location to another and
don't have the space in their moving truck to take
everything they own and end up selling some of their
Halloween stuff.
We've
found some really nice decorations over the years, but be sure to
act fast or you might lose out on a great deal. A week after
Halloween this year I was on the way to the grocery store,
when I spotted an extra large plastic blow-mold Jack O'
Lantern that is not made any more at a yard sale. I
decided to stop back by one my way home from the store to
buy it. Unfortunately, in just a half hour time, it was
sold to someone else.
The nice
thing about garage sales is that you can haggle. We've found that
the best way to get the most for your money is not to do it over
any single item, but rather a group of items.
We collect everything we are interested in buying and place
it one pile and then ask the seller how much they would take
for the lot. Another great thing about these types of private sales is
that you don't have to pay any state sales tax or for shipping.
Thrift
Stores
While rare, you can on occasion find a real Halloween
treasure at a thrift or second-hand store.
Halloween
Online Staff
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