Most moms are skilled at money management. It’s often their responsibility to make sure that the household needs are taken care of without their family going into debt. They use savvy shopping, coupon clipping and frugal living to make sure that their family doesn’t go into debt but also doesn’t go without. Unfortunately, managing your money gets tough at this time of year. As the fall and winter holidays approach, it gets harder to say no to the things that your kids want. The problems start with Halloween. The following budgeting advice can help moms save money on Halloween without compromising their kids’ fun.
The biggest piece of budgeting advice that moms should follow this season is to start working now to save money on Halloween costumes. Costumes tend to be the biggest expense associated with Halloween. If you can save money on your kids’ Halloween costumes then you can save money on Halloween. You can implement some of your usual money management tricks here. Start early, do comparison shopping, make what you can at home, buy what you need at yard sales and thrift stores and don’t be ashamed to put your kids in some Halloween hand-me-downs that you’ve updated with a few cheap accessories. Your kids may think that they want the latest, hottest Halloween costumes from the stores but they don’t have to win this battle. A succinct explanation of the importance of managing your money along with your own enthusiasm for coming up with creative costume ideas should be enough to get your kids on board with your budget Halloween costume plans.
Once you’ve dealt with the Halloween costume issue then you’ll want to focus on applying some smart budgeting advice to decorating your home for Halloween. The same tricks that you used to get an affordable Halloween costume will apply to getting affordable Halloween decorations.
Hopefully you’ve been managing your money well for some time already and you have some decorations saved up from years past. If not then you’ll want to scour clearance outlets and thrift stores for decorations. Make some cheap decorations yourself with the kids. Create a decorating budget and stick to it. It’s more important to stick to your money management plan than to have the best-decorated house on the block this Halloween.
Finally, there’s the issue of Halloween candy. If you’re planning to stay home and hand out candy to the neighborhood children this year then you’ll want to do what you can to get that candy at the lowest price possible. This further decreases the amount of money that you spend on Halloween this year. There are two major tricks here. The first is to buy candy that’s not chocolate because chocolate is almost always the most expensive candy in the store. The second is to buy in bulk at discount stores like a local dollar store, or even major shopping outlets like Costco or Sam's Club. Implement these two tricks and you should find yourself able to buy what you need without breaking your budget.
If you’ve been smart about managing your money this Halloween then you may even have some money left over in your Halloween budget. Consider using it wisely at those post-Halloween sales to pick up the costumes and decorations that you’ll want next year at a real bargain.