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Halloween Decorations Halloween Decorations
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Halloween Safety Guide Halloween Safety
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afety information, tips and suggestions for a safe Halloween.
Halloween Tips 101 Halloween Tips
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Special FX & Props Special FX & Props
Spooky Special Effects and Props for your Halloween haunt.
Pumpkin Carving Pumpkin Carving
Pumpkin carving tips for carving your Halloween Jack O' Lanterns.
Halloween Music & Movie Reviews Music & Movies
Suggestions for the best Halloween music and Halloween movies.
Halloween Crafts Halloween Crafts
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High Tech Halloween High-Tech Halloween
Ghostly gadgets for your computer, cell-phone, Palm Pilot and more!
Halloween Guide and Ideas
 
Halloween Guide and Ideas

BUDGETING FOR HALLOWEEN


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 start building your Halloween mad 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!

Start A Pumpkin Bank
Always trying to find new ways 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!

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 sales 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
Old Computers and Game Systems
Dolls, Action Figures and Toys
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 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.

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!
 

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