We've got the best cheap Halloween costumes, decorations and party ideas to ensure the cost of your party doesn't get scary!
Halloween needn’t be an exercise in buying expensive costumes and splashing out on overpriced plastic.
Whether you’re throwing a party, dressing up or staying in with a scary film, here’s how to spend less on the spookiest night of the year.
Cheap Halloween costumes and decorations
Grotesque (and silly) Halloween costumes are a big part of the fun. Aldi is selling dressing up sets for £3.99 each, Tesco has kids’ costumes for £4 and upwards and Asda is offering a range from £10 for kids and adults at George. You should also check out eBay and Amazon for other deals.
Poundland is selling Halloween accessories, decorations and lighting for £1 apiece. It does deliver most of these items, but delivery costs £4.
You could always have a go at making your own decorations and costumes. YouTube has a whole load of tutorial videos if you want to follow along, like the video below which shows how to make bats which will keep the kids busy before the real fun begins.
Food
Tesco still has Halloween Pumpkins for £1 each online available for delivery until Saturday 31st October.
Asda was selling carving pumpkins for £2 each and Sainsbury's had 27cm+ 'Halloween Monster' pumpkins for £3 each online, but both have sold out. Check in store to see if you can still pick one up.
While pumpkins are the classic Halloween decoration, we ditch around 18,000 tonnes of innards every year, according to the Pumpkin Rescue campaign. Don’t waste yours! Take a look through loveFOOD’s top recipes for pumpkin and squash and its horrible Halloween menus to find inspiration for some tasty themed food.
For quick and easy shop-bought sharing food, Tesco is selling selected pizzas for half price during the spooky season, alongside other multi-buy offers and discounts.
[SPOTLIGHT]Asda has a selection of multi-buy offers for party food including garlic mushrooms and party sausages for £2 a pack.
Sainsbury’s also has a range of party food that it has earmarked for adults and kids. Big kids can opt for the latter.
Meanwhile, 24x330ml cases of Pepsi, Irn Bru and Dr Pepper cost £7 at Poundland. Factor in the £4 delivery fee if ordering online, but this might be worth looking at if you're buying other stuff from this pound shop.
Cheap Halloween games
Halloween party games are cheap and good fun to boot. Apple bobbing, for instance, only sets you back the cost of a bag of apples.
If you’re looking for the best price on a bag for your party use mySupermarket to compare costs at all the major stores.
You can also set your friends and family the slightly sweeter (and infinitely more frustrating) challenge of eating a doughnut dangling from a string. Sainsbury’s sells five-packs of sugared ring doughnuts for 65p. If you think it sounds easy, watch the video below and see how wrong you are!
Halloween trick or treat
Stock up on sweets for the neighbourhood ghouls.
Asda is slashing the prices of party mix packs – we’d shoot for the Mars Fun Size Party Mix 35 Pack, which contains a mixture of small treat bags. This is down to £3 from £6.50. Tesco has a wide range of Halloween sweets including a Haribo Mega Party Mix (400g) for just £2. While Morrisons is offering two for £3 on chocolate mini treat bags.
A ‘quiet’ night in
If you’d like to settle in behind the curtains this year (with the lights off, pretending not to be home), a scary movie or two might be on the cards.
You might enjoy The Babadook, which was recently added to the Netflix streaming service and was met with critical acclaim upon its release last year. If you don’t fancy that, Shortlist has put together a list of the 10 scariest films that are available on Netflix.
Alternatively you can rent or buy other horror movies from blinkbox or consider the selection available on Amazon Prime Instant Video, or NOW TV.
Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video and NOW TV offer free 30-day trials, which you may wish to take advantage of, but remember to cancel your subscription before the period expires if you decide you don’t want to keep the service.
Otherwise, keep an eye on the Radio Times listings, as no doubt broadcasters will be scheduling some horror classics to air on Halloween.
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