Happy Halloween! Thrifty Style!

How was everyone's Halloween last night? I have always loved this "holiday", maybe because it's the day before my birthday and I used to have Halloween/Birthday parties every year growing up. Trick or Treating and dressing up was my favorite! We would always go to the best neighborhood every year to get the best candy and see the most decorated houses!

I also always love shopping the Halloween clearance sales every year! Last year at Target I got a bunch of decorations for under $10 so I was excited to have Naomi help me put all the new stuff out this year. She also loves Halloween which makes it that much better for James and I!


Since we went to the Dominican Republic on our family vacation last week I didn't have a whole lot of time to plan for Halloween this year. I sold a couple of costumes on eBay before I left but I still had no idea what Naomi wanted to be or what we could afford. She had her heart set on Belle there for a while but everything I found at the thrift or consignment stores was too big. BTW - ALWAYS buy Disney store costumes when you find them for cheap! They re-sell for a minimum of $20 at Halloween so buy 'em up and save them til after Labor Day!

Mr. Mason was a little monkey, which is very fitting for him since we call him our little monkey! I found this Baby Gap costume for $2.99 at Value Village a few weeks ago! I should be able to re-sell his costume on eBay or at a consignment sale next year for around $10-15! Gotta love it when you can use something and make a profit on it too!


Now let's talk about my little drama queen, Miss Naomi Grace. Gosh I love my daughter to pieces but 3 years old - this is a hard age! She is in-decisive and for a bit there I thought for sure we were going to be going trick or treating in her ratty Sleeping Beauty costume as a Princess since we couldn't agree on anything else! Then we went to the good old thrift store a few days before we left for vacation and found a Disney Store Minnie Mouse dress for $2.99! YAY! She loved it and it had a good "twirl" too it so we were set! I just needed some ears... Luckily, my local consignment store had a pair in red and white for only three bucks! We had the red tights from last year's costume and the shoes from her flower girl debut this fall so the whole costume only cost $6.00!


The dress is obviously pre-owned but hey, for 3 bucks I figure she can play in it all year and we'll re-donate it next fall or I'll try and make a few bucks back on it at next year's consignment sales. If I sell it along with the ears I can probably make at least my $6 back. Win! Here is the same dress that recently sold on eBay.

I also didn't have a chance to coupon for any good candy this year, plus I am trying to avoid buying any candy as we just plain don't need it in our house! We took the kids to an event at my husband's work where they do trick or treating around the offices and they have pumpkin painting and a train ride. The people were literally shoving HANDFULLS of candy into Nay's bucket so we came home with a ton of candy and Naomi had fun when I let her "share" it with the few trick or treaters we got at our place last night.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the rest of the candy besides eat gobs of it! Naomi's dentist office does a candy buy-back program that we might participate in. They will give her $.50 per pound of candy that she turns in and will donate the candy to our troops over seas, not bad for all that free candy and we don't have to worry about eating all those calories!

Wait... did I just manage to make money on Halloween this year?!