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2 Get thee to the thrift shops. Salvation Army, Value Village, Goodwill and the like are all good for picking up very cheap clothing, but far and away my favorite costume source is the chain thrift department store Savers, which always seems to have the best selection of costume-worthy clothes around. At Halloween time, they even have a special Halloween center – though the costumes stocked are of the cheap-o, gaudy, ready-made variety, this is a great place to pick up fun wigs for less than $10, cheap feather boas, Halloween makeup, as well as assorted Halloween décor. Of course, garage sales and your very own closet can also be good sources for inexpensive/free costumes.

3 Shop often. If you’re trying to save money, you generally make the sacrifice of having to put in a little more time and effort. Secondhand shopping is the best way to acquire cheap, interesting costumes, no question, but the fact of the matter is that it frequently takes a lot of hunting around before you find exactly what you’re looking for. And speaking of exactly …

4 Forget about exactly. This, naturally, isn’t a much of an issue if you’re evoking a pumpkin, or a spider, or a made-up whatever of your own crazy imagination, but when you’re aiming for a very specific person or character, there’s a tendency to get hung up reproducing every little tiny detail. I know it’s hard, when your heart is dead-set on becoming some particular person for the evening, but you’ll save yourself a whole lot of headache if you just accept the fact that you will probably not be the spitting image of Britney Spears, or the Mona Lisa, or Spider-Man, no matter how hard you try. The trick is to find the essence of a character or person … what it is about a character that makes them most recognizably them. And here’s a handy little hint: frequently, the thing that really, truly makes a costume isn’t the clothing as much as the little touches: the accessories and props, the hair and makeup, the attitude. If your character has a signature car, make yourself a cardboard vehicle in which you can make your grand party entrance. If your character speaks in an accent, start honing your imitation skills.

5 Learn to sew. If you have a sewing machine, all the better, but at the very least, being able to sew a simple straight stitch by hand will give you much more flexibility come costume-shopping time. If you can do a little basic, makeshift tailoring, you can look for clothing in sizes that are bigger than you normally wear (and at thrift stores, I find, it’s generally easier to find clothing in very large sizes than in my average, very common size). Pants that are too long can be quickly hemmed shorter; shirts that are too big can be taken apart, taken in, and sewn back together. 

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