Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

5 Ways to Have a Frugal Halloween

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While the marketers would like us to think that Halloween should cost a fortune, it doesn’t have to.  On average, Americans in 2013 planned to spend $75.03 on Halloween candy and costumes.  (My guess is those with more than two children will spend significantly more than this, especially if they choose to buy costumes.)

If you use some creativity and resourcefulness, you and your kids can have a fun Halloween without spending a fortune.  Here’s a way to have a ghoulish Halloween without frightening your wallet.

Save Serious Money on Costumes

5 Ways to have a frugal halloween

If you have the cash to spend, you can certainly find costumes at a discount by visiting second hand stores or perusing Craigslist.  However, if you don’t have the money to spend or you simply choose not to, there are still plenty of adorable costumes for your kids:

Use costumes you have around the house.

If you have dress up clothes, those are fair game for a Halloween costume.  Another idea is to use your child’s clothing from extracurricular activities.  Does your son have a little league uniform?  Great, he can be a baseball player.  Does your daughter take dance classes?  She can be a ballerina.  Does your child have a pair of skeleton pajamas?  They could easily double for her Halloween costume.

Marketers want us to think that a child should be able to pick any costume he or she would like for Halloween.  However, you can limit this to whatever type of costume the child can find around the house.

Create your own costume.

With a little creativity (and maybe some face paint), you can likely find a good costume with things you already have around the house.  An old white sheet makes for a great ghost costume and your child’s clothes along with face paint can help create an adorable hobo.  With the help of Pinterest, you’ll find plenty of costume ideas you can make at little to no cost using items around the house.

Have a costume swap.

If you have old costumes that the kids have outgrown or no longer want, why not get together a few of your friends and have a costume swap.  You may leave with a new-to-him costume for your child, and you will have decluttered your home of a few costumes you’ll never use again in the process.

Save on Candy

Reuse candy.

Now, before you get upset with the wording “reuse candy” hear me out.  Buy a bag or two of candy to give to the trick or treaters.   If you have young children, take them early in the night.  When you get home, go through the candy that your kids don’t like.  (As a kid, I hated any candy bars that had nuts in them.)  This candy will likely go in your own mouth if the kids won’t eat it.  Instead, put it in your candy bowl and give it to the trick or treaters at your door.

Turn off the light when the candy is out.

I know some people who live in subdivisions popular with trick or treaters.  These people will buy five, six, seven bags of candy.  That adds up fast!  Instead, buy whatever amount of candy your budget allows.  When you run out, turn off the outside light, turn off the lights in the front of the house, and go settle in to watch a movie or read a good book in the back of the house.  Don’t feel pressured to buy more candy than you comfortably can financially.

What are your favorite tricks to save on Halloween?

New Addition to the Beating Broke Family

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Things have been a bit hectic around here over the last week or two. We had a baby!  Surprise.  I seriously realized after she was born that I hadn’t even mentioned the fact that we were expecting on here.  I guess when it’s the third child, the excitement level and having to tell the whole world aren’t as high.  🙁  So, sorry about that.

We’re Pregnant!

Better late than never, right?  Never mind that it’s close to 11 months later.  Our little baby is now a little over a week old.  Insert cute picture of infant here:

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If there’s one thing that we’ve noticed with the third child is that it’s so much different than the first two.  With the first one, we did the typical new parent thing and bought every little gadget and gizmo that all the ads tell you that you need to have.  We had so many clothes, diapers, and formula that we could have opened up our own infant store.  With the second one, we already had a bunch of the gadgets and furniture, so it was cheaper.  Plus, we’d already done this once, and knew what we thought we needed.  We only bought the stuff that we thought we needed.

The third child is a totally different thing.  We’ve done this a couple times, but the last one was 5 years ago.  We’d thrown out most of the furniture, car seats, and most of the toys.  We’d also given away most of the other stuff we had.  But, instead of going out and immediately re-buying all that stuff again, we did it the cheap way.  Some friends of ours recently had a child, so we have borrowed a lot of the gadgets.  Car seats, swings, etc all are  from them.  Another friend of ours recently had a baby that had conveniently just grown out of her newborn clothes.  We had an instant closet full of clothes for our baby. There are some other things that we had to go out and buy, but our costs for new things has been pretty minimal.

Of course, there’s no level of borrowing or purchasing that will get us full nights sleep right now. 🙂

Thinking back, we were early to the baby-making game among our friends.  Borrowing stuff, and receiving hand-me-downs wasn’t really possible with the first two.  I’m glad it is possible here.  I highly encourage you to find as much stuff to borrow if you’ve got friends that have kids.  And it helps if you’ve got friends that have recently had babies too.  Especially when they’re ready to get rid of the boxes of clothes that they’ve gathered.

How do you help make baby cheaper?

 

 

Frugal Estate Planning

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One of the joys of getting married and having kids is that you then must face your own demise.  The poet Donald Hall wrote about this in his poem, “My Son, My Executioner” stating, as a man and his wife look down on their newborn son, “We twenty two and twenty five/who seemed to live forever/observe enduring life in you/and start to die together.”

Cheery, thought, eh?

Estate Planning Isn’t for the Faint of Heart

Yet, if you have children, you must plan for their future should you die while they’re still young.  I know, no one wants to do this.  In fact, 4.5 years ago when I was pregnant with my last child, I sat down to do a will and trust kit that I got online.  I only got about three questions in, before, in my wild hormonal state, I broke down crying when I started facing the questions about when I would want the cord pulled.

It took me another four years to feel ready to have our will written.

I know.  Irresponsible.  Yet, it took me that long to accept that yes, I will die at some point, and yes, I need to plan for it now, while I’m still healthy and (relatively) young.

It Takes a Strong Wallet, Too

However, facing my own mortality was only part of the problem.  Once I was ready to have a will written, I had to face the fact that it was unbelievably expensive!

We live in the suburbs of a large city, so I don’t know if that’s the problem, but the first lawyer we contacted quoted us $2,500 to set up our will.  When I told him that we are living on a smallish income and paying down student loan debt, he generously agreed to put us on a payment plan without charging interest.  While I appreciate the generosity, we still couldn’t afford $2,500, even on a payment plan!

Next, I contacted a lawyer from my small hometown, but he still was expensive, quoting $1,200 to $1,500.  As Dave Ramsey would say, “It’s not in the budget.”

A Frugal Estate Planning Option

Frugal Estate PlanningIn the end, we made a compromise.  My husband and I both knew we needed a will in place, but we didn’t have the kind of money lawyers were asking for.  Instead, we turned to LegalZoom.

For less than $250 total, my husband and I each had our wills drawn up.  We each answered a few simple questions online, and each will took less than 30 minutes to create.  Then we paid and waited for the lawyers at LegalZoom to look over the document.

Less than a week later, the wills came through the mail and were in our hands.

When we don’t have so much debt and have a larger income, we plan to get a will and trust set up in person with a lawyer.  However, for now, on our budget, LegalZoom works perfectly.  We have a will in place should anything happen.

Have you used LegalZoom for a will?  Would you consider it?  Does $1,200 to $2,500 for a will created by a lawyer seem outrageous or normal to you?