My kids love dressing up each year. We’ve had a grand time picking what we’re going to be — but I’m not dropping $400 on costumes just because there’s 5 of us. Here are some great costumes we’ve done and the ways I made it work inexpensively.

PIRATE

This little pirate was simple but fun! Black pants he already owned, paired with a black shirt he already owned. I walked into a thrift store and searched quickly for something black and white stiped in the shirt section — easy to find! Then I grabbed a red t-shirt to slice off sleeves for the tie accents. I cut the v-neck and small slits to lace the neck. For the hat and eye patch, I used single pieces of $1 felt from WalMart. The eye patch needed elastic, and I cut the skull & crossbones out of another sheet of felt.

TOTAL SPENT

B/W shirt - $2 thrift

T shirt - $1 thrift

Felt - $3 (2 black, 1 white)

Elastic - had this, you could also use a slice of t-shirt

I LOVED MY COSTUME. My tiara was also a cut-up milk carton that I attached sticky foam to. My dress was a $2 thrift find accented by gold leather from a $1 thrift store handbag plus a $1 leather belt.

(Unrelated — my husband was Snake Plisskon.)

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Superheroes are really popular costumes which means they are EXPENSIVE. Ugh. And the worst part is, the garment is total crap. Nasty, itchy and see-through for $29.99. I hate that. Plus, Halloween (here at least) is cold and my kids get stuck wearing it over a sweatshirt! My solution was $10 sweatsuits from WalMart that we converted.

Batman was a solid black sweatsuit with a $1 Dollar Tree mask that I cut out $1 sheets of felt for the logo.

Cyborg was a grey sweatsuit with $1 sheets of felt glued in place for the shapes. The arm cannon was a cut up, taped, and spray painted Amazon box. The mask, believe it or not, is the bottom of a milk carton, sliced in half diagonally, and spray painted! It gave the perfect too-square appearance to the robot side of his face.

Superman I used $1 sheets of felt and use the leftover red to add accents to a robe I found at a thrift store.

TOTAL SPENT

They wore the sweat shirts and sweat pants afterwards as clothes, so not sure that counts as a costume. But still…

Robe $2

Sweatsuits - $10 each

Felt - grey, black, yellow, red, blue, grey, black $7

Mask - $1

Already had the spray paint

Milk carton

Now, my nephew (not pictured) was the Flash, and my niece was Wonder Woman. To round out the crew my sister (Wonder Woman’s mom) was Hippolyta and I was Antiope (Robin Wright’s character from the movie, Wonder Woman’s aunt.)

You’ll see Snake Plisskon reused the pirate’s eye patch…

TOTAL SPENT

Belt $1

Dress $2

Handbag $1

Sticky foam $3

Milk carton

OLD MEN

This was a hilarious and easy idea. The wig was a big splurge for me - $10. White spray-in hair dye would have been cheaper but he had a buzz cut at the time. It came with the moustache so we split it between the two kids — count it as $5 each.

We borrowed the cane, built the walker from PVC pipes and corners I got at Home Depot for $6, and picked the clothes and glasses at a thrift store.

The PVC turned out to be really fun. I cut it into pieces and used various ends to make the shape. They were so cheap! Although I got some weird looks in the plumbing section…

TOTAL SPENT

Vest $1

Suspenders $1

Socks $1

Pants $1

Walker from PVC $6

Hat $1

We already had the bow tie and I drew wrinkles on with brown eye pencil

Lion

Look at this handsome lion. What a good boy. I bought this, as I also bought my rainbow wig, but they get used year after year. The law of averages, you know… the more we wear them, the cheaper they become!

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Doc Brown was another $10 WalMart sweatsuit — this time in white. The accents were a sheet of $1 felt. We used work goggles we already had and repurosed last year’s old man wig. The giant remote control was a dowel rod (89 cents from WalMart) and a small spray painted Amazon box.

Marty McFly was layers of collared shirts (thank you, 1985) and red puffer vest I already owned. All we needed was a skateboard and he was instantly recognizable with his partner.

The Flux Capacitor was too little to eat candy, so we just used puffy paint on a plain white onesie we already had that ** might ** have had some unmentionable stains up the back…