By DJ Williams

It’s October 1st, and everyone knows what that means – less than one month until Halloween! If you’re like me, you leave your costume to the last minute every single year. All the good costumes are already gone by then. But never fear – here are just a few ideas for cheap Halloween costumes you can do yourself.

Costume #1: Lumberjack

Simple, recognizable, and reusable – everything a cheap Halloween costume should be. It may be a traditionally male-oriented costume, but don’t let that stop you! As you can see, there are two ways you could go – the more traditional lumberjack, or the Brawny man, who I’m going to assume for the purpose of this article is a lumberjack.

What you need:

• Jeans (I’m assuming you already have these.)
• A plaid shirt
• Either an axe or a roll of paper towels – you can make the former out of cardboard, if you’re        feeling particularly economical. Otherwise, you can buy one at Spirit or Party City for around ten dollars.
• Suspenders (optional)
• Beanie (also optional)

Costume #2: Vampire

 We’re all well-aware of the fact that you can purchase a vampire costume from pretty much any costume retailer. One of the fancy ones that comes with a big cape and some fancy-looking clothes. This isn’t that vampire costume. This is the budget vampire costume.

What you need:

• Black clothes – pretty much anything works.
• A pair of fake vampire teeth
• Some body glitter, if you want to go the Twilight route. That’s very much optional.

Costume #3: Apocalypse Survivor

This is one of those costumes that, if you wear it, you can be fairly certain that you’ll be spared the awkwardness of realizing you came as the exact same thing as five other people. You might have to explain it to everyone you run into, but it’s a trade-off.

What you need:

• Old clothes, or any clothes that look a little worn down. You can fray or cut them up a little bit for added effect.
• A fake weapon: A fake knife, a toy gun, a plastic bat, whatever.
• Fake blood to splatter on your clothes
• A backpack (you can stuff it with whatever you want, or use it to collect candy if you’re going trick-or-treating!)
• Bandages (optional)

Costume #4: Undercover Superhero

The image of Clark Kent tearing open his shirt to reveal his Superman costume underneath is ubiquitous. Why not use it as inspiration for a Halloween costume?

What you need:

• A shirt with the logo of your favorite superhero
• Other clothes (You can’t wear just the shirt. That would be weird.)
• A jacket that zips or buttons

You can wear the jacket closed – and when someone asks you what you’re supposed to be, you can open it up to reveal your secret identity. Just don’t tell too many people.

Costume #5: Ghost

Okay, this one is a little bit of a no-brainer, but no list of cheap Halloween costumes is quite complete without the bedsheet ghost.

What you need:

• A white sheet
• A pair of scissors
• A sense of humor

Have fun!