A guide to budget Halloween costumes

Soon it will be time to shit your pants with fear and/or go round your estate demanding money from the neighbours. For one night a year this stops being ‘A Saturday night in Doncaster’ and becomes ‘Halloween’, a free for all where donning masks and demanding money from strangers becomes legal, even encouraged.

But supposing you’re a bit strapped for cash this year and can’t afford a fancy costume? What do? Never fear, because help is at hand with the World Of Crap guide to budget Halloween costumes! Following our handy guide, you’ll soon be scaring the local children and old people, and it will cost you next to nothing!

1. Ghost

In order to be a truly terrifying ghost, you need to make the following noise – “Wooooooooooo!” Everything apart from the noise is pretty superfluous, so you shouldn’t worry about it too much.

However, you should still wear something ghost-like. It is technically acceptable to just go round in jeans and a One Direction t shirt, as long as you remember to keep going ‘Wooooooooooo’, but a better overall effect can be achieved with the correct clothes. As you know, ghosts don’t wear clothes, they just go round with a sheet over them to hide their nakedness. You can do this if you want to be truly authentic, but it’s October and it might be a bit cold. For the most effective effect, wear a scary ghost cloth over your head. Don’t bother cutting eye holes in it, because then you’ll be left with holes in whatever you’re using, and it’s not really worth it for one night a year. Besides, bumping into random people can be scary too.

2. Robot

This costume is good because it leaves a lot of room for artistic interpretation. Much like the ghost costume, all you really need to do is make the appropriate noise – ‘BEEP BEEP BEEP’ or similar.

However, unless you’re going as a super realistic android, you should also have something that looks a bit futuristic on your person. Why not try a box? Or a pan? Pans are metal, which is what robots are made of. Again, don’t worry about not being able to see, although if you really must you can cut holes in the box. You can’t cut holes in the pan though, unless you have some sort of blowtorch, which goes against the spirit of not spending much money on your costume.

3. Peppa Pig

Everyone loves Peppa Pig, from babies to old people who have never heard of her. This costume is ideal for the kids, as it really captures the magic of the show.

The most realistic way to emulate everyone’s favourite porcine 8 year old is to use a popular and readily available product – bacon.

If you’re going for a sexier look, maybe for a grown up party, you could always make a snazzy Peppa Pig bikini, like the one I am wearing in the photo. Obviously you cannot see this, because it’s October and I am wearing clothes over my bacon bikini because it’s cold.

You can attach bacon to yourself in the following ways – Superglue, string, staples, really strong tape. I wouldn’t recommend wearing bacon straight from the frying pan, as it is likely to burn your face off.

4. Barry Scott

This costume is brilliant because you only need one prop. All you have to do to be a convincing Barry Scott is to hold a bottle of Cillit Bang and shout a lot –

Don’t have any Cillit Bang? No problem! Simply give any boring household product a makeover –

5. Edward Cullen

It’s easy to be everyone’s favourite Tim Burton inspired kitchen utensil themed freak of nature, and for next to no money! Do you have scissors? Of course you do! Everyone has scissors! So, simply attach the scissors to your hands, or just hold them. Either way is fine. Now you too can attract a 17 yr old schoolgirl with one facial expression!

6. DFS

For the true experience of everyone’s favourite lying furniture store, why not try dressing up as one of their fine settees?

For added effect, you could also promote the fact that you’re on sale, and that the sale will end really soon, honestly –

7. Devil

This is a brilliant costume for someone who doesn’t have much time to prepare. Perhaps you’ve been invited to a last minute party? Or perhaps you’ve found out about a party you haven’t been invited to, and now the host has to invite you to avoid arguments and Facebook drama?

The most important thing you’ll need for your costume is a fork. All satans carry forks, for poking people up the bum and for eating their satanic tea. They probably eat coleslaw or something.

Of course, satans are also red, but you don’t need to let this stop you. If you can’t paint your face red, simply think of something embarrassing for the whole evening.