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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at IUP chapter.

There are only 30 days until Halloween! The -ber months are my absolute favorite time of year – which means it’s never too early to start decorating for fall and planning those Halloween costumes. If you’re like me, you already have a million and one ideas, but if you’re not, this list is perfect for you! I’ve compiled my favorite costumes and I’m doing it as cheap as possible for those college budgets. The costumes should be scary – not the price!

Medusa and the Statue

This is perfect for the girly who loves to dress up and the SO or bestie who doesn’t. All the statue has to do is wear gray and maybe some gray face paint. Then Medusa gets to go as hard or as soft as she wants. 

If I were doing this costume, I’d use these Face Gems coupled with a green outfit, Snake Jewelry and maybe a Snake Headband to finish off the look!

Pirates

This costume is perfect because you can do it as a group and be a cute gang of pirates, or you can do it as a solo costume! For the ultimate pirate look, I would do a simple corset, a skirt or pants, and a flowy shirt. A bandana, eye patch etc, are all optional depending on what type of pirate you want to be!

Here’s a Corset for under $10! As a bonus here’s a Shirt and Skirt that makes a complete costume for under 30 dollars!

The Pixie hollow fairies

This is a great group costume! Everyone just picks a fairy – Tinker Bell, Silvermist, Rosetta, Iridessa, Fawn, Vidia, Periwinkle – and they are basically all monochrome costumes. Just add fairy wings and you’re all set! You can even include the boys on this one if you want by adding Terrance, Bobble, and Clank! 

Here’s a pack of 6 Fairy Wings for $20

The Heathers

The Heathers are definitely perfect for that theater group of friends. This one is a little pricier because the costumes are more involved. However, with these links you can manage to find all the right colors and pieces for under $50!

  • Plaid Skirt I personally would do black and white for everyone!
  • Cropped Jacket These are more modern, as suit coat jackets can get expensive. If you want the oversized suit coat look, try looking in the men’s sections of thrift stores!
  • Thigh High socks These are the ones I found, but there are tons out there, you can even go to the color coordinated section of Spirit Halloween and they usually have them.
  • Wooden Mallets I like the look of all the girls on Pinterest holding the Croquet mallets, however, it’s hard to get the authentic mallets without buying a croquet set. Plus those are very long to carry around. If I were doing this, I would get something like this and paint them the right colors/to look like croquet mallets. 

Bambi and Thumper

I love this idea and it’s a great last minute costume. Since in my vision, this is a pretty makeup dependent costume, it is also pretty cheap! All you would need is a brown outfit for Bambi and maybe a headband. Then for Thumper, a gray outfit and maybe some bunny ears. Then it’s easy, just give yourself some deer and bunny makeup and you’re all done! 

Glinda and Elphaba 

Another one for our musical theater girlies. Glinda and Elphaba are the perfect options for the besties who have different styles.

For Glinda, a cute pink dress, a crown and wand will do. There are a lot of options for the dress but this one and this one are my favorites! For crowns and wands, any one will do. You could probably find a good option at Walmart. But here is a cute pink crown to match for $10

For Elphaba, any black dress you have would work, but if you want to match Glinda in styles, both the first and second link to the pink dresses has a black option. Here is a stereotypical black witch hat and black socks both for under 10 dollars!

The Disney Princesses

I would love to do a big group costume with a bunch of Disney princesses. Obviously there are a lot of different ways to dress up, you could go modern and just wear the color of your princess, you could go full on dress. But whatever your group decides, you need to all pitch in and buy this set of crowns and wands! There is literally a crown/color associated with each princess and it comes in a pack of 12 for around 25 dollars. I’m obsessed! 

Of course there are so many more costumes you could do for cheap, whether it be by your self, with a partner, or in a big group. These are just some of the ones I would like to see out there this Halloween. Not only are they cute but they won’t break the budget!

Happy Haunting!

Grace Fette is a chapter leader at the HerCampus at IUP chapter. She loves to write lists, zodiac posts, and personal experiences. Grace is a Junior at IUP. She's an English Writing studies major with Women and Gender studies and Communications media minors. She is president of Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society Xi Xi chapter and her work has been published a number of times. She loves to hang out with friends and her sister, hike, and read poetry. She is always up for coffee, cute breakfast places, and concerts of any kind!