means it’s okay if your daughter changes her mind the day of
Halloween because you’ll have several back-ups.
You might even find what she’s looking for with the tags
still on. It’s happened before. My favorite thing about these
stores is that you’ll often find costumes that weren’t even on
your radar. Resale stores always have a great selection of cur-
rent characters but they also have ones that you might not have
thought of but that your daughter loves.
One year I took my middle daughter to look around and she
found a witch costume that I recognized from a very expensive
children’s catalogue. She absolutely loved it because it was so
different than the traditional witch costumes with its glittery,
lime green and hot pink adornments. We grabbed it off the rack
for $8 and it was in perfect condition. I happened to have the
catalogue still at home, so I looked up the original price. It was
over $100 brand new and you know what? This is still one of
her favorite costumes today, and I get so giddy every time I see
how happy she is wearing it because it was so inexpensive.
5) Shop after Halloween for
next year’s costumes.
If you don’t know this tip by now, you need to get on the
bandwagon. The day after Halloween, costumes will go on sale
but not low enough that you want to start buying them. You’ll
need to wait three to five days before costumes get down to 70-
90%. Most of them will be picked over by then but they’ll be so
cheap, you can piece different costumes together or keep them
for your kids’ dress-up bin.
I like to divide and conquer so I park myself in one store
and my friend will go to another. That way we can hit up more
than one store at the same time. We’ll call each other if we see
something one of our kids might like and then we’ll reconvene
over coffee and get all excited about how much money we
saved.
You’d be surprised how many times the same costume
comes out the very next year or a similar costume comes out
with only one or two minor changes from the original. You can
oftentimes get these super cheap after Halloween and just tuck
them away at home for the following year. Plan on spending
some time digging through the racks though. Sometimes cos-
tumes are folded, dropped, or tucked behind random items in
the store from people who were going through them just like
you are now. Their idea of the store not having a good selection
just might be your jackpot for finding the perfect costume.
Parenting journalist Meagan Ruffing gets so excited about go-
ing on a hunt for Halloween costumes every year. She loves
finding good deals and gets just as excited as her kids do when
she finds the perfect costumes for them. You can check out more
of her articles on Pinterest, Facebook, and at www.meaganruff-
ing.com.
October 2018 WNY Family 13