By Kayla Landers, October 28, 2025
From cozy nights to taking part in fun DIY activities, there are many inexpensive ways you can celebrate the fall season without breaking the bank. Here are five ways students can enjoy Halloween without having to spend a ton of money.
Halloween Movie Night
Whether you prefer a scary movie or a nostalgic one, curling up with a cozy blanket and some snacks can be a perfect way to spend a lazy fall night. All that’s needed is a subscription to a streaming service and a bit of Halloween spirit.
There are multiple cheap ways to stream movies. For example, Hulu offers an 80% discount for college students, making the subscription $1.99 per month. To save even more, YouTube has a selection of Halloween films for free.
Some of the top-watched favorites like “Scream,” “The Shining,” “IT” and “Beetlejuice” can provide a sense of nostalgia for viewers due to their prominence in the horror movie genre.
“My favorite Halloween movie is Tim Burton’s ‘Corpse Bride,’” said visual communications design student Priscilla Gonzalez. “I love the aesthetic, music and the fact that it is a stop motion animation.”
Going back in time to see what films helped shape the horror genre and subgenres can also be a fun way to explore the scary movie craze.
“Psycho” by Alfred Hitchcock helped to start the infatuation with psychological and horror movies in general, while “Halloween” by John Carpenter ignited the trend of slasher films. “Night of the Living Dead” by George A. Romero introduced the template for zombies in film. Even though it may not be as scary to us nowadays, it did spark terror back in the day.
Pumpkin Carving
Carving pumpkins is not only an opportunity to be creative, but is also inexpensive.
Walmart carries pumpkins for approximately $4, while Vons carries them for anywhere between $7 and $12.
Pumpkin carving originated in Ireland and Scotland and is associated with the figure of “Stingy Jack” or “Jack O’Lantern,” who in stories was a lost soul who roamed the Earth, primarily preying on unsuspecting travelers.
When people first started following this tradition overseas, they’d carve vegetables, most commonly turnips, with faces to scare Jack O’ Lantern’s unruly spirit away. The first signs of this tradition were seen in the early 19th century, but the usage of carved pumpkins as Jack O’ Lanterns was first recorded in 1866.
However, when immigrants arrived in North America, they ditched carving the small vegetables and instead utilized pumpkins, which were more readily available in America.
There are many websites online that you can use to find stencils to carve your pumpkins that don’t cost anything. Carving pumpkins can be even more fun if you turn it into a friendly competition between friends to see who can create the best design.
Spooky Baking Night
Students don’t have to wait until Halloween night to fill their stomachs with candy or other sweet treats. One of the most loved fall cookies is Pillsbury’s Ready-to-Bake pumpkin, ghost and spooky cat cookies.
Many people consider these treats as a staple for the holiday season, with the cute designs and delicious taste becoming engraved in society’s collective memory.
Target carries these cookies for $3.99, which is considerably cheaper than making cookies from scratch and having to buy all the ingredients. To make cookies from scratch, without having any ingredients to begin with, it costs approximately $30, which isn’t always ideal.
While preparing these cookies and waiting for them to bake, throw on a Halloween playlist and dance to all the best spooky songs for an even more festive night.
Making DIY Halloween Decorations
The ability to look up cute or scary Halloween DIY decorations and make them yourself is easier than ever, thanks to social media like TikTok and Instagram.There are a plethora of websites and articles with countless ideas for crafts anyone can do with just a little bit of work.
An easy but cute craft is to cut out small bats made from either cardstock or construction paper, and tape them to the inside of a lamp shade of your choice. Another cute DIY is painting any glass jar of your choice into a pumpkin and placing a candle, either real or fake, on the inside.
The prices of these crafts can range significantly, but there are tons of ideas for affordable Halloween crafts.
Jian Lee, an assistant professor of art, said the cost of creating art all depends on the medium that students choose, as some are more affordable than others.
“Each medium has different levels of prices,” Lee said. “If you’re just starting out, you could get a cheaper version, and if you’re really into it, you can buy a more pricey one.”
Making Your Own Halloween Costumes
According to chemical engineering student Sri Almaty, dressing up for Halloween and going out with friends is one of the most exciting aspects of the holiday season. It gives individuals the opportunity to put on outfits they would never normally wear and have fun at parties or get-togethers with friends.
Pinterest has tons of inspiration when it comes to costumes, and depending on how large or small an individual’s budget is, you can figure out what DIY costume would work best for you.
You might run into issues of AI-generated content on Pinterest, which can make it harder to find the right costume. But you can go into settings and turn that feature off to avoid this issue.
The amount of money spent on a costume does not have to define how good a costume is, thanks to local thrift stores such as Goodwill. Some cheap options for costumes that can be thrifted with ease are angels and devils, since all you need are white or red pieces of clothing.
Dressing up like your favorite animal can also be a fun and cheap idea because of the casual nature of the costume. These are just a couple of options, but feel free to be as creative as you want.