Halloween doesn’t mean spending tons of money to look good

Four dollars isn’t just the price for a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk. It isn’t simply the cost of a magazine or a pack of cigarettes either.

Four dollars is the total price for one student’s Halloween costume.

Carissa Hays, sophomore pre-nursing major, didn’t want to spend the money she spent on the previous Halloween’s pre-packaged costume.

“Last year I was a German beer girl,” she said. “After buying shoes and everything, the total cost of the outfit was over $100.”

This year Hays took a different approach when she and her boyfriend decided to dress as Clark and Ellen Griswold from the movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

Hays said her boyfriend spent about $10 total because he bought a few extra accessories to make his costume.

“We went to the thrift store back home in Columbus and found everything we needed,” Hays said.

Although the two of them shopped while they were home, students don’t have to travel to Columbus to get the thrift-store deals for their costume.

Einstein’s Attic, a store on Cherry Street, has everything a student could need. The store contains hats, wigs, heels and everything in between. The walls are lined with rainbow boas, makeup and even a couple big baby bottles.

Sherry Dakes, one of the store owners, said business and choice of costume varies from year to year.

“A lot of customers like to put their own costumes together,” Dakes said. “But we can try and hunt for the items they want if they give us time.”

Dakes said a lot of costume ideas depend on what movies came out that year. With the release of “The Dark Knight,” a lot of people came in for purple outfits to be the Joker, she said. When “The Big Lebowski” was popular everyone came in for bowling shirts.

Some students, though, don’t look any further than their own homes to make a costume.

Victoria Bussberg, freshman international relations major, decided to take her old printer box and a few permanent markers to put her costume together.

“I’m going as a calculator that spells ‘BOOBS,'” she said, laughing.

Bussberg said she is going to put the box over her head in order to make her costume complete.

Matt Pilasky, freshman political science major, is taking old beer cases and putting together a “beer suit” for his Halloween debut.

“I’m just putting them together and going as a beer box, I guess,” Pilasky said.

But not everyone has her costume yet.

Karlie Burns, sophomore nutrition and food major, said she doesn’t know what she and her boyfriend are doing.

Burns went to Einstein’s Attic to get ideas. She said the thrift stores are the best place to go to put something cheap together.

“They aren’t trying to rip you off like the Halloween stores,” she said. “Here you can pull something together and it won’t cost you $100.”

Contact features correspondent Laura Lofgren at [email protected] and fashion reporter Jessica M. Kanalas at [email protected].