Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellam are frugal living experts and the authors of the Dining On A Dime Cookbook. Dining On A Dime will help you save money on groceries and get out of debt, by cooking quick and simple homemade meals. For free tips and recipes, visit LivingOnADime.com.  These ladies have come up with great, fun, money saving ideas for Halloween and were thrilled to share these ideas with our Peppers and Pollywogs audience.

You can really come up with some cute and clever ideas for costumes, even if you don’t feel particularly creative. Don’t wait until the night before Halloween to start your costumes. Look at the people and things around you and ask yourself how ” how can I recreate this?”

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Adorable on their own, the aww! factor goes even higher when babies get dressed up for their big Halloween debut. Since babies only wear costumes for a few hours one night of the year, they do not need to be elaborate or expensive.

Celebrations.com’s Karen Perkins has a list of five Halloween costumes for babies. From entirely store-bought to completely thrown together, here are her ideas — and all of them are under $25. Get the cameras ready!

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The Halloween spirit can hit you at any time, but a clever costume may be hard to find. Never fear, Jeanne Benedict of Celebrations.com has some quick and easy costumes that you can put together with items from home to help you look your best on Halloween.

Last-minute costumes seem to be most successful when they are conceptual such as “E-Male,” where a guy wears a big “E” on his shirt, or “Static Cling,” an oldie but goodie costume made by pinning a sock to a shirt.

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It’s that time of year to think about Halloween costumes, especially if you plan to make your own creations this holiday season.  Looking for some no sew ideas that will take hardly any time and are budget-friendly too?  Here are a few Halloween costume ideas that will take little more than a few costume props, pins, cardboard, etc. that look very creative for Halloween this year:

Bunch of Grapes
Wear purple and green sweats or tights, etc.  Blow up purple and green balloons and attach all over your body with safety pins.  Wear matching makeup on hands and face to blend in.

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Looking for costumes that are really popular for your boy this year?  2009 seems to be the year of the movie character.  Costume shops all over the country are forecasting hot costumes based on this summer’s action blockbuster movies.

One of our favorite retailers for party goods, Celebrate Express, is also a huge favorite for the Halloween season with its storefront Costume Express.  It is a huge timesaver (and money saver — no add ons and “Mom, can I get” when shopping from your computer desk) not to have to run to your local big box retailer.  All of these “hot for 2009″ costumes can be purchased there.

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This Halloween season you may find your kids wanting to take a step back into a different era and dress up as someone from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s.  What’s great about these retro Halloween costume ideas is they are budget friendly and can easily be created from what you may already have at home or find in a thrift store.  Perhaps your child and her friends can enjoy an afternoon outing to thrift stores to pull their retro costumes together with each other.  Fun!

DIY 1950’s Costume:

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Bella Cullen, the main character in the Twilight book series, is bound to be a popular Halloween costume this year. The great thing is that Alice, a main vampire character, is always trying to dress Bella up, whether for prom or her wedding, so you can take this costume in a couple of different directions.

First Choice: Bella attends the prom on crutches (she’s such a klutz!). This is an easy costume to put together, but make sure you add the crutches, too!

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