Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Fun ways to make money from Halloween
Reading Time: 4 minutesSpooky season is finally upon us. With children excited to dress up in their costumes and devour sweets by the bucket load, adults can often be left out of pocket. But don’t fear! Whether you are a fan of the holiday or not, there are plenty of easy ways to make money from Halloween.
Here are some scarily easy ways to earn a bit of pocket money that could serve you well over the festive season:
- Get paid to scare people
- Sell terrifyingly delicious home-made treats
- Earn cash as a Halloween make-up artist
- Fix and tailor Halloween costumes
- Create a haunted house
Get paid to scare people
Do you enjoy playing pranks on family and friends? Revel in the look of momentary terror/shock/horror on their faces as you spring yet another nasty surprise on them?
Well, perhaps it’s time you put that talent to good use and earned some cash while at it. The first way to make money from halloween is to scare people!
Not sure where to start? Draw inspiration from Wrinkles the Clown, a mysterious resident of Naples, Florida in the United States, who – for the fee of a few hundred dollars – will scare the heebie-jeebies out of misbehaving children. He can, of course, also be appointed to perform a range of other pranks but, so far, his most successful gigs have come from parents desperate to discipline their unruly children.
In one case, Wrinkles was caught on CCTV emerging from under the bed of a sleeping little girl. The carefully planned prank was orchestrated by the girl’s parents, who wanted to save the footage and scare her with it whenever she misbehaved.
Another famous case saw Wrinkles appear across the street from a bus stop where a naughty 12-year-old boy with a bad case of Coulrophobia waited for a ride.
Wrinkles’ pranking prowess has even resulted in a documentary about his life.
Sell terrifyingly delicious home-made treats
If you’re a whizz in the kitchen, you can harness those skills to make some unique and delicious Halloween treats.
As people are becoming more aware of their health, as well as the environmental impact of things like discarded sweet wrappers and the like, home-made sweets are making a massive come-back.
With Halloween less than two weeks away, the best way to market your products will probably be word of mouth. Do a post with beautiful photographs of the types of goodies you’ll be making on social media and ask your friends to share. Be sure to include the price, your contact details and what type of delivery methods will work best.
Read our article on how to make money from selling cakes, jams and sweets.
Earn cash as a Halloween make-up artist
Another way to make money from Halloween is to do scary hair and makeup. Halloween is the one event of the year where people really go all out with dressing up for parties. Thing is, not everyone knows how to do this well. So, if you can do a mean cat eye and whip up a glam hairdo in a matter of minutes, you may just have struck gold.
According to Bidvine, the average price hair and makeup artists charge between £60 – £130 (an average of £75) per job. Not bad!
You may, however, want to consider charging a special price for Halloween to get more people interested.
Once again, advertising your services to friends and family, as well as on your social media pages, will be the quickest way to reach a relevant target market.
Find out more by reading our article on making money as a mobile hairstylist.
Make, fix and tailor Halloween costumes
While sewing may seem like second nature to you, some people have never pushed a needle through a piece of fabric, let alone wound a bobbin!
In the run-up to Halloween, you can be sure that those with a tendency toward procrastination will be on the lookout for last-minute costumes.
Take advantage of this by offering a selection of quick-and-easy costumes that people can pre-order. You can offer them for sale or rent them out, depending on what works best for you and your client. Furthermore, you could consider charging a premium fee for custom outfits and special requests.
If you’re not that confident in your sewing skills just yet, you could always test the market by offering alterations and quick fixes for outfits that need some TLC.
If you need a further boost, read our article about how to make money sewing.
Create a haunted house
Finally, something for those with a little extra chutzpah and panache! This is one of the most thrilling ways to make money from Halloween.
Become the talk of the town, the hero among your friends and acquaintances, the legend of Halloweens to come, by transforming your home into a truly chilling haunted house.
There are, of course, different levels of scariness when it comes to creating a haunted house. So, start by trying to determine who your target market is. If it’s for the neighbourhood kids, steer clear of anything too disturbing. If, however, your audience is made up of adults with a penchant for horror film aesthetics, you can take things up a good few notches.
Depending on how much effort and money you spent on creating the experience, you can charge an entry fee of anything between £2 and £25.
Check out this article on Spruce Crafts for some ghoulishly good ideas
Great ideas for Halloween money making.