I limit myself to $200 a year for several reasons.

First is that if I didn’t I would buy too much stuff each year to even use and I know it!

Second is because since I have been doing this for going on eight years now, I have a lot of props that I have been picking up or making over the years already and since we only do our garage up for the occasion, there is no real need to buy much more than that.

Third is because $200 can go a long … long way if you shop smart.

While I have already discussed a couple items that I have ordered for specific props (see this post here) I also picked up a couple more props. I know that some haunters really frown upon buying store props but I don’t see a problem doing that as long as they are well made. Quite honestly I do not have the equipment to make a lot of the stuff that I want for my sets and when I can spend $25 at the Halloween store that is preferable to investing $100’s of dollars in equipment.

One of the items I picked up this year were a set of these fake flame hanging cauldrons:

They were on sale and will help add some light which has been a problem in recent years with my set designs. While dark is good, too dark is bad. I know some people hate these things but the effect is good and I want to knock down the number of candles and open flames because of my plans for the central table this year. It is going to be impossible to put the candles on the table where they normally are when I have an anamatronic going off every time the kids come up to it. Just too many opportunities for bad things to happen.

I also picked up this little fella which is a disembodied head:

He’ll get used somewhere in the setup I am sure.

And of course nothing goes as far for as little money and the ever useful, all purpose fake spider webs.

These three bags will be more than enough to go up and down the driveway and all throughout the garage as anyone that has every used this stuff knows.

Total cost for this stuff was about $65. When you add in those other props that I have ordered the total is going to be close to $200 total. But I have a little left over from last year too (about $35) so I used it to buy this mask:

It’s a very inexpensive scarecrow but the mask doesn’t have to be great. It might look cheesy but once the lights are out, the fog machine is on and the other props are going off it will more than do its job.

Here’s a look at the garage BEFORE I do anything to it just for reference: