How to Buy a Last-Minute Halloween Costume for Under $20

Every time I find myself stumped about what to wear on Halloween, I take a trip to the nearest Goodwill and buy the weirdest shit I can find in there. I always walk out with the makings of an inspired costume—one that I know I won’t encounter on anyone else over the course of the weekend, and that reliably makes me a few new friends.

It’s a tradition born out of necessity, which is to say that the first time I did it, I was broke as dirt. It was my sophomore year of college. Halloween was only a few days away, and I had no idea what to do about a costume. Whatever I was going to wear had to cost roughly as much as a Subway sandwich. While most of my friends went shopping for ready-made getups at Party City or Spirit Halloween, I walked over to the Goodwill on the edge of campus, hoping to cobble something together.

I spent half an hour sifting through rows of blouses and Hawaiian shirts and dress pants, to no avail. And then something caught my eye. It was a thick, deep blue, XXXL women’s nightgown, patterned with purple roses. I didn’t know what kind of costume I might be able to fashion from it. I did know that it was $6.99, and deeply bizarre. So I bought it, along with a long strand of fake pearls that I figured might help me complete my look, whatever it was to be.

On Halloween night, I cut a long slit down the middle of the nightgown and carved a dozen or so holes into the fabric at random. I threw on the pearls and a blond, mullet-like wig, whose origins, all these years later, have become a mystery to me. (All I know is that I didn’t pay anything for it.) I walked out into the cold October evening, wearing nothing else but a pair of boxers, two different socks, and one large snow boot. When my friends asked me what I was, I told them, simply, “Night hag.” They loved it.

If you still haven’t figured out what to dress up as this year, fret not. Salvation awaits you at your local Goodwill. I’ve put together a few tips on how to shop for a costume within its confines. Armed with the following—along with about half an hour and $20—you should have no trouble finding a show-stopping costume, regardless of how little time you have to assemble it. 

It is a waste of your time. If there was ever anything good there to begin with, it’s gone by now. All that’s left at this point is probably either comically small (e.g., a child-sized tutu) or unconscionably basic (e.g., a Spiderman bodysuit). You might be tempted by the sight of one of those multi-piece costume sets in a weird plastic sleeve, but take a closer look, and you’ll find that a) it’s something dumb and overdone—a pirate, for instance—and b) most of the component parts are missing. Do you want to dress up as a pirate with no eyepatch, no hook, no tricorn hat, and no peg leg? Of course you don’t. For you are not a fool.

If you decide what you want to be for Halloween before you get to Goodwill, you will find nothing there but disappointment. They don’t have that shirt Furio wore when he danced with Carmela in Season 4 of The Sopranos, or one of those preposterously large hats Pharell always has on, or the outfit Mary-Kate Olsen sported while she ripped a cig with Olivier Sarkozy and his daughter in 2012. At best, you’ll walk away with a mediocre approximation of whatever it is you seek, and leave your fellow partygoers scratching their heads. 

You need to arrive at Goodwill with an open mind, and be inspired by what you discover there. Don’t try to find the right garment; let the right garment find you.

Maybe it’s a 12-foot, green-and-yellow boa that looks like it was chewed on by a rabid animal, or a pair of Moon Shoes™, or a dress made out of what looks like the silken hair of an Afghan Hound. Whatever it is, purchase it. You want the weirdest shit they have on offer. 

From there, decide on something to call yourself based on the freak material on your back. Your costume doesn’t have to make sense at first glance. All it really has to do is make people look at you, raise an eyebrow, and ask, “What the fuck is that thing? What are you supposed to be?” If you can supply them with an unorthodox answer and say it with confidence—e.g., “Guy at Mardi Gras who woke up in the gutter” (for the boa), “Moon Shoes” (for the Moon Shoes), or “Afghan Hound” (for the hair dress)—they will get it, and they will laugh.

The year after I dressed up as the Night Hag, I went back to Goodwill for a new costume. I came across a large plastic tub filled with old bath mats. I bought three: a fuzzy pink one; a thin, orangeish one with various fruits on it; and a circular yellow one. 

Back in my dorm room, I cut a large hole in the pink one and pulled it over my head. I punched two holes in the fruit one and ran a shoestring through them, then tied it around my waist, transforming the mat into something halfway between a skirt and a loincloth. I didn’t really know what to do with the third bathmat, so I carried it around with me all night, placing it on the floor and standing on it wherever I went. For good measure, I put on the blond wig I’d worn the year before. When my friends were once again forced to ask what I was supposed to be, I just said, “Bath mat.”

Just because something isn’t technically an article of clothing doesn’t mean you can’t wear it. Keep an eye out for items that could be transformed into a costume. There’s usually a whole section of Goodwill filled with old VHS tapes that cost, like, 25 cents a piece. You could buy 80 of them, come up with a way to affix the paper boxes in which they’re packaged to your body, and call yourself “VHS Man.” Or how’s this: You pick up a set of curtains, drape them over your shoulders, and draw blinds on your torso with a Sharpie. Voila—you’re a window. Once you expand your search beyond the realm of clothes per se, you’ll enter a world of possibility.

It doesn’t matter whether the wig comports with everything else you’re wearing, and it doesn’t need to resemble the hair of the character, historical figure, animal, or hairless inanimate object you’re trying to embody. All that matters is that it is a wig. People love that shit. Everyone at the party you go to will ask to try it on, and—if they were wise enough to wear a wig themselves—you’ll get to try theirs on in exchange. You inevitably run into a bunch of people you’ve never met before at a Halloween party. Wig-swapping is a great way to break the ice.

That’s about all I’ve got for you guys. Godspeed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a run to Goodwill. I still have no idea what I’m going to be this year.

Drew Schwartz is a senior staff writer at VICE. Follow him on Twitter.