You can tell Halloween is fast approaching by the discount store aisles overstuffed with creepy costumes, ghoulish candy bowls, haunted house party wear and 10-pound bags of fun-size candy bars, but not everything Halloween-related has to cost you. Following are 10 cool freebies you can find online to enhance your Oct. 31 trick-or-treating and partying:
Printable coloring pages
Raising Our Kids
features a large selection of Halloween-theme coloring pages that you can print out at home. Images includes a black cat hiding behind a pumpkin, lots of ghosts, a scary tree, a witch riding a broomstick, ghostly eyes and a skull in a top hat. Creepy screensavers, ringtones and games
Free Halloween Screen Savers offers free haunted house and horror-theme screensavers, MP3 ringtones, spooky wallpaper and a collection of ghoulish games, including online pumpkin bashing, a downloadable "Axe Marks the Spot" and a downloadable "Halloween Horror" Tetris clone game. A bag of candy
Take an online survey at Wholesome Rewards and you can get a free, 120-count bag of fun-size candy bars, including 100 Grand, Baby Ruth and Nestle Crunch. Be prepared to have to answer a lot of questions and click through a lot of links, though. Printable Halloween party invitations and games
Halloween Games: A to Z offers cute printable invitations for kids' Halloween parties, as well as printable Halloween picture bingo, a pin-the-tail-on-the-cat game and a monster-match memory game. Spooky sound effects
A1 Sound Effects
offers multiple Halloween sound effects for sale, but you can access individual free ones too. Sound effects include a cackling witch, a ghoulish laugh, a screaming woman and booming thunder. Print-your-own masks
Family Education
features a whole slew of Halloween printables, including patterns for cat masks, pumpkin masks, a Martian mask and a bat puppet. Free costumes for the kids
Preschool Rock
and Anytime Costumes
have partnered to put on their Second Annual Halloween Costume Exchange, where you can search for Halloween costumes other families are giving away, or donate your own old costumes for other parents whose kids need costumes for trick-or-treating. The costumes are free and "as is." All you have to do is negotiate shipping costs with individual donators.
