Cheap and Easy DIY Halloween Costumes

Hello, Halloween procrastinators!

This is certainly not the year for buying pricey, ready-made costumes (although apparently "Gilt Man" and his buyers didn't get the memo...) or even for splurging on clothes and accessories to put your own together.

Instead, here are some cheap and easy (but not boring) DIY costumes for this recessiolicious Halloween:

Crayon: dress all in one color, and wear a cone party hat in the same color. Face paint optional.

Cocktails: there are lots of fun, easy, and original ideas to be had in this category. For instance, be Sangria by dressing in purple and stringing candy fruit onto jewelery. Added bonus: purple makeup.

Song Titles: another category full of possibility. They're so easy but people will get a kick out of them they're original, and surprising. "The Long and Winding Road" requires only black clothing and yellow duct tape dashed along the legs and torso. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" promises lots of fun with glitter and sparkly jewelery! Note: by no means feel confined to Beatles songs!

Bat(/batman/batwoman): Dress in all black and use an umbrella to fashion bat-wings!
First, remove the shell of the umbrella from the tube and cut it in half. Next, pin each half to the sides and arms of a black dress. Cut ears out of black paper and attach them to a headband with a little glue

Wind-up Doll: It's easy and its cheap, and you get to walk around acting creepily wide-eyed and soulless all night!
Wear light foundation and paint circles of rosy blush on your cheeks. Wear any cute dress, and a big hair bow. Key elements: big fake eyelashes and, most important, fashion a wind-up out of cardboard.

As you can probably tell, I happen to prefer costumes not based on actual humans or human characters. But that's just me...

Recession Red

Paul Kreider, owner of California's Ross Valley Winery, is adapting to the recession by using a creative pricing strategy.By May of last year, Kreider had begun to see his sales and revenue seriously affected by the slump in the economy. So he decided to respond in kind. He created a blend that he called "Recession Red" and priced it to match the market. Every day he sold his bottles of "Recession Red" for exactly 0.1% of that day's Dow Jones index. When he began to sell "Recession Red" in March of '08, it cost $12.50 a bottle. By last October he was selling it for $9.44. How's that for a silver lining?
Before long Kreider's marketing gimmick was paying off - "Recession Red" was bringing in as much as 20 % of his sales; even when the wine sold below value, Kreider mantained, "what I lose in sales, I gain in publicity."
He must have been on to something, because several other wineries are now jumping onto the trend. Concannon Vineyard (of Livermore, CA) was second to ask for trademark approval of the term, on June 3, 2008, and Woods Lake Winery (of Woodinville, WA) was third, on October 2, 2008.

Can't Afford a Zebra??

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We've all been there.

And it can be pretty rough, especially when you have a busload of kids counting on you to serve them up some magic and excite their suggestible little imaginations.

But this clever zoo owner in Gaza saw away around the prohibitive cost of a real live zebra ($40,000) by creating a little DIY version of his own. He used two donkeys the zoo already had on-site and applied black stripes of women's hair dye with a paint brush.

(They tried paint first but it "didn't look good.")

Because a $1,000 TV is OK, But The Delivery Cost Would Have Been Over Budget?

(from thereifixedit.com)

Recessiotarian Journal: Weekend Edition

Recessiotarian Weekend:

You may have noticed that the whole past week I got pretty gastro-economically lucky in my freeloading experiment, what with conferences, connections and generous third-wheel "dates".

But the arrival of the weekend always brings the temptation to indulge in social eating and drinking. That combined with losing the week's work-sponsored events meant that my mission got tougher.

To keep costs in check, I mostly dipped into the food I had bought with my communal group, for instance lunching on some granola with milk , fruit, and cheese at home on Saturday.

But then, on Saturday evening, Judaism came to my rescue. I went to a party in honor of the Jewish holiday Simchat Torah and had a free meal of delicious veggies with humus, fruit, chips and salsa, yummy pretzel twists, and other goodies. Metzuyan!

On Sunday I had some fruit for breakfast, and then splurged on a bagel and salad (shared with the lovely AT) for lunch at 'Snice in Park Slope. In the evening I made a communal meal with my kitchen group - mediterranean pizzas with feta and goat cheese, spinach, mushrooms, and lots of garlic, on whole wheat flatbreads, accompanied by a big fresh salad; fresh applesauce with leftover apples from last week's shop and brownies with peanut butter chips. Delectable and, because it was shared between the six of us, suprisingly cheap!

And so ends my guest appearance on The Recessionist. I hope that you've enjoyed hearing of my exploits, and possibly have even learned something - that is, besides the sad fact that the culinary life of a broke recent grad is a redundant, sneaky, and less than healthful affair. It may be all these things, but it is at least never boring.

Till next time, Recessiophiles!

Recessiotarian Journal: Day #5

Recessiotarian Friday:

Today I woke up revitalized and more determined than ever to succeed in my quest for free food. And then, for breakfast I ate a cereal bar and a piece of fruit. Womp womp. My first not-free meal yet, and a demoralizing start to the day.

But, for lunch I took some leftovers to work from Tuesday's dinner - Tuesday to Friday was, I know, pushing the leftovers limit, but the chinese food was still delicious, albeit with a decidedly... free... "aftertaste".

After work I indulged in a Pinkberry yogurt for about $5, but for dinner I ate leftover Indian food from Thursday. Later I went to the the house of your very own Brooklyn Recessionist, and ended up - you'll never guess- eating some more! But at least it was free - I had some of her delicious curried lentils and then a dessert of apple crumble, made from fresh-picked apples from upstate. Yum.

Recessiotarian Journal: Day #4

Recessiotarian Thursday:

Today felt like the humpday of my week of scrumptious scrounging.

In the morning I attended a workshop on energy options for low-income people (run, ironically, by electricity giant National Grid). The workshop turned out to be a lot of obnoxious corporate back-patting, but also a major source of free food!

For breakfast I helped myself to three plates of delicious fruit, making up for lost vitamins (shocker alert: free food isn't always the healthiest.) I also grabbed a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese, and managed to slip half a muffin and five mini-croissants into my bag at various times virtually undetected.

Those five croissants later became one buttery, flaky lunch.

For dinner I had another AVODAH program at Hunter College School of Social Work, and event that, lucky for me, provided free (and delicious) Indian food which again, translated into plenty of leftovers for a spicy late-night snack.

Recessiotarian Journal: Day #3

Recessiotarian Wednesday:

I'm back, people, and I'm full.

This morning for breakfast I ate the croissants that I'd snagged at yesterday's conference (yes, all three) and for lunch had the two leftover conference sandwiches. Thank you, LEAP for subsidizing my existence. For dinner I was supposed to meet up with my friend LS and was all set to shell out $3 for delicious (and cheap!) Mamoun's falafel. When we met up, however, her boyfriend was there and he generously told us he was treating us to dinner! ANOTHER free meal I didn't even solicit. We got Chinese food (are you seeing a pattern here?) at Suzies Chinese Restaurant in the Village. It was totally delicious, but it did make my second night of Chinese food in a row. This would be unremarkable but for the fact that that monotony applied to my breakfast and lunch as well. It felt like Groundhog Day in my stomach.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to reawakening my taste buds after this week is over...

Recessiotarian Journal: Day #2

Hey Recessiophiles, I'm back!

So yesterday, Tuesday, was Day 2 of my freeloading food experiment, and thankfully, I had another conference on my schedule, this one sponsored by LEAP and called Answering the Call: Civil Legal Services Respond to the Economic Crisis. It was held at a fancy law firm on 5th Avenue, and in case you're not familiar with the freeloader code, that means not only free food but good free food. Score and double-score.

As you can imagine (mouth watering and wallet throbbing), they had quite a spread for breakfast. Along with two cups of Starbucks coffee I snagged a bagel, three small butter croissants, and a danish. They offered only those tiny dessert plates, and my loot was towering threateningly on the three I'd filled as I covertly walked them over to my table. I threw two of the plates into a ziploc bag I'd brought along for that express purpose (resorting to napkins on Monday taught me to be prepared!)

In the hustle and bustle my sneakiness went mostly unnoticed - until the food attendant walked over to give me the look of death as I tried to approach the table for (yet) another serving. Under his reproachful gaze I carefully retreated back to my seat. Throughout the day they kept us going with coffee (I had two more cups over the course of the day), soda (one diet coke for me - got to keep that caffeine trip going) and bottled water. At lunch there were several kinds of sandwiches available - being a vegeterian as well as a recessiotarian, I took half of a Greek wrap and half of an avocado/sprouts/carrots sandwich (for then) and shoved two more sandwiches into a handy Tupperware container in my bag (for later). Then I grabbed Diet Cokes, an apple and a bag of Doritoes (also the "later" column). The only person who commented on my squirrel-like behavior was my coworker, and I ultimately explained my BkRecessionist challenge to him. Forgive me?

For dinner I had free kosher Chinese food sponsored by AVODAH, the Jewish Service Corps that I'm a part of. There were also TONS of leftovers, which I'm sure you'll hear about later...

By Tuesday night I was already starting to feel sick from the amount of gorging I was doing when food was right in front of me, and also from how much super sweet or super salty food I had been eating (free food is usually not the healthiest!) But, I hadn't even gotten through 48 hours so I swallowed hard and tried to digest.

Guest Post: The Recessiotarian!

This week on the Recessionist, one woman bravely goes where ... well, where all too many of us have gone before. But she does it better. Call it an experiment in freeloading, or maybe an investigation into the art of mooching. Call it what you will - we just call it necessary. For the next seven days, this blog will accompany one very broke friend of mine (E.B) as she discovers just how little a truly motivated Recessionist can get away with spending on food in a week. With no further ado, EB and her week of cheap.
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Hello readers! I'm honored to be doing this guest spot on Brooklyn Recessionist. This week I will regale you with tales of taking cheapness to the next level and rising to the challenge of finding out just how much free food one person can get in a week.
I'll say right now that I plan to not purchase a meal or any food for consumption from Monday through Thursday. I buy groceries collectively with the other women in my house, so I pitch in $15/wk, but I hope to not use any of those items for the meals I describe as "free" this coming week. Because, well, it's more fun that way. So here's how it went down on Day 1!

Recessiotarian Monday
This morning I went to a training for work on Public Assistance budgeting at LSNY served us coffee and a delicious breakfast of fruit and pastry. I chowed down on the food like because it was my job and, despite a weird look from the guy sitting behind me, also slipped a danish and a croissant into my bag, which I had for lunch. Hello Sugar Rush, why don't you stay a while.

After work I met up with a friend who has access to the VIP Lounge at the Lincoln Center where they serve free drinks to anyone cool enough to hang there :) They were showcasing some fancy vodka so I had passion vodka, soda, and grapefruit juice (ok, I had 3) and then we headed off to Williamsburg where we had planned to buy pizza for dinner. Tony's pizza is not only delicious (they have lots of creative pies too) but at $2/slice is in my normal budget. Once we got there, however, AK's friend MT bought a pie and refused to allow me to contribute - ANOTHER FREE MEAL! I went to bed content - nothing better than a free buzz and a belly full of free pizza.

Freeloading Fitness

A while ago I posted about the cheap-as-can-be gym memberships offered through the city's Parks and Recreation Department, and, believe me, I am still a devotee of their $75 yearly deal. But that doesn't mean that I can't get down with some free fitness as well.

Brokelyn.com has published a guide of all the gym deals and promotions one could possibly find all over Brooklyn. From 1-day passes to a full week (!), Brokelyn calculates that the truly motivated Recessionist could end up with 26 straight days of free workouts.

Bed-Stuy Booming during the Bust

During the past decade of rising rents and gentrification, Bed-Stuy has been all but unaffected by the various results of a growing economy. But in this recession, as its neighbors to the south, east, and west are slumping along, Bed-Stuy has kick-started its own mini-economy.

The New York Times reported last week on a bunch of new spots opening up in the Do-The-Right-Thing nabe, like a wine bar called Therapy, a flower shop called Creative Blossoms, and Saraghina, a trattoria which opened in June to rave reviews.

So, why is the block blowing up now, after all this time?

For one, many of the residents of Bed-Stuy work in government sectors like education and health care, meaning that their salaries haven't plunged in the crisis as have those of the bankers and corporate execs living in other neighborhoods. Instead, their spending power remains relatively stable.

Also, entrepreneurs are attracted to the cheap rent in the neighborhood. Low overhead is always an appeal, but even more so in a time when loans are hard to get.

What's best, these new businesses are opening to a hungry audience. For years Bed-Stuy residents have been spending all of their hard-earned dough in Manhattan and more upscale Brooklyn neighborhoods (more than $30 million according to a 2008 study done by the market research firm LISC MetroEdge). So they are understandably eager for both the privilege of stimulating their own community's economy and the convenience of traveling only around the block for their cocktails or pizza. (Oh, and "put some extra mozzarella on that motherfucker and shit. ")

BBQ for the Recession!

courtesy of thereifixedit.com