This is what my friend’s dining room table looked like after trick or treating on Saturday night. Clearly, she has more candy than any one family could ever need. But, hey, if you’re watching your pennies, that is free candy after all. So how do you make the most of it? Here are 5 frugal ways to reuse Halloween candy.

1. Freeze it for later use. Toss the chocolate candy in the freezer so it doesn’t melt or spoil before you can enjoy it. When you get a sweet craving, you’ll know where your stash is (albeit cold but fresh).

2. Bake with it. I know plenty of at-home chefs who raid their kids’ M&Ms and Snickers bars, and use them to whip up some delicious desserts. (Check out these mouth-water confections on Epicurious.com.)

3. Pack it in lunches. To me excess Halloween candy=saving money on packed lunches. You can probably get away with no snacks necessary for a month if you start using the Halloween candy in your kids’ (or your own) lunchboxes.

4. Use it for crafts. I think the best crafty way I’ve seen for reusing Halloween candy is to use it to make an Advent calendar.

5. Stockpile it for future celebrations. I’ve heard of moms who repurpose Halloween candy into the goody bags they give out for the kids’ birthdays. Guess that would be a money saver, huh?

Do you have any creative ways for reusing Halloween candy–you know, besides trying to eat all your favorites before your kids notice or your husband figures out where you’ve put the stash?

It’s no surprise that when you try to green your Halloween, you’ll likely save some money, too.

Here are 3 quick ways you can make this Halloween a bit more eco-friendly; these tips are courtesy of my friend Jodi Helmer, author of the awesome book The Green Year (Alpha Books, 2008), which provides 365 simple and inexpensive green ideas for each day of the year.

1. Green the goodies: Think of all the candy wrappers that one little goblin throws in the trash – then multiply that number by the millions of trick-or-treaters who are happily gobbling up their stash. You can still satisfy a sweet tooth but save cash and on the resulting trash by buying treats in bulk to minimize packaging waste.

2. Come up with a new costume: Skip the racks of colorful costumes at the mall (most of them are made of non-renewable materials like plastic) and come up with a creative idea for a homemade costume. Add a bandana to a pair of jeans and a denim shirt for an instant cowboy costume or put on your wedding dress and go as the Bride of Frankenstein. Or, host a costume swap with the neighbors. The costumes their kids have outgrown might be the perfect fit for your little one. (You can do what I did one year and go vintage: I took my daughter to a thrift store so she could buy real 1970s clothing when she decided she wanted to be a 1970s hipster for Halloween; she’s next to “Dorothy” in the picture above.)

3. Choose natural decorations: Bails of straw, colorful mums and a handful of gourds are great seasonal decorations that can be composted on November 1st. If scary witches hanging from the oak tree and plastic pumpkins on the front step are a must-have, scour secondhand stores. (I was in my local Habitat for Humanity ReStore store last week, and it had tons of Halloween decorations for about a quarter a piece. Note: the Christmas decorations were already out, too, so if you want to stock up on the cheap, now’s the time to head out to thrift stores for those decorations before they get totally picked over.)

Of course, it goes without saying that you ought to go out trick or treating with a reusable bag to hold your stash–whether it be the reusable tote you bring to the store with you or that old standby from years gone by, the pillowcase.

About once a week I check the traffic reports for my blog. This helps me to get a better sense of the kinds of articles that visitors to this blog read the most–and what kinds of posts I should write in the future to continue drawing more readers to my site.

For some reason this week visits to last year’s posts on Halloween spiked. They were in the top 5! So I’m guessing that, with October right around the corner (hey, it’s October tomorrow!), people are starting to think about how they can stay sane financially–and be green–this Halloween.

With that in mind, here’s some Halloween advice for you to consider. Some of this is a best-parts version from last year, and the rest is new.

* Start clipping coupons now.

I noticed that in my last Sunday circular that there were a ton more candy coupons. I’m sure it’s timed to go along with Halloween shopping and that’s OK. I’m cutting them out so when I need to stock up, I can save a few bucks.

* Use gift cards whenever possible.

By now you’ve figured out that I’m a huge proponent of gift cards and have created a gift-card wallet so that it’s easy for me to find gift cards and use them whenever I shop. If you happen to have gift cards left over from the holidays or birthdays, and these gift cards are for stores that sell Halloween supplies (I’m thinking Target or Toys R Us), use them.

* Break out the reusable shopping bags as trick-or-treating bags.

There’s no reason to spend money on plastic trick-or-treat bags this year, if, like me, you’ve been stocking up on reusable shopping bags for your grocery-store trips. Your kids will be just fine using one of these bags to carry his or her treats on Halloween night. Plus, it saves you money and reduces waste. (Now about all of those wrappers….)

* Buy treats with recyclable wrappers.

There’s no doubt about it that all of those mini candy bars can create a lot of waste. So why not choose treats to hand out which wrappers can be recycled? I’m thinking specifically of Oreo and Chips Ahoy wrappers, which Terracycle accepts for recycling into school supplies, bags and other reusable products. The only catch? Your school or organization has to have an account with Terracycle to collect those wrappers for cash. That is, Terracycle gives you $.02 for each wrapper, and even sends you a prepaid shipping label to return the wrappers. This would be a great fundraiser for any school that serves these kinds of treats in its lunchroom, a soccer team that gives these out as post-game snacks or families that might hand out mini-bags of these cookies on Halloween. (Check out this link for products Terracycle makes out of Capri Sun pouches.)

* Minimize costumes by using what you have or buy used.

One year, my eldest daughter was determined to be Dracula’s daughter for Halloween. Since we didn’t have any appropriate clothes in our dress-up box, I decided to splurge on a costume from one of those seasonal Halloween stores. If you’ve ever been to one of these places, you can imagine how I started shaking in my shoes when I saw the price tag for her desired costume: $60. This past Halloween, we went the recycle/reuse route for costumes, with one daughter dressing up as a lady at a masquerade ball, all with props we currently own. The other daughter wanted to be a hipster from the 70s, so I took her to a local thrift shop where we purchased an authentic 70s polyester blouse and white go-go boots. She used her own white tights, mini skirt and headwrap, and borrowed a pair of big-as-your-head sunglasses from a 70-year-0ld aunt, who wore those big-as-your-head sunglasses on her head in all seriousness in the 70s. Final cost for the costume? $17.50.

* Use what you already own for decorations.

One of my favorite Halloween decorations is a scarecrow, something I remember my mother making each year when I was a kid. The scarecrow would sit on the front stoop and “greet” our trick or treaters. She would use her “grubs” (grungy clothes she wore for gardening) to dress the scarecrow. All she needed to buy was some hay. If you don’t have any “grubs,” you could raid your hand-me-down clothes or the ones you were going to donate to charity, and use them to make your scarecrow. (Check out my post later this week on ways to recycle blue jeans, beyond using them to make a scarecrow.) After Halloween, compost the hay and keep the clothes for next year’s scarecrow.

* Don’t drive to trick or treat–walk.

The old neighborhood where we lived was quite big (250-plus homes) and quite hilly. Every year you were bound to find at least one family where one parent stayed in an idling car and crept along, from driveway to driveway, as the kids and the other parent went trick or treating. In our $4-per-gallon-for-gas world, that seems like a ludicrous thing to do. Plus, idling is bad for the environment. So if you’re tempted to drive your kids around for trick or treating this year, figure out a Plan B so that you can leave the car in one place and walk.

What are some of the ways you’re going to be green and frugal this Halloween?

Move over Christmas: Halloween is turning into a major shopping holiday, with Americans expected to spend $5 billion dollars in 2007 on this spooky celebration, so says a National Retail Federation study on consumers’ Halloween spending habits. Broken down it comes out to just under $65 per person. That’s a number that can give a frugal gal like me a fright.

The challenge for us this year will be to allow our girls to enjoy Halloween without feeling like we overspent and they didn’t get ripped off. Plus, I’ve got to stay true to my green mission. Here are some ways I’m planning on maintaining my budget and not leave our bank account in a scary state:

* Start clipping coupons now. I noticed that in my last Sunday circular that there were a ton more candy coupons. I’m sure it’s timed to go along with Halloween shopping and that’s OK. I’m cutting them out, even though at our new house we probably won’t get any trick or treaters. We live down a dark, dirt road, and I doubt anyone would dare venture down here after dark on October 31. But I might need candy for one of the kid’s classroom parties. Hey, if I can save $1 here or there, that’s great.

* Use gift cards whenever possible. For years now we’ve had a Toys R Us credit card that gives us Geoffrey Dollars/Toys R Us gift cards as our reward. If I need candy or anything for my kids’ costumes, I’ll make sure I shop at the stores where I’ve got gift cards first. (Note to self: remember those canvas bags in the car’s trunk so you can avoid taking any new shopping bags from the store. Hey, these canvas bags could double as terrific trick-or-treating bags, too!)

* Minimize costumes. One year, my eldest daughter was determined to be Dracula’s daughter for Halloween. Since we didn’t have any appropriate clothes in our dress-up box, I decided to splurge on a costume from one of those seasonal Halloween stores. If you’ve ever been to one of these places, you can imagine how I started shaking in my shoes when I saw the price tag for her desired costume: $60. This year I’m encouraging my daughters to be a zombie soccer player and a zombie volleyball player so that they can each wear their team uniforms, and all we need to do to complete their costume is use stage makeup (from our dress-up box) to make them look dead. I might tease out their hair, too, but even with that added part of the costume, I know that I’ve got all the supplies I need under the bathroom sink.

* Use what you already own for decorations. One of my favorite Halloween decorations is a scarecrow, something I remember my mother making each year when I was a kid. The scarecrow would sit on the front stoop and “greet” our trick or treaters. She would use her “grubs” (grungy clothes she wore for gardening) to dress the scarecrow. All she needed to buy was some hay. If you don’t have any “grubs,” you could raid your hand-me-down clothes or the ones you were going to donate to charity, and use them to make your scarecrow. After Halloween, compost the hay and keep the clothes for next year’s scarecrow. (If you’d like some inspiration for clever scarecrows and you’re in the Philadelphia area, you should check out the scarecrow competition and show at Peddler’s Village, an old-fashioned shopping destination.)

What are some of the ways that you remain frugal and green at Halloween?