How to Save Money While Making Costumes

Heidy-ho! I've been seeing a lot of people making charts of how much their costumes cost, and honestly, I'm shocked. People are spending $600 on costumes I wouldn't have spent $300 making. It blew my mind--why were people paying so much for each costume? I thought at first that they just didn't care about making costumes for cheap, as a lot of cosplayers still live with and/or get money from relatives. I was disappointed.

But then I realized I wasn't seeing the big picture. There has been a tremendous influx of new cosplayers in just the past couple of years, but most costuming forums have all but died out. I realized that all these people new to costuming and convention-going might not be familiar with some old-school money saving tips. Many of them are probably new to crafting as a whole, so they don't know a lot of what us older folks consider basics. So I decided to make a list of ten things people can do to save money on their costumes. I know there are many more, but these are some of my go-tos when I don't want to spend $500 on something I'll only be wearing a handful of times.

Feel free to add in your own money-saving tips in the comments; I might make a part 2! I hope this helps all the newbies save money, because I know I wished someone had told me some of these back when I first started...