# To buy or not to buy?



## NecroBones (Feb 10, 2006)

To buy or not to buy? What a tough question when you're already running up your credit card balance... hehe! I'm way over budget this year, mostly due to non-halloween stuff.

I'm really tempted to get myself a pair of cowlacious scary-terry talking skulls. But considering the last two years I haven't even been home to keep an eye on my display... well... Not sure if I should just put it off til next year. Problem is that there IS NO HALLOWEEN in my part of my neighborhood. I stick out like a sore thumb already, even with a small display. So these days I usually set my stuff up and then go someplace where there are TOTers and so forth. 

That leaves me asking myself questions like how much I do I want to spend each year when almost no one but myself will enjoy it, will it be too easily stolen if I'm not there, etc.

Making my scarecrow on the other hand was a no-brainer. Learned a lot, didn't cost me much, and with getting it done in time, I get to submit it to a contest.

Of course, I can put together some killer-deadly (horrible) puns for dialogue for the skulls. Heck, I have a comic strip devoted to this sort of thing... I'm tempted to bite the bullet and do it anyway... I do it more for my own enjoyment than anything else anyway. 

What would you do? Are you facing similar self-battles over costs or how much you can get done in one Halloween season? Where do you draw the line? Do you have a strict budget?

Figured I'd start a thread since I have some thinking to do, and I have to do it quick if I want to be sure the stuff gets here in time, if I order it.


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## Dr Morbius (Sep 21, 2004)

I'd like to see your comic strip! Link? Honestly, only you can answer the question of whether to expand your haunt based on volume. If it were me, however, I would keep going year after year and inspire the houses around me to haunt as well, thus bringing the TOT's to me.


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## NecroBones (Feb 10, 2006)

My comic strip is one of those projects that I work on extremely infrequently. I actually started drawing it for fun while in gradeschool, just about 20 years ago. I have much higher standards now, so there's a lot less to see... hehe 

If you click on "Start" and read from the beginning, you can get through it in about 15 minutes. Currently there's 71 strips publically available. Several more in the queue will be released automatically on sundays up into november. Might be years before I work on it again.. lol! Here's the link:

http://bonescomics.com/

It's just one other piece of the NecroBones(R) empire.


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## NecroBones (Feb 10, 2006)

But back to the main thread---

Unfortunately the volume is "zero" right now. Or close to it. The first 4 years I lived in this house I got exactly two knocks each halloween. Usually one of them would be extremely young kids, as in, the candy is for the parent.

That's why I've been spending the evening elsewhere, where I can have some fun. I'm not letting it stop me from setting up a display, and building on it each year... but if I put it in terms of volume, then I'm spending nearly an infinite amount per TOTer already.


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## -blank- (Sep 10, 2006)

i wonder the same thing all the time... 
every year i get about 0-2 tots a year and dont have too much space to put props and i had run low budget this year

And i do it anyway just cause its fun for me and for those 2 tots who come to my house every year


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## darryl (Mar 23, 2006)

you know I have have same problem, but a few more then 2 TOTers, maybe 40. But I'm going to our small town paper, it's only delivered in our town, and asking them to maybe post some pics w/ my address. Then maybe flyers at the school and grocery store. If you haunt it they will come. The last year I was in California we had over 1000 people and I miss that!!  
Anyway, maybe bring the skulls and set them up in a friends yard where the TOTer's are?? Make a little scene and set it up on a front proch or garage. If people love it next year you can put up a sign at friends saying moved to new location, your house!!


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## jdubbya (Nov 6, 2005)

I read a lot from folks who decorate to the extreme for their own pleasure, regardless of the number of TOT's they get. It's the opposite for me. I'm quite certain that if my numbers were almost nil, so would my decorating, particularly on the outside. I love the satisfaction from the numbers (about 500 last year) who come to see the display. I feel a need to expand it and change it up each year to keep them coming back and wanting more, and this is the fun we get out of it. I surely wouldn't invest in stuff, and then leave for the night. What's the point? Stay and enjoy it, or take the stuff to a friends and promote a display where someone will enjoy/appreciate it.
JMO.


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## NecroBones (Feb 10, 2006)

Just to be clear-- it's not that I can't afford the skulls. I can, I'm just trying to decide if it's worth carrying the balance on my credit card for a little while to have them this year, instead of sometime later.

Anyway, that's definitely a good idea-- take some of the stuff with me wherever I land for the big night. A couple of skulls with speakers and CD player (yeah, I want to record coordinated dialogue, so the internal sound chips aren't ideal) is certainly portable enough. I may have to give that some real thought. 

I have, after all, already considered the possibility of taking my new scarecrow along as well, though since it doesn't come apart, it's a difficult prospect. The arm-span is 5', and the whole thing is 7.5' tall... not exactly going to fit in my pickup unless I tie it on the roof or something. Though I haven't tried laying it in diagonally... hmmm...

This thread is mostly me thinking aloud, so to speak.


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## EvilGrin (Sep 18, 2006)

You have to factor two main things in to your talking skelly budgeting plans... 1) How bad do you want the prop? 2) Is it worth it to you to pay that little bit extra per month for a few more months? Crunch some numbers to see if it will work for you financially. If it looks like it will end up costing double the price due to interest charges wait till next year  I do the for personal enjoyment decorating thing since we rarely have Tot's (way out in a rural area, so not worth it for the few kids to visit so they all seem to drive into a town where there are actually people to TOT from, although I am going to send out flyers in the neighborhood so kids can actually visit on a night other than Halloween and see my display since my kids are doing the same thing and going into town to TOT and so none of us are actually there on Halloween night anyway) Most of my decorating is for my son's birthday party, so we get at least 10 or 12 kids who get to see a big display, and I think being in a rural area adds to the creep factor of my display... Is it the area of country or living in a rural area that causes the rest of you to suffer from low numbers?


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## NecroBones (Feb 10, 2006)

Well, in my case, it's just my particular part of the neighborhood that results in very little TOTing, etc. We're cut off from the rest of the residential area, blocked in by a shopping center, local university, library, and senior center. I think most of the people living here are singles and young couples without kids.

Some of the people I know who live only a few miles away get reasonably good activity. 

I really just need to move.


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## Dr Morbius (Sep 21, 2004)

Necro, You ARE indeed, a funny Moth** F*****!
Those comics are frickin' hilarious! Although I laughed out loud at most of them, there is one that sticks out in my mind after I finished reading them...









Too funny, man..too funny..sorry to get off topic...I hope you decide to expand your haunt..you know, family dynamics change in a neighborhood rather quickly...it might be nice to have a display when kids start birthing all around you!


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## NecroBones (Feb 10, 2006)

For everyone else, this will make more sense if you see them in order:





Heh, I drew those back in high school. 

Glad you liked the comics! Sick, aren't I?


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## NecroBones (Feb 10, 2006)

Well, I ordered my cowlacious/scary-terry talking skulls. Muahaha!

I guess I need to work on my corny dialogue. I'm going to have a lot of this sort of thing:


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