With Halloween just around the corner , the scariest things you’ll face are the price tags on costumes.

Stores such as Spirit Halloween and Halloween Club charge ridiculously high prices for costumes that are mediocre at best and consumers, parents especially, are victim to this extortion.

It is becoming increasingly evident that cost is inversely proportional to quality, as it seems that with every raise in price, costumes become cheaper and flimsier.

Consumers are being forced to buy a thin bodysuit with a poorly printed superhero costume on it just so their children will be happy. Included accessories such as masks and gloves are all made with seemingly the lowest quality material possible, allowing companies to sell higher quality alternatives at unreasonable prices.

Parents buying a $50 costume should not have to spend an extra $20 for a mask that won’t break one block into trick-or-treating.

Accessories that are often an essential part of a character also come at a high cost, with most props costing $30 on average.

Spirit Halloween, a franchise that pops up every year a month before Halloween , is perhaps one of the biggest culprits of these rip offs.

They sell products so thin that you’re paying to run the risk of splitting the seams of your costume and getting pneumonia all in the same night.

Even if the problem of thin fabrics was remedied , the issue with lack of quality in appearance still persists .

When you can’t tell if you’re buying your son a Michael Myers or a Leatherface mask, there’s a problem.

This growth in price and decrease in quality is largely a result of the continual purchasing of these costumes.

Each year we convince ourselves that spending a little more on a costume won’t hurt, while these companies convince themselves that spending a little less to make them won’t hurt either.

Instead of shelling out upwards of $50 for a costume that falls apart after the third trick-or-treat, an alternative option is to create your own.

Often times people believe that a homemade costume is likely to fall apart, or to be of a significantly lower quality than one bought from a store.

In recent years the opposite has been shown to be true. The costumes bought from a store are prone to tears or falling apart, whilst those made at home last long after Halloween night .

Creating your own costume is also a great way to spend time together with children, as the experience of picking a costume and creating it yourself can be much more meaningful than simply purchasing one in the span of 15 minutes.

The end result will be something truly valuable , that will hold it’s meaning long past Oct. 31