Inexpensive holiday ideas for social butterflies, the creative and shut-in couch potatoes

With only two days left before the year's most ghoulish holiday, and only one more until the first of the month, you may find yourself looking for a way to celebrate Halloween without spending a lot of boo ö er, I mean moo ö lah.

If you're more strapped for cash than a mummy is in cloth, here are some low-cost but highly entertaining ideas to keep you busy Friday night. Whether you're the creative sort, a social butterfly or shut-in couch potato, there's an option for you.

Whatever you choose, it's sure to help make your holiday a little more smashing, as in pumpkins, get it?

Toilet paper mummy

Even if you're trying to save money, the right way to do this one does not include the really cheap toilet paper. There's no point if it rips and falls down around your ankles. But before you reach for the Charmin, try less expensive brands like Angel Soft, which will stay fast as you wrap your friends into a mummy-like state.

Pay less for pumpkins

Yes, it's too late to grow your own gourd, but if you loved carving pumpkins as a kid, you don't have to miss out on the Halloween tradition this year. With local grocery store prices set around a dozen cents per pound, you can make a jack-o-lantern out of a fair-sized pumpkin for about $2. Have friends bring over their own pumpkins and have a pumpkin carving contest where the best scary design wins.

Bobbing for apples

All you need is a tub of water and some apples - as many as you and your friends want to go for. Of course, if you are really broke, you could use the same apple over and over, but I'm sure there's some sanitation issue involved there.

Dirt-cheap dŽcor

If you're going to wrap people up in toilet paper and carve pumpkins over at your place, decorations can help liven the party space. Stock up on shimmery orange and black streamers at a 99-cent store. Or, if you want to get your friends involved in the decorating action, purchase a couple cans of silly string in orange and black.

Get between the sheets

Before you read too much into that, find some old sheets and make a costume out of them. Think John Belushi in Animal House. Toga! Toga! Toga! Sorry, I digress.

See what other cheap costume ideas you can come up with using other old stuff you have lying around.

Play haunted charades

Never heard of it? Well, that's because I made it up, and you can too. Make your own game of charades using only scary book and movie titles. Have fun trying to act out The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Night of the Living Dead. If acting's not your thing, try haunted pictionary and draw your favorite scary movie scenes instead.

Tissue ghosts

If you have some toilet paper left over from the mummies, which you inevitably will once everyone sheds their wraps, roll up little golf-size balls of tissue and then place a longer piece over the top so two strips of paper hang down from the ball, like a comet's tail. Tie the toilet paper with a string at the base of the ball and make eyes on the ghost's head with a felt-tip pen. Hang the little spirits around you dorm room or apartment for a cute but still spooky look.

Spin a trick

Creepy tunes can help get the mood right, but you can spin something else with a little string or thread. Your roommates might find it more of a trick than a treat if you trap them in your room with a home-made web strung across the doorway. They're easy to attach with tape or pushpins.

It's alive!

Need to clean out your fridge? Now's the perfect time. In the spirit of Halloween, you could try to really gross out your friends by cleaning out your fridge and emptying its contents into Ziploc bags. Turn out the lights and have your friends reach into the bags as you tell them what's inside. Of course, you say they are touching things like old eyeballs, worms, toes, etc.

Spend time with the guys

Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers, that is. If you don't owe an arm and a leg at your local video store, an affordable option is to rent a bunch of old scary flicks and fill the night with screams and the roar of chainsaws.