I had only one daughter to raise, so we normally did pick out something in the $20 range. The exceptions were the years when other relatives offered to buy her a costume or when she decided to recycle / repurpose something we already had. As you can imagine, I ALWAYS accepted those offers!

But I’m seeing chatter from a couple of frugal / personal finance folks on Twitter that you can spend way much more than even $30.  Lacie from the Columbus area was disappointed to learn the outfit she liked for her daughter would cost $50. And Toni-Lynn from the Toledo area also saw one she liked – except for the price tag of $75.

My opinion is: if the costume is expected to be worn more than once, such as to historical re-enactments, pageant or stage performances, or science fiction conventions in addition to Halloween, you may as well spend whatever funds you think is necessary for the look. And then you should get as much use out of that costume as you can.

But if the only expected use is for two hours of trick-or-treat on Oct. 31, you need to be realistic on the costume expense.

If you live in Michigan or Ohio, the chances are pretty good it’s going to be cold and / or rainy on Halloween and the kids will be trying to arrange coats over their outfits or sweatpants under them. Oh, yes, been there, done that.

Check out The Debt Hawk’s list of Top 100 Personal Finance Bloggers on Twitter.

Money Beagle and Free Money Finance, who are on the list, are both from Michigan.

I thought Twitter might work well as a professional social media “personality” for this blog, and it has. I quickly found lots of frugal living and personal finance bloggers whom I’m already familiar with and added them to my “following” list.

And for a news junkie, well, Twitter is also very useful! Yes, many of the national media outlets are on Twitter  – but a lot of southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio media outlets and reporters can also be found there. Yes, there is a twitter for The Monroe Evening News. I’ve been feeding the @monroenews account since the person who started it is no longer with our company and we didn’t like how the auto-feed headlines worked out.

In any case, I am on Twitter quite a bit. I often leave my account open when I’m doing other things on the computer at work or at home. My favorite topic, is, of course, frugal living. But I’ve also tweeted about stories I’m covering for the newspaper or assorted things I find interesting.

Today another tweeter, @KathrynVercillo, posted a list on her home blog, Money Saving Blog, a list of Top 15 Frugal Living Twitterers to Follow.

And here’s what she said about me:

Monroe On a Budget. This is an interesting account. It’s from the personal finance blogger for a small newspaper. Some of the links are relevant only to the people living in that area but a lot of them are widely appropriate. There are lots of good ReTweets to frugal living posts from other Twitterers here.

If you’re on twitter and you’re interested in personal finance, her list is a good place to start. You’ll soon find lots more frugal and financial-minded people to tweet with.

A snippet:

Last September, Esmeralda Carmona only had enough money to pay a fraction of her mortgage. Her husband, laid off nearly a year earlier, had not worked in nine months. Debt was mounting, and the mother of four was prepared to give up.

But while driving to her job as a health care clinic coordinator in Chicago, Carmona heard a radio advertisement promising protection from foreclosure. She breathed a sigh of relief.

What do you think happened? Read the rest of the story.

What do you wish had happened?

After I read that story, I went into a rant on my twitter.

Why do people not know where to go and what to do in such a situation — or at the very least, what NOT to do?

There has been financial literacy information, charitable resources, government assistance, money-saving tips, resume-writing seminars and consumer credit help available from many legitimate resources for a long, long time.

You’ll find a lot of resources for southeast Michigan residents listed on my blogroll. This is not “secret” information. Most of those links have been promoted and listed at community resource fairs, the libraries, the newspapers and TV stations, and government web sites. In fact, one of my co-workers focuses his blog on consumer alerts.

To be fair, there are people who will not be able to save their home from foreclosure no matter what happens. In that situation, yes, you do want to make sure that you are minimizing your short-term and long-term financial damage.

But don’t do something foolish along the way.

What good is that going to do?

Hmm… I bet some of my blog readers are in that situation too this year.

Here’s what I posted on my twitter, edited so it makes sense to those who find tweeting hard to follow:

• Get an Easter basket cheap at a thrift shop. Scrunched up tissue paper makes better filler than plastic grass.
• The usual supplies are chocolate bunny, jelly beans, marshmallow peeps.
• Other goodies can be Russell Stover or Reese’s eggs, small toy such as stuffed bunny or lamb.
• But the more stuff / variety you put in basket the more it will cost! So don’t go crazy in candy aisle, watch for sales.
• And little baskets won’t hold really big bunnies, so get the small brand name chocolate bunnies.

There you go: a frugal Easter basket, step by step.

My Twitter reply to that question: “I make a blog post whenever I want. Sometimes that is several times a day.”

I also don’t keep any deadlines on the budget blog.

I have enough deadlines to keep track of for my print duties for The Monroe Evening News!

So while you typically see me write posts highlighting the local grocery and drugstore fliers of the day, if I don’t get to making such a post until very late at night, well, so what?

And while I usually do a weekly round up of what other financial bloggers are writing about, maybe that happens on Monday. Maybe that happens on Tuesday. Maybe that happens on Friday. I’m really not going to fret about it.

At the same time, if I come across a notice that is worth of immedate posting and I’ve already done a lot of blogging that day … so what? I post it anyway.

And for the few occasions when I’ve done a “series,” well, most recently I posted the entire run on the same day rather than make the readers come back several days in a row.

The limited amount of “scheduling” that I do is for notices that are probably best timed for a particular date. I just received a public service announcement for a program that starts taking applications Monday. I put a reminder in my calendar to make that post on Monday morning. That way, I’m not sending callers to the non-profit group before the volunteers are ready for queries.

But as my coffee mug says, “What deadline?”

If you are the twitter type, here’s my page and you can follow the thread between me and ADramaticMommy.

If twitter chat is a little confusing for you (it’s a new thing for me too), but you are interested in the information, go to the college sidebar and scholarship posts here at Monroe on a Budget. What I told my twitter friend are some of the details I’ve posted on this blog during the past two years.

The key points include:

• Fill out that Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
• Ask your high school staff during your child’s junior year about the scholarships that students from your school actually get. (See Where are all those unclaimed scholarships?)
• Community service is a very important factor for the scholarships that Monroe, Mich., students have received in recent years.

The customary response to the season has been “What are you giving up for Lent?”

The assumption is that one would take the money saved from whatever bad habit or treats that have been forsaken for the season, and / or from following the meatless Fridays tradition, and donate that that money to a worthy charity on behalf of the poor or to a social justice campaign.

This approach to Lent works very well for many people. That’s probably why the idea has stuck in everyone’s heads for so many years.

The problem is: I don’t find this traditional Lenten exercise very effective, meaningful or practical for families on a budget. Many families these days are already cutting back drastically on expenses just so they can pay the bills.

What’s the alternative?

A few months ago, I heard about a concept called Walk to Jerusalem. It’s a program that has taken place in Christian churches across the country, often led by the parish nurses as a fitness and spirituality effort. The idea is to combine your physical exercise with prayer or meditation appropriate to the season, and compare your journey to a walk to Jerusalem (or to Bethlehem if done as a Christmas preparation).

It’s been done in the Catholic Diocese of Layfatte, Ind.,; in the Catholic Diocese of Lansing, Mich.; and at a United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Ind.

If you would like to “virtually” walk with me, I’m going to post my miles on Twitter.com/MonroeOnABudget. I’m setting my goal at 65 miles before Easter because that is the roughly the distance between Nazareth and Jerusalem (I am finding various estimates based on which routes scholars believe were common back in the day, but that is a typical range that is given).

Twitter is easy to use as compared to other social networking systems. All you do is type short messages and read other people’s short messages.

But Twitter can be confusing because it is basically a huge chat room with lots of people talking about all kinds of things. So include this code in your tweets: #jerusalemwalk (the # hashtag symbol follwed by “jerusalemwalk”). The hashtags are how tweeters follow conversations that involve a lot of people – you can search for that code string and see what everyone else is posting.

So whether you are involved in a formal parish or congregation program, or are inspired to do a walk on your own, come join the twitter conversation at #jerusalemwalk.

Simply Red’s Money’s Too Tight to Mention.

It’s getting links on Twitter among the frugal living / money tweeters as a recommendation for “the recession’s official soundtrack”!

Click on my archives for Music for your mp3 player to find other money-related tunes.

Frugal is a way of life, not a way of shopping.