Military Life News

Military Life News, Commissary Rewards and Military Discounts

Halloween Military Discounts

By

The most spooktacular time of the year is coming up! I’m a huge kid at heart and enjoy dressing up for Halloween. Since being married to my husband, I’ve convinced him to share in the fun too. Last year, we dressed up as ninjas and we intend to continue the tradition this year.

If timing is tight and you can’t put together an awesome DIY Halloween costume, there are some great retail stores out there that offer military discounts.

This way you don’t have to feel like you’re breaking the bank because there are some incredibly expensive pre-made costumes out there!

Save Money on Halloween with These Military Discounts

How do you save money when shopping for Halloween?

Check out these 5 stores that offer military discounts to save cash on costumes and party supplies. Don’t forget to bring and use your military ID.

  1. Party City – 10% military discount
  2. Wholesale Halloween Costume – 10% military discount
  3. Shindigz – 20% military discount
  4. Michaels – 10% military discount
  5. Spirit Halloween and Spencer’s Gifts – 10% military discount (Thank you Army Wife 101 for tweeting at them!)

Amusement parks from coast to coast are also celebrating the season by decorating in theme. Check out your local amusement parks to see if they are participating. I’ve rounded up some of my favorites with military discounts here:

Save Money on Halloween with These Military Discounts

How do you celebrate Halloween?

Six Flags Fright Fest – There are more than 10 Six Flags parks across the nation and most (if not all) offer military pricing. Your local MWR or leisure travel services (LTS) office could also have military discount vouchers for your family to use. I’ve been to Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Over Texas, America and Great Adventure. For Fright Fest, they add Halloween touches throughout the park and employees get dressed up to add to the experience.

Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party – If you’re not looking for a big scare, Disney World would be your ideal location to enjoy a themed event. Your family can utilize Disney’s Armed Forces Salute Military Discount and attend Mickey’s special party on a military discount.

Kings Dominion Halloween Haunt – Kings Dominion is about 80 miles south of Washington, D.C., and I know lots of families in the northern Virginia area who love to go there. They have a fun Halloween Haunt event and also offer a military discount for up to 6 tickets at the door.

Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights – Not for the faint of heart, Universal Studios hosts a freaky Halloween party in both California and Florida. They encourage families to get tickets at your local MWR or ticket office on base.

Legoland Brick-O-Treat – Legoland offers a 10% military discount at the ticket booth for families. Your local installation ticket office might have a better discount and if you’re a resident of California because of military service, you can qualify for a great discount deal.

Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream – Williamsburg and Tampa locations are throwing their annual Howl-O-Scream party and they have an amazing deal for military families. A part of their Waves of Honor Program, they offer one complimentary admission for active duty families (up to 3 dependents).

This time of year also yields lots of great coupons from candy companies, so don’t be afraid to collect what you can and use them at the commissary. Your base commissary is ready to stock your trick-or-treat bowl!

How do you save money when shopping for Halloween?

MilitaryShoppers Halloween Photo Contest Winner!

By

MilitaryShoppers congratulates Coast Guard wife Angela Osorio of Seattle for winning a $100 Toys R Us e-gift card through our Military Kid Photo Contest.

Winner Halloween Photo Contest

Angela’s photo of her children, Spiderman also known as Nicholas, 4 years old and Minnie Mouse also known as Isabella, 8 years old, was selected at random among the hundreds of entries of adorable children in costume emailed to MilitaryShoppers.

Congratulations to Angela Osorio!

You have more chances to win with MilitaryShoppers this month. Submit a photo for the monthly photo contest today. The winner of $50 prize will be selected on November 30.

Good luck!

Donate Your Halloween Candy to Troops Overseas

By

Halloween is THIS week. This mean lots and lots of candy. At least in our house. Too much candy. More than my kids need or should even be eating. Usually my kids enjoy the candy for a few weeks and then forget about it. I know in a lot of homes this is the case. There is just too much candy.

What can you do with your excess Halloween candy?

Donate Your Halloween Candy to Troops Overseas

Do you know of any another organizations that will send candy to the troops?

You could always throw the candy away but how about donating it to the troops? This can be a great way to give back and a great solution to what you should do with excess Halloween candy. While you can always just package up the candy and send it to someone you know that is overseas, you can also work with these 3 organizations. They will make sure the candy gets out of your children’s hands and into the mouths of service members around the world.

  1. Halloween Candy Buyback is a great program where kids can give their candy to a local dentist. The kids will then receive a prize such as little toys, toothbrushes or foods and services. It just depends on the dentist. The dentist will then send the candy to Operation Gratitude. You can find a dentist who participates on the Halloween Candy Buyback website.
  2. Soldier’s Angels is also another place you can send your candy. They have a limit of 10 pounds and would like the candy you normally love to be sent to the soldiers.
  3. Operation Stars and Stripes encourage you and your children to let the houses you go trick or treating at know that they can donate to the troops as well. The candy is used to fill stockings for their Operation Holiday Stockings Campaign.

It might just be candy but it is worth a lot more than that to the soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors living far from home. When the troops know that they are being supported, it is a great boost for morale. It is a great way to tell them that we care and that we support them. It makes their jobs a little bit easier.

Candy from home means they don’t have to skip Halloween. They can celebrate in their own way from overseas. When the candy gets to them, they can share it with everyone, pick out the pieces they love and trade for other ones. It is like what they used to do with their friends growing up. It can be a great way to make their time over there a little better.

Related: Celebrate Halloween with MilitaryShoppers Military Kid Photo Contest

Giving candy to troops can also teach children about how to be generous with what they have received. By helping package up the candy, they can see that it is going to a good place. They will be able to learn what it means to give of yourself to help someone else. That is a very good thing and will help your kids be a little more generous and will teach them the importance of charity. It is also very important for kids to know how they can help the men and women in the military.

Donate Halloween Candy to Troops Overseas

You could always throw away the extra candy but how about donating it to the troops?

Do you know of any another organizations that will send candy to the troops? Have you donated your Halloween candy to these organizations in the past? Tell us about your experience.

 

10 Easy DIY Halloween Costumes

By

Halloween can sneak up quickly on military families. As the days in October fly by, don’t feel pressured to spend big bucks for elaborate store bought costumes for you and your children. You might have the makings of the perfect DIY Halloween costume already in your house. Shop the closets in your home for different items that can be put together for a cheap and clever Halloween costume. Take a quick trip to your local dollar or discount store to complete a costume by purchasing accessories that won’t break the bank.

Why spend a lot of money on costumes you might not be able to keep? Storage space (or lack of storage space) for military families is important. Especially because your kids (or even you) will most likely want to dress up as something different next year.

Here are 10 easy and cheap ways to create clever DIY Halloween costumes for less than $30 and made in less than 30 minutes for you and your family.

10 Easy DIY Halloween Costume Ideas

Shop the closets in your home to put together for a cheap and clever Halloween costume.

Witch/Wizard

For girls, pair together a black shirt and skirt or black dress and add black tights. You can also use anything that’s mostly black (and maybe even sparkly?). For boys, wear all black and use a black bedsheet folded as your cape. Head outside to find a thick stick to shave down as a wand. Swing by the dollar store to get a pointed witch or wizard hat. You can also purchase face make-up for an added effect or girls can raid mom’s makeup bag for dark lipstick and use black eyeliner to draw warts on their faces.

Angel

Wear a white shirt and white pants or white dress. Take a cardboard box (from your last PCS) and cut it out to the shape of wings. Poke 2 holes in the center for a rope. Use extra-large cotton balls and glue them onto one side of the cardboard wings to cover its entirety. Finally, use gold pipe cleaners to twist to the top of a headband and create another halo to attach together.

Pirate

For girls, wear a white shirt and red skirt (or if you have anything two-toned or striped). For boys, wear a white shirt and light-colored jeans. You can create an eye patch with black cardstock paper and use an elastic band to keep it on your head. Run to the store for a red bandana. Does the store have a red stuffed bird or parrot? Strap it on your shoulder if you find one.

Mummy

10 Easy and Cheap DIY Halloween Costumes

Are you a DIY Halloween costume guru? Share your tips to making a creative costume.

Wear all white underneath. Depending on your preference (and possibly the weather), you can use toilet paper (preferably extra strong toilet paper) or white bandages to wrap all around your body. You can get cheap bandage packages at the dollar store.

Grapes

Wear either all green or all purple. Travel to the discount store and buy packages of balloons that match your color. Blow them up and use safety pins to put them on your outfit. Are you doing a family costume? Use thick rope with about 3 feet to spare between each person to be a grapevine!

Tourist

It’s pretty likely that you’ve acquired at least 1 touristy shirt from your travels. Or maybe a Hawaii shirt? Wear your souvenir or Hawaiian shirt (why not add a lei too?!) with a straw hat and tie your camera around your neck. Do you have a fanny pack? Stick that around your waist and carry a paper map. If you’re feeling ambitious, tow a small roller luggage bag.

Ghost

Ready for an easy one? Use old white sheets and drape them over head. Cut holes where your eyes would be and voila! You’re a ghost.

10 Easy DIY Halloween Costumes

Don’t forget to enter MilitaryShoppers Halloween Photo Contest. Simply share 1 photo with MilitaryShoppers this month and you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a $100 Toys R Us e-gift card.

Pumpkin

Wear an extra large solid orange shirt. At the store, buy sheets of black felt and decorative vine rope. Outline and cut out the pumpkin’s face and glue (or you can safety pin) the felt cut-outs on the orange shirt. Use plastic bags or newspaper to make the pumpkin shape underneath the T-shirt. Wear the vine rope as a necklace.

Cat and Dog

For a cat, wear all black, orange or gray. For a dog, wear brown, black or tan. Buy felt to match your color and enough to make ears and a tail. Cut the fabric to shape the ears and glue it on an headband. Pin on the tail to your back with the remainder of the felt and make sure it’s in the right shape. Use black eyeliner to draw whiskers and pink/salmon colored lipstick for your nose.

10 Easy DIY Halloween Costumes

Children can raid mom’s makeup bag for eyeliner and lipstick to create cheap Halloween costumes.

Super Hero

Wear clothing that matches or all the same color. Use colored duct or construction tape to outline your superhero letter or number on your shirt. Does your character wear a mask? Buy a couple yards of fabric and cut out eyeholes. Or does your character wear a cape? Do the same and tie the cape around your neck.

Are you a DIY Halloween costume guru? Share your tips for creating a costume in the comments section.

 

Celebrate Halloween with Our Military Kid Photo Contest

By

Halloween is almost here! Such a fun time to dress up the kids in costume and maybe even yourself and your significant other.

halloween

I have always enjoyed Halloween and trying to help my kids decide what they want to be each year. Sometimes they can’t decide and they might wear a couple of different costumes to various events at the end of October. Some years the kids have been super heroes or characters from popular children’s movies, other years it was something more simple like a pirate or a monkey. They are now at the age where they really want to decide which costume they will wear for Halloween each year. I love hearing what they want to dress up as because it is usually based on what they are into at that moment.

Do your kids like to dress up for Halloween? Do you like to get creative when it comes time to figure out what costume they will wear? Do you buy their costumes? Or do you make them? How many photos do you take of your little one  trick or treating? 10? 20?

Instead of simply sharing those adorable costume photos with your family and friends, take 1 minute to share 1 photo with MilitaryShoppers this month and you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a $100 Toys R Us e-gift card.

Celebrate Halloween with MilitaryShoppers’ Military Kid Photo Contest

Child in Halloween costume

Submissions need to include:

  • Name of person submitting photo
  • Installation
  • Branch of service
  • Age(s) of child(ren)

Rules:

  • Image must be submitted as .pdf, .jpg or .gif via email to bschmalz@militarymedia.com by November 3, 2014.
  • Entrant’s email address will be added to MilitaryShoppers.com registration email list and therefore will receive future communications from MilitaryShoppers exclusively for military families via email.
  • One winner will be selected on November 6, 2014. Winner will be posted to MilitaryShoppers Facebook page, MilitaryShoppers on Pinterest and MilitaryShoppers.com.
  • One entry per email address.
  • Image must be submitted by entrant who possesses a valid military ID card (Active Duty, Veteran, Retiree, Reserve, Guard or family member of the aforementioned categories.)
  • Entrant must be 18 years of age or older.
  • Winner will be notified via e-mail.
  • No purchase necessary to win.

Good luck and have fun getting the costumes together! We can’t wait to see all the cute kids in their costumes.