It’s officially November, which means we’re all broke from buying Halloween costumes

Attending parties is nothing out of the ordinary for a college student. But as we flipped our calendars to October, we knew parties for the entire month would be everything but ordinary. I like to call October “the month of never ending costumes.”

It started off with you being asked to a date party that just happened to be a costume party – and yes, it is only the first week of October. Do you match your date? Do you even have a date? These are common questions you asked yourself in the month of October. So you made it through your first costume party as a cute cat or wearing your favorite sports jersey. What next?

You went to a few more parties and then you thought it was all over – that is, until October 31st. Suddenly, your best girl or guy friends are begging you to dress up with them. This will be your second big costume party extravaganza.

Next thing you know, you’re on Google or Pinterest looking for the best costumes for your dynamic duo, trio, or if you have more than those numbers, you may be out of luck. You make it through your second time dressing up as a group of guys in Hawaiian shirts, or maybe you went as a group of emojis. Either way, you’re not out of the woods in terms of dressing up. It has only just begun.

I am thoroughly convinced that as the month of October progresses, the costumes just get scarier. You go from the cute bunny outfit you put so much thought into to painting your face like a skull or buying a disturbingly frightening mask.

You probably did this because some of your friends made you enter a costume contest or you simply entered yourself into one. Keep in mind that as you approached the middle of October, Google probably wasn’t cutting it anymore when it came to originality.

If you made it to the week of Halloween without breaking the bank, congrats. Your friends are texting you about the costume parties happening throughout the whole week. One for a sorority or fraternity function and one at your favorite local bar. These kept you busy for the whole week.

By this point, you start thinking about trading in your beginner costumes for intermediate ones. You probably spent an overwhelmingly ridiculous amount of money on some face paint for that skull look, or maybe you just bought the cheap kind and you’re still scrubbing it off of your face. Maybe you settled for a flower crown and half painted skull face. That’s all you can do.

You made it through the month and arrived at October 31st. You can’t even begin to fathom the reality of needing yet another costume. If you haven’t purchased a Purge mask at this point, you might as well give up.

You’ve officially made it to the “advanced level” of costumes. You put on the fake blood and your scary mask, ready to face the night. Of course, guys have it a little easier since most of them have this weird ability to find an old shirt in the back of their closet and turn it into something brilliant.

My advice to every college student is this: it’s never too early to plan your Halloween costume or buy an unlimited amount of them. We all know you can’t Instagram the same outfit twice.