Boo Your Yard: Make $1,000 With This Halloween Side Hustle
A few years ago, we came up with a plan to do an “egg your yard” service for families who didn't want to have to fill and hide Easter eggs for their kids. We had so much success for Egg Your Yard, I wanted to create another guide for Boo Your Yard for families who love to celebrate Halloween. It's a perfect service for parents who are short on time, or who just didn't feel up to prepping for the holiday rituals. Halloween festivities in the United States are growing every year – a “BOO Your Yard” service will be a hit!
Long story short, we ended up selling our house, business, etc, and moving to Mexico, so we missed Halloween! But I still wrote this post to inspire YOU to do “boo your yard” because it will be a BLAST! And, making money is always good, too!
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Boo Your Yard: Side Hustle Idea
If you've been following me for any amount of time, you know I'm a fan of side hustles that make me money but also provide value. When it is time to do the thing, don't spend a ton of time overthinking the process or potential problems. Make your plan and then execute it.
Once you do Boo Your Yard, here's my full list of side hustles for additional inspiration! Need a cheap side hustle? Here's a list of businesses to start for less than $150!
What is “Boo Your Yard”?
In a nutshell, Boo Your Yard is a service where you deliver Halloween goodies to houses in your area! Customers pay a set amount (I charge $40 for 50 goodies) ahead of time and then deliver on the days leading up to Halloween.
It's simple, straight-forward, and an easy way to make some money. Just like with all the other side hustles, how much money you make depends on YOU!
Who Will You Serve?
When you make your plan, take your location, including geography and local economy, into account. My area is fairly rural, so instead of just covering one zip code, we covered 3 and offered the service to 40 households. We partnered up (me with one kid, my husband with one kid) and split the delivery equally. This helped us be more efficient and cover more ground in less time.
Our town is also not as affluent as the surrounding towns (less disposable income), so our main focus was the bigger town that's right next to us.
How Many Customers Do You Want?
Boo Your Yard is not passive income, but it is a fun little money-maker. I found it better to set the limit for how many customers we would serve, rather than leaving it up to chance. We chose to serve 40 houses. If you have assistance, you could scale this as large as you wanted, though. Just make sure you keep it manageable. You want to provide a quality and punctual service so your customers come back next year and tell their friends about Boo Your Yard.
Tip: When deciding how many houses to serve, work backwards. Figure out how many families you can deliver to in a timely fashion. Check how bulk supplies are packaged, too. For example, if the supplies come in packs of 50, then serve 50 houses. This limits wasting your Halloween supplies.
Gathering Supplies for Boo Your Yard
First, figure out where you're going to get your Halloween goodies the cheapest. For Egg Your Yard, we used plastic Easter eggs filled with treats. Boo Your Yard works the same way – just choose eggs that have Halloween colors and patterns on them.
The next step is to decide what you will fill your Halloween eggs with. Keep your costs low!
For example, we charge $40 for 50 eggs delivered. We paid less than $.20 per filled egg. This means we pay about $10 per 50 eggs. Do the math yourself though, because prices for supplies may be different in your area.
Upsells and Add-Ons
You're going to make the real money by adding value options to Boo Your Yard. List the product/service at a low enough price to be enticing, but still make a profit. Then give your customers options to get deluxe packages, extra decor, or toys instead of candy. The upsells are where the gold is! 🙂
Upsell ideas include:
- Pumpkins
- Halloween-themed family craft kit
- Pumpkin painting kits
- Toys as filler instead of candy
- Customized Trick or Treat bags
- Coloring sheets or stickers, get creative!
- T-shirts, Hoodies
- Mugs
You can easily add customized upsells for $25 or more – don't doubt yourself, people WILL buy these!!
T-shirts, hoodies or cups are awesome upsell ideas if you have time to get them printed before the big event. You can grab this Halloween sublimation bundle here.
Note: Before you add any homemade Halloween treats, check your local business laws to make sure you can do this.
How Much Time Does Boo Your Yard Take?
Obviously, this is not a passive side gig. You need time to both plan and execute this idea. I would give yourself a few hours to make the plan, and research your supplies and vendors. Once you have the supplies, you need to spend time filling the eggs and prepping the upsells. One way to save time is to buy pre-filled eggs.
Depending on how many houses you are doing and how many people are helping, you will need a day or a few to do the actual delivery. This can take a few hours, or all day/night – again, depending on how many customers you have to deliver eggs to. You can also drop them on the porch instead of hiding them in the yards, to save some time – but that might not be as magical. The customers we had wanted the eggs all over their yards. 🙂
How to Advertise a Halloween Event
There are many ways you can advertise and get the word out about your Boo Your Yard service. Keep it simple and focus on effectiveness. Your advertising campaign does not need to be perfect – don't overthink it or get lost in the weeds.
Word of Mouth and Referrals
When you focus on providing a true and valuable service, your customers will naturally tell their friends. If you already did this event for Easter, go back and contact those customers to see if they'd like to do it again for Halloween.
If you don't have previous customers, tell your local friends what you are doing. Chances are they know someone who would love this service.
When you get an order for Boo Your Yard, send that customer a referral link or even just a simple thank you note. Let them know if they refer a few friends, they can get a small incentive, like a free add-on or a Halloween themed digital download. Rewarding referrals is a great way to have a steady stream of customers.
Flyers
Yes, go old school! Hang flyers at local grocery stores or anywhere that allows flyers to be hung on bulletin boards. These other locations could include gas stations, beauty salons, coffee shops, banks, etc.
Social Media
Start advertising on Facebook Marketplace by September. Most of your orders will come in at the end of September or the beginning of October, so make sure you have all of your supplies on hand ahead of time. Set a cut-off date for when families can order because you will need time to prepare and allow for shipping times if you need more supplies.
Churches
Many churches have Trunk or Treat events or other Halloween festivals geared towards family fun. Advertise Boo Your Yard to the church itself for to offer treat drop offs, a Halloween egg hunt, or some of your upsell items.
How to Make Graphics for Advertising and Upsells
Canva is the best tool ever for graphics. They are constantly adding new features. It is user-friendly and easy to learn. It's free to get started and it makes the whole process so simple. I am not a graphic designer, I'm clueless about Photoshop, but I can kick ass with Canva. Watch some YouTube videos on how to design in Canva and you'll be a pro in no time.
Designing DOES take time… but don't overthink it. Start now so you can have it all planned out before you start advertising in September/October.
Ideas for Graphics in Canva:
- Facebook Event Cover Photo
- Facebook Fan Page Cover Photo
- Facebook Profile Page Cover Photo
- Facebook shareable image
- Instagram images (optional – only if advertising on IG)
- Pricing Sheet
- Upsells and Add-Ons (people are visual!)
How Do I Get Paid for Boo Your Yard?
Have customers pay you through a simple website. Grab a domain name (I get mine at Namecheap) and hosting (I use BigScoots – I avoid BlueHost at all costs). Install WooCommerce or SureCart (they're both free). Watch a tutorial on YouTube if you aren't sure how to do this, or join my VIP Coaching and I can help you with it.
You could also keep it simple with a Google form if you're only advertising in local groups, but I feel like a website of some sort or at least a fan page will help you appear more professional and trustworthy. It's also more convenient for you and your customers to pay online.
Local folks can be difficult to get on board with paying for things online in FB Marketplace because of all the scams. To maximize sales, I recommend a professional-looking set up, but don't overthink it.
Plan for Delivery
Set a cutoff date for when you will accept orders. You need time to prep the items and also plan your delivery route.
Creating a route
Creating a route will be super easy for those of you with great spatial awareness and sense of direction, and more difficult for others. My brain does NOT work well with directions and roads, so Kevin handles the route stuff. You want to minimize your delivery time as much as possible so think about splitting up the routes with other helpers if possible.
We do have some tips and examples in our Boo Your Yard Bundle to help you create a route in the most efficient way.
My best tip for creating a route is to sit down and draw it all out so you know exactly which houses are where. Then, you can create a big loop to boo them all in the most efficient way.
How Much Money Can I Make?
How much money you make with Boo Your Yard totally depends on YOU. Set a goal and work backward to figure out how to make it happen. Here's an example:
My goal is to make $1,000 profit. I decide to price my packages at $50 each. Supplies cost $10 per house, so I'd need to do 25 houses at $40 profit each, to make $1,000.
This does not account for my time or gas, which is why it's important to not overthink it. Use your time efficiently!
In reality, I'll make more than the $1,000 because there will be upsells and add-ons, but I'm keeping it simple for math. 🙂
How much money do you want to make? One of my students has set a goal of making $10,000 this Halloween. How much will YOU make?
Want the fast track? Grab my Boo Your Yard Bundle!
My Boo Your Yard Bundle includes EVERYTHING you need to get started with an Boo Your Yard side hustle!
What you get in the bundle:
- Price Sheet Template (to put on your website, social media, etc)
- Facebook and Instagram templates
- Domain Name Ideas (for best local SEO)
- Add-ons and Upsell Idea List
- How to Plan Your Route Most Efficiently
- BONUS: Coloring pages to print and give out with your baskets
- BONUS: How to Get Businesses to Front You the $$ for Your Supplies
- BONUS: Our BEST advertising tricks! Super simple but often forgotten!
Grab it here for only $27!
If you try this, let me know how it went for you as well as any lessons you'd like to share in the comments. Come on over to my FREE group, Passive Income Pathways, and give your report there, too. Can't wait to hear from you.
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Okay, I think I’m missing something here. Are you just delivering the kits or is there more involved (i.e. hiding eggs,etc.)?
Yes! 🙂 How Much Time Does Boo Your Yard Take?
Obviously, this is not a passive side gig. You need time to both plan and execute this idea. I would give yourself a few hours to make the plan, and research your supplies and vendors. Once you have the supplies, you need to spend time filling the eggs and prepping the upsells. One way to save time is to buy pre-filled eggs.
Depending on how many houses you are doing and how many people are helping, you will need a day or a few to do the actual delivery. This can take a few hours, or all day/night – again, depending on how many customers you have to deliver eggs to. You can also drop them on the porch instead of hiding them in the yards, to save some time – but that might not be as magical. The customers we had wanted the eggs all over their yards. 🙂
Hi Sadie! How do you do this if you don’t have examples, or is it different from online? With design work, I typically have to show examples of what it’ll look like. Do I just be honest and say it’s my first time? 🤔
Decorate your front yard and take pics. 🙂
Sadie, for the Halloween version, what were you leaving in the yard? Just dropping candy or putting it in something? I am trying to think of a cost effective way to do this version.
I would offer a candy and non-candy version. Because of allergies etc some might just want trinkets and such. You can even put them in orange easter eggs.
This sounds great! I was interested in the bundle but the link seems to be broken. Are you not offering the bundle any longer?
Hi, the bundle is still up for grabs – let me know if the link still isn’tw orking.