Go Apple or Pumpkin Picking

It's one of my favorite things to do. The experience of the crisp fall air and the beauty of the apple orchards or pumpkin patches is unlike any other.

Plus, you can usually do this for a relatively cheap price. Bonus points if you go to a local farm. Support your small businesses!

Have a Fall Photoshoot

Another one of my favorite things about fall is the fashion. I'm a sucker for sweaters, leggings and my favorite Doc Martens. Your iPhone works great, or a polaroid camera goes perfectly with the season!

Drive to your local pumpkin patch, farm or just walk around your area. There are so many cool places to take pictures.

Pumpkin Painting

This is a great solution if you live in a dorm or apartment building and don't want or can't have an actual rotting, live pumpkin out for the entire month of October. Jack-o-lanterns are fun, but you can always buy the Styrofoam ones from Michael's and paint them. Have a contest with your friends or turn on your favorite Halloween-themed movie and go nuts.

Scary Movie Drive-In

This can still work if you don't have a drive-in theater near you. I was lucky enough to grow up 30 minutes away from an actual drive-in, where I could go hang out with my friends. But there's nothing wrong with building a fort in your living room or just hanging out in bed under the covers. The important thing here is the scary movies.

Go Out for Brunch or Bagels

If "Sex and the City" has taught us anything, it's that you can never go wrong with brunch with your friends. Bypass the mimosas and go for apple cider. Or if you're over 21, drink as many mimosas as you please.

Either way, I know I love bacon, egg and cheese bagels. And I will never say no to lazy Sundays with bagels and my friends.

Bowling

I always forget how much fun this is until I'm invited to do it for a group-bonding activity. Cosmic bowling takes me back to my middle school days, but I still find singing to classics with my friends and laughing at my subpar bowling skills fun. Don't @ me.

Bake Halloween Cookies

My grandma makes those Pillsbury sugar cookies with the cartoons on them for every single season. As the years go by and they add more graphics, she still doesn't get tired of buying them and baking them for us and the kids she teaches at her Sunday school classes.

Do it for grandma. Bake the cookies.

Go Thrift Shopping

This can be as cheap or expensive as you want it to be. I have a fear of trying things on in thrift stores, but I love buying XXL shirts from the adult-men section and making them into crop tops — then washing them three times before I consider them wearable.

It's fashion. Or laziness. Either way, now I have an outfit to go pumpkin picking in or to wear at my fall photoshoot.

Paint and Sip

I, like many of my friends, am underage. My mom has gone to those wine-and-paint parties, and they look super fun. I'm deciding to take it up a notch and do a cider-and-paint party.

Most towns have these studios, or you can invite your friends over and throw one yourself. They're super fun, and you get art to take home afterward!

Go on a Coffee Tour

Or a hot chocolate tour. I'm a big coffeehouse person, and I'm always looking for an excuse to drink as much coffee as I can in a 24-hour period. It keeps you inside, and the aesthetic of coffee houses is very pleasing.

Decorate Your Dorm or Home

You don't have to spend money on this! You can draw some pumpkins on computer paper, cut them out and tape them up. Or you can be extra like my roommates, buy a light box and put "It's freakin bats… I love Halloween" on it. You can buy skeleton decorations for your TV. It's up to you.