This guest post comes from J. Money at Budgets are Sexy.

For all you slackers out there (myself included): Last year for Halloween I went as a rock star, but I'm thinking of going as a blogger this time around. According to a friend, though, that means I have to put on a pair of nerd glasses and hike up my pants like Urkel! I think my friend is confused. We're more like this guy. I mean, come on.

• Bing: Famous haunted houses

Actually, I have no idea how to dress as a blogger. I'm just being lazy. More than likely I'll paint the black nail polish back on and sharpen me up some rocker tattoos again. I already wear ripped jeans and T-shirts anyway, so it'll cost me a big fat $0. And I don't have to worry about any props getting stolen by drunkards!

Haven't picked a costume yourself? Check out some of these clever ideas from me and friends around the net (thanks, everyone):

Do your kids usually get way more Halloween candy than you want them to eat? Did you buy more than you needed for trick-or-treaters who didn’t show?

Sell it back to your dentist.

Dentists and orthodontists nationwide are participating in this year’s Halloween Candy Buyback, in which dentists will pay people $1 to $2 per pound for their leftover candy. Some dental offices are throwing parties, giving out prizes (including toothbrushes) and donating additional money to local charities as well.

This week I ate canned pumpkin that was three years past its expiration date, and I didn't die. Not even once.

Why risk it? Why not throw it out? Because I was feeling both frugal and contrary.

Last week a Smart Spending message board reader started a thread about an "out of code" food market in her neighborhood. The outlet specializes in food that's super-cheap because it has passed its sell-by date. Some of the items -- canned goods, coffee, cake mixes and the like -- were four or five months beyond their suggested dates.

Some people who responded were grossed out by the very idea. One called such marketing "a step above a Dumpster dive."

That's when I decided to bake some pie.

It’s time for Friday food freebies and deals. This week, a lot of our deals are for Halloween meals, especially for children in costume. But if you’re willing to wear a swirl top hat, even an adult can get a free frozen yogurt.

We wrote up a bunch of Halloween deals for restaurants and free events earlier this week. Some of last week’s food deals also are still good.

Remember that not all deals are good at all locations of chain restaurants.

• Bing: Cheap last-minute Halloween costumes

Here are our latest food deals, gathered with some help from our friends at Cities on the Cheap:

This guest post comes from Kris at Cheap Healthy Good.

Salt helps water boil faster. An avocado pit will keep guacamole from browning. Soda will eat through basically anything, Alien-style.

We’ll hear hundreds of food myths in our lifetime. Some, thank Snopes, will be inarguably disproved, while others will remain as persistent as head colds, altering both what we eat and how we cook. And still more myths will be made up as we go along, as technology develops and kitchens change with the times.

• Bing: Top 10 urban myths

Today, we're focusing on a few of those newer myths -- modern-day legends spawned by newspapers, TV shows, and those accursed enemies of truth, e-mail forwards. Will açai berries speed up weight loss? Does microwaving plastic cause cancer? Are bananas really going the way of the dodo bird? We'll explore and answer these questions and more, once and for all.

The U.S. Postal Service is struggling partly because fewer people use snail mail. So how's this for a fix? Post offices have begun selling greeting cards.

They are available at 500 post offices under a one-year contract with Hallmark and will be sold at 1,000 more after Jan. 1 as part of this experiment.

You may not find this service in your neighborhood. The USPS has 37,000 or so locations -- although several hundred will likely be closed as a cost-cutting measure. (Here's the latest list under consideration for the axe (.pdf file).)

• Bing: People protest to keep post offices open

And there's more news, The Washington Post reports:

What is holding back our economic recovery?

Maybe it’s shopping guilt. The Wall Street Journal reported last week on a study that said “luxury shame” is keeping shoppers out of high-end stores. Until consumers can overcome their guilt about spending money on high-end products, those poor marketers of luxury goods will just have to suffer, The WSJ reported.

Guilt has always been part of the shopping experience. But retail executives say it has become such an overriding emotion among shoppers since the economic crisis set in last year that it is delaying the recovery of the luxury-goods industry. Shoppers are suffering from "luxury shame," consulting group Bain & Co. said in a research report.

The article cites as an example the guilt felt by 24-year-old Carolyn Hsu, founder of The Daily Obsession shopping blog, over her purchase of a Tod’s bag for $1,000 at a private luxury sale. Later, she hid the bag at the back of her closet. “I try not to have those moments anymore,” she told the WSJ.

This guest post comes from Frank Curmudgeon at Bad Money Advice.

The College Board (the SAT people) recently released its annual survey of college tuition (.pdf file) and found what it always finds. College got more expensive last year. This time ’round public colleges went up 6.5% and private ones 4.4%, both of which are pretty steep increases when compared with the 2.1% decline in the CPI over the same period.

• Bing: Tuition-free colleges

This was a particularly bad year for the tuition vs. inflation comparison, but the overall trend is striking. According to the College Board, over the past 30 years the average tuition cost has tripled in real inflation-adjusted terms. It’s hard to think of anything else we buy that has gone up as much. It would be like paying $12 a gallon at the pump.