We all know that Halloween house on the block that goes all-out every year. So we get inspired to give it a try. But no matter how many spooky lights are strung up or plastic skeletons are planted, it’s hard to make an impact without breaking banks and backs.

That’s why “trunk-or-treat” is just the right size for all the great ideas.

The tradition began in the late 1980s, when churches or schools decided to let kids go trunk-to-trunk gathering candy in parking lots, rather than neighborhoods.

“Members of the church decorated the backs of their cars and set up candy gauntlets through which kids walked to collect their bounties,” a 1989 story in The Enterprise-Record in Chico, Calif. said about this new thing they called “Trunk or Treat.”

“We wanted to find an alternative to children being on the streets and in neighborhoods where they may not know people,” said Nina Simmons, one of the organizers of an event that became a nationwide phenomenon decades later.

Some folks say it takes away the community spirit and the hint of spookiness that comes with running around a neighborhood at night. Others love that it’s a way for communities too rural or urban (a lot of apartment buildings ban trick-or-treating) to still have fun on Halloween.

It’s basically a Halloween tailgate, and it’s a manageable way to come up with a creative and fun theme because a trunk is much easier to decorate than an entire house. While costumes for people as well as cars always make the whole thing better, here are three easy ideas that stand on their own.

The Hearse

Let’s be honest: the best vehicle hands-down for a trunk-or-treat is a hearse. But that may be hard to get your hands on.

Yet all you need is a cardboard coffin (make one out of all those Amazon boxes) and a skeleton or two and you’re on your way. You don’t even need the scale up to the plastic 12-foot skeleton, because your trunk is small enough to showcase whatever creepy thing you can come up with.

Alternately, you can simply have a hand coming out of the unnervingly open coffin. Hang dramatic drapes from the open trunk, set up a couple styrofoam tombstones from the craft store, add a wreath and play some creepy organ music. The family can join in and dress as undertakers or mourners.

The Mouth

An open trunk is a mouth, and the perfect template for all kinds of mayhem that’s easy to put together and can feature great personal touches.

Keep it simple with a row of teeth hanging off the top and a long, red tongue unfurling all the way to your trunk-or-treaters’ feet. All decorations are easy to cut out of poster board and plastic tablecloths from the party store (use painters’ tape on your car, so you don’t damage it). The key to a really good trunk is draping a black or red tablecloth, especially in minivans, to keep the illusion real.

Change it to spiky shark teeth and hang a couple worried fish inside. Make the teeth yellow and jagged, and perhaps turn the tongue green, and you’ve got a monster.

Give the mouth tons of personality with eyes. They can be bloodshot, yellow, surrounded by lashes. Just cut them out of posterboard, tape them to a water jug or anything else that won’t tip over and balance them on the top of the open trunk.

The Mummy

This one lets us return to a little bit to the mischief of our youth. Background the trunk in black, hang a couple of eyes, then wrap the car in toilet paper or paper towels, making sure you let the eyes peek out from under the wraps.

You can add spider webbing too—and even tack on a giant spider. Stuff a black trash bag with crumpled paper (you can just fill it halfway, rubber-band it off, then reopen to throw it all away when you’re done). Get some black pool noodles (also found as cheap pipe insulation at the hardware store), tape the noodle legs to the trash bag body – done!

Any of these ideas convince you to start shopping for a car with a bigger trunk? You can begin looking at your budget (and which models might make the best shark mouth or faux hearse). One thing you can do immediately is evaluate auto financing. Getting pre-qualified through Credit Acceptance will give you solid information to help set a budget, shop with confidence and make more memorable Halloween nights.