Budget Versions
Tools | Consecration | Cleansing | Budget Versions
Chalice
Any old coffee cup or drinking glass will do. If you wish to have something that looks a little more magical, you can buy a plain white or colored coffee mug and paint or glue glitter on in the shapes of pentacles, runes, oghams or whatever you wish. Remember, even if it is the exact right size and shape, your snake’s water dish is not acceptable.
Knife/Dagger
Any large kitchen knife will do just fine.
Sword
I haven’t seen a spell where a sword is supposed to be used, where a dagger used instead didn’t work. I really don’t feel a sword is a necessity, but if it is to you, you could always buy a machete.
A machete isn’t terribly cheap, but it is less expensive than a sword, and if you just have to have one, it’s an option. You! Yes, you – the one with the meat cleaver – a sword must have a point!
Wand
For this, you can either go get a branch from nature, and whittle the bark off of it, or buy a thin dowel from a home improvement warehouse. Either can be left plain and natural or can be decorated with small stones, glitter or paint.
Pentacle
You can either use a piece of construction paper or poster board, or a thin square piece of wood. Simply paint or glue on glitter in the shape of a pentacle. As with the chalice and the wand, you could make several of these using different colors for use in different kinds of spells.
Cauldron
You can use any sauce pan or spaghetti pot for this. The best one we ever had was an old wok. However, if using anything other than cast iron, when you burn things in it, it will burn the metal so that it will be difficult to use for scrying. You may want to have two cauldrons- one for fire based spells and one for liquid based spells.
Candles
Go to a diskount store. No, they don’t work any better if they’re made of bee’s wax, and no, it doesn’t matter if the color is just a coating and the inside of the candle is white.
Why not, you ask? Because white is a neutral color that can be used in place of any other color. If you’re really in a tight spot, you can use scarves or pieces of clothing of the appropriate colors, to represent the elements in your circle. If you choose the items of clothing carefully, you could even dress a spirit, in a pinch.
Herbs
In most cases, I recommend using the incense version of the herb you need, as these can often be found more cheaply and easily. Also, you can choose carefully in which spells you do. Try to do ones that use herbs you already have in your kitchen or broom closet.
Since most herbs have several magical uses, this does not disable your spell work. There are several magical herbs in herbal teas, so investigate what’s in them and you can benefit from your magic, literally from the inside, out.
Oil and Incense
As with herbs, don’t be afraid to substitute an oil or incense for another that has the same magical properties. We just can’t stress it enough- diskount stores, diskount stores, diskount stores!
They can become your best friends in finding cheap oils, incenses, and candles. The average witch goes through so much of them that the savings truly is significant.
Stones
It’s not so much what type of stone it is that matters, as it is the color of the stone. There are some exceptions, however, lodestones and crystals for instance.
In many occult stores, you can buy various colors of small stones, of indeterminate origin, for about a tenth of the price of the only slightly larger stones that are identified as to their type. Remember, when it comes to stones, size really doesn’t matter.
Crystal Balls & Other Divination Tools
You really don’t need a crystal ball. If you wish to do scrying, you can use a mirror or a cauldron of water and it will work the same. As for other divination tools, if you are interested in tarot cards, but are prohibited by price, you can make similar tools on your own.
You can do this by painting oghams or runes on index cards, popsicle sticks or small stones. If you use index cards, and you are an artistic person, you could paint pictures on the back of them. The strangest form of divination, we’ve ever heard of is looking for omens in the soap scum of your bathtub.
Mojo bags
The little bags that you can buy at occult stores can be very pricey, especially if you use a new one for each spell. Look at art supply stores for squares of felt. They are very cheap and come in a rainbow of colors.
Just cut out circles about 8 or 9 inches in diameter, gather the edges after you’ve filled it and tie it up with a piece of string or rubber band. You could also use baby socks as mojo bags- particularly useful in fertility spells!