Strategic Character Selection
The single biggest lever on cosplay cost is character selection. A character who wears everyday contemporary clothing with distinctive accessories costs a fraction of a character who wears a unique elaborate fantasy costume. If budget is your primary constraint, choose characters whose base costume is sourced rather than constructed — and focus your budget and effort on the distinctive accessories and props that make the character recognisable.
The Thrift Store Approach
Many cosplay costumes can be built almost entirely from thrift store sourcing — base garments that match the character's general silhouette, modified to add the specific details. This approach requires knowledge of the character's design at the detail level, a clear plan for what modifications are needed, and the sewing skill to execute them. The result can be indistinguishable from a built-from-scratch costume at significantly lower materials cost.
Make vs Buy Decisions
Making a garment from scratch is not always cheaper than buying. For simple, commercially available pieces — a plain black skirt, a white dress shirt, basic accessories — buying is usually cheaper than the materials cost of making it. Focus your construction effort on the elements that can't be sourced: the distinctive details, the custom proportions, the accessories that don't exist commercially.