I should start by stating by non traditional Minis , I mean mostly small plastic/rubber toys Like Insect Dinosaurs, spiders, Snakes etc that are not sold as gaming Mini's, but are are sold in Dollar, party and toy stores and which many of us use to stretch our gaming dollars
And October for those who dont know is the best Month to buy them as many Dollar store, at least where I live, stock up on different types for Halloween decorations. Bags of cockroachs, spiders flys, and rats are hard to find most of the year but are well stocked at this time.
Only problem is do I hit my players with a CR 30 giant spider or 200 cr2 spiders next week?
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I do this, too. My players have an array of oversized bugs, snakes, lizards & skeletal monstrosities waiting for them this month.
I often repaint them to add a personal touch (and because the stock paint jobs are often not that great). I have a pack of giant glow-in-the-dark mutant roaches that look normal until I hit 'em with the blacklight. Well, normal for giant mutant roaches.
If I find something on clearance at my local hobby store that might work, I snatch that up, too. Got a pair of those fancy German-made realistic crocodiles for my swamp game at a heckuva price. Just gotta wait for those dragons of theirs to go on sale . . .
The toys that come in the "Toob" are great, too. I got a bunch of turtles and frogs, plus a neat lily pad that makes for a really cool mini base or spell effect.
Bring on the Halloween goodies!
The mythical realms toob is great as it give you a Chimera(Hard to find anywhere) a minotaur, a Griffin, a Phoenix all close to scale along with a baby Dragon and a large mermaid and Neptune figures you can use as Giant type.
The Prehistoric toob also has cavemen(Giants) along with a sabertooth tiger and Giant sloth and a few other animals.
For Dragons try Michael arts and craft stores. They sell some nice ones for about 15$ each
http://www.michaels.com/search?q=dragon
The four headed one makes a nice Hydra. Agin How easy is it to find a nice large hydra?
I have probably 15% of my rather substantial miniatures collection made up from cheap toy store, dollar store or thrift store animals, bugs, birds and dinosaur miniatures. I frequently will frankenstein them to create new creatures, or my own versions of mythological ones.
There are lots of ways to build up a miniature collection with cheap, easily obtainable miniatures. If you are willing to put true 25mm scale minis (the original "official" scale for D&D before miniature makers started creeping the size up for "heroic" figures until they now are closer to 30mm standard) you can get dozens of boxes of 30-40 quality miniatures for less than $10 a box.
Miniatures don't have to be crazy expensive.