Last winter I made it through the whole season by simply putting a duct-tape shield around the toes. It was not even as much as you're suggesting.

How this came about was that I was thinking about just buying toe covers and seeing how they did, but since I've already blown tons of money on stuff that didn't work out, I figured I'd test it first. So I put my shoes in a plastic grocery bag then wrapped it tight in duct tape (just the front) then cut out the cleat area, cut the excess off from the back, and used a small piece of carpet tape between that and the shoes to keep them from slipping off.

I figured I'd try that first, since really only my toes get really painfully cold. It worked so well I just used that all winter.