Saving money at big events without skimping on the fun

Yesterday (in case you live in a available bombshell bunker without a calender) was Independence Day. I love this holiday it comes in a very close second to Thanksgiving for my favorite holiday.  I love this great country we live in,  and it's nice for this one day to see most people put away their political differences and celebrate being a free nation created under God.
The down side to holidays is I love to go crazy,  but things have been really extra tight financially so I got extra creative this year.
Bring your own food and drinks
The first thing I did was go online and find info on all the celebrations in my area.  Being Phoenix metro I had a ton to choose from,  which I know doesn't aply to everyone so this tip might not help you if you live in a small area.  I narrowed it down to the ones with free admission first. I love the word FREE! Then I checked for who would allow me to bring a cooler with drinks and my own food, obviously for the monkey's allergies, but also a HUGE cost saver.

I settled on Apache Junction and was very impressed. They not only had a lot of fun activities starting 3 hours before the fireworks, but the police presence was helpful, friendly, and very on top of things. Thank you to the AJ police department you guys and gals are AWESOME ! Their fireworks display was wonderful, the band pretty good and the booths were fun. The police also did a bang up job of getting traffic out of there.

But anyway back on topic.

Buy face paint and decor type things ahead of time and bring them
We stopped at Walmart and picked up face paint for $1.29, it had red,white and blue in one. Then I grabbed a package of 10 patriotic glow necklaces that were marked down to $2.50.  Hobby Lobby was right next door so we ran in there and found the 4th stuff already marked down to 50% off. So we grabbed some garland to decorate the wagon for $1 and a 2 pack of flags for the monkeys to wave also for $1.

I also made Lilly's hairclips, but that is only cost effective if you have a ribbon stash for every occasion like I do.


If you do face painting at the event or buy glow Sticks there it can cost you a lot more. At AJ it was the cheerleaders doing it and asking for donations but you get one little character and then you can't not give them money. Which is great if you have it but I'm focusing on being thrifty. I'm not saying they aren't worthy or anything.

So here's the monkey's face paint, which I really should of taken a picture of before food and drinks and sweat.

I had several people come up to me about the face paint, and ended up doing about a dozen other kids as well. 

Find booths with a free game or craft for the kids

What I've always done at things like this is to find businesses with booths that have a wheel to spin or some sort of game for the kids. These are almost always free,and if not I move on. A lot of times you can find free craft projects as well. AJ was all fundraiser booths, but all the games were $1 which was pretty awesome so I did let the kids throw wet squishy balls at the school superintendent. The oldest monkey did mommy proud when he nailed him right in the middle of the forehead. The monkey princess hit right on the edge of the face cutout so she got him pretty wet as well. :)

A wonderful time was had by all 4 of us, and I spent a total of $10.29 including the case of water I bought to take. We were there from 5:30 till after the fireworks ended and didn't feel like we missed out on anything. Monkey princess was even given a light up star necklace still in the package by some teenagers who said she had the best face paint they found all night. 

 So I will leave you with this, one of my favorite songs, and a fantastic video montage. 

GOD BLESS THE USA! Happy Independence Day America