No need for a pool!

If you have trouble affording a pool pass for a local pool or just decide not to, don't worry you can still have lots of free water fun. There are several different parks in the St. Charles and St. Louis areas that have water sprinklers set up in the parks. Downtown St. Louis has a great place called City Garden where the kids could easily spend an entire day and just take a short trip on the Metrolink for a few dollars and its a cheap fun day.
Just a short drive up to Troy is Cuiver River State Park where they have the beach area with plenty of swimming and playing in the sand. So don't feel like you have to leave your kids out of having all the water fun this summer, there is still plenty of free water fun to be had!
Even better, maybe make a friend with a neighbor who has a pool in their back yard and will let you swim for a bit.

Fun for boys!

My boys, as with most young boys, LOVE any kind of construction truck ever made. So we have found a cheap fun thing to do with them is to go and watch construction trucks at work. You can go to almost any construction site and see many trucks hard at work and they have it roped off far enough away that its safe for your kids to stand by and watch. We have gone to some spots and sat and watched for a good half hour. One spot had an awesome guy who saw us sitting for a long time watching let the boys come over to see the truck, how cool is that! I just wouldn't suggest doing this on a day that is extremely hot or cold or bringing along your daughter who is "so bored" after only 5 minutes of watching them.

Saving money on food!

THis is the best time of the year to be stocking up on fruit and veggies! I bought 4 big bags of produce yesterday from Anthony's Produce and only spent $20. I then came home and spent about 2 hours chopping up the veggies and getting them ready to freeze. Now our freezer is full of fresh veggies ready for the winter months when the prices skyrocket. I'm sure I will be making a few more trips to buy some more to store in our deep freeze. My garden is also growing like crazy and we are busy eating up fresh from our garden, saving tons of money from our grocery bill. I'm also planning on learning canning from my awesome mother in law and will be canning up lots of fruits, tomatoes, cucumbers, and other things that I know we will be eating up this winter. This will save our money TONS of money this winter plus its great to have FRESH food out of our freezer instead of the fruits and veggies they buy from far away countries and use chemicals to rippen them. So this is the best way I can recommend to save money on your grocery bill. If you have other ideas, I would love to hear about them!