Fair Deals Rule OC Fair's Discount Days

Creating a pie chart, one that involves where exactly your money will be spent, before heading out to the OC Fair?

Let's be real: A lot of your pie chart will involve actual pie, as in where to allot your funds so that they may be used for the purchase of pie slices, and maybe mermaid floats, and deep-fried Oreos, and Spaghetti Donuts, too.

And when so much of your financial pie chart involves pie and fries and fun, you have to look both long and hard at the cash it'll take to walk through the front gate of the yearly Costa Mesa event. 

Good thing for both our wallets and tummies that there are so many discounts and deals and special money-saving days swirling around the OC Fair, each and every year.

Many of the deals you'll remember, if you're a fair fan, but check out a new addition for 2018, Wear Overall Days.

If you show up wearing full-on overalls, on a Thursday, from noon through to 3 in the afternoon, you'll snag free admission. 

Overall, we love this idea.

While your washing your favorite shoulder-strapped dungarees, best peruse all of the other pocket-your-cash deals, from Free Till Three on Opening Day (yep, arrive before 3 p.m. on Friday, July 13 and saunter through the gate without paying) to Fair It Forward ("With the original ticket, guests who attended the San Diego County Fair, Ventura County Fair or OC Fair can receive free admission to both of the other two fairs").

First Responders and Law Enforcement Week runs from Aug. 8 through 12, and, for sure, if you have your ID issued by the agency you work for, you'll visit the fair for free.

And We Care Wednesdays is back, one of the nicest discount drives around.

Each Wednesday a different item will be in the spotlight — school supplies on July 18, a food drive on July 25, a children's book drive on Aug. 1, and clothing on Aug. 8 — and those who donate will receive complimentary entry to the OC Fair.

Oh yes, and one free carnival ride, too.

There are so many others, like $3 Taste of Fair Food Thursdays, during specific hours, to Seniors Day, where guests 60+ will only pay $5 to enter and score free rides on the merry-go-round.

And the Ferris wheel, too. Sweet.

Just study up and make sure you coordinate the day and hours you want to be at the fair with the discounts, freebies, and requested donations. Overall-up and read the information here.

But surely you're donning those overalls and trying out the brand-new Wear Overalls Day in 2018?

How can anyone say no to a charmer of a dress-up day that involves getting into one of the most beloved county fair for zip, nada, nothing?

The OC Fair oinks, rocks, zooms, and delights on select dates from July 13 through Aug. 12, 2018.