The basics of pool care come down to:
Keep it clean (automatic cleaners help a lot here, which one is best somewhat depends on the pool and what gets into it, ie some are better with leaves than others). These automatic cleaners can range from Chinese copies of the basic suction side Kreepy-Krawly that sell on ebay for under $100 to multi thousand dollar robots)
Keeping the water balanced (pH, Free/Combined Chlorine, Stabilizer, Calcium Hardness, Total Alkalinity, etc.), once you get it in balance it is fairly easy to keep it there (after time you will learn how your pool levels tend to drift, based on local water types, pool construction, etc) To do this testing is important and can be done at home with a simple drop based test kit (If you can pass high school chemistry this is no problem, mostly it involves putting in a few drops or reagent A into a test vial with pool water, followed by counting the number of drops of reagent B until you get a color change). You don't have to test for all of these all the time, it is often good enough to test Chlorine and pH 2 or 3 times per week once you get the hang of it, and the rest every 2-3 weeks, this is why the most basic $7 "Wal-Mart" test kit only test for total chlorine and pH
Ike
p.s. don't use test strips they are easy to use, but the results are so inconclusive as to be useless.
