If your child plans an expensive sport,

(1) what is the sport?
Polo
(2) how much do you spend annually (or have you spent over the years)?
200k in 8 years
(3) what are most of the costs from (private lessons, travel, etc)?
Everything is expensive in polo.
(4) in hindsight, do you wish you'd steered your child to a cheaper sport, or less expensive activities?
He also plays rugby and has multiple activities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]We were at about $15-20 k on figure skating for several years. It’s an all consuming sport. My daughter was not even close to Olympic level but enjoyed it.[/b] Lessons, ice time, skates, dresses (sometimes borrowed), testing fees, club fees, travel. It was hard to scale back without quitting. We ended up convincing her to try other activities to be more well rounded while also impressing upon her the financial impact. She still loves skating but is no longer competing.

Not trying to sound critical here, but I often wonder what makes parents think this is worth the expense. Especially if your child isn't close to the Olympic level. Especially for a sport like figure skating which isn't a life long sport. Most likely once your child goes to college, the only ice skating she will ever do again is recreational, and probably not very frequently. Again not trying to be critical, but for those of you who are paying this kind of money for sports which you don't believe will last beyond HS, what makes it worth it.

Everyone has different incomes and priorities. Some people spend a fortune on travel. For what? Enjoyment. I’d say that’s why we pay for figure skating.
It also gradually increases. Had someone told me when we started that it would get up to $30K, I would have said no way. But it starts small and then gradually increases and by that time, your child is incredibly invested in the sport and it’s hard to walk away. At this point, it’s such a huge part of her life and who she is, we won’t walk away. There are other obvious takeaways from being successful at any sport, like discipline, goal setting, self confidence and friendships. I actually don’t expect her to walk away right after high school. I would expect her to continue in college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is perhaps a controversial response, but I always stepped away from supporting my kids in intensive involvement in a sport--so when they were encouraged to join travel teams or whatnot, I played it down. Encouraged them to try other sports and activities too. Skip a sport for a year to do something else. Not because of the financial costs, but the opportunity costs. Yes, I know that kids love it and develop whole social worlds/bonds around it, but there are so many facets of life: creative endeavors, intellectual activities, play, rest, daydreaming, reading. Bodies also need varied activities to develop well and avoid injury. It just seems to cost too much of life for my tastes. We probably spend 3k a year per child on varied interests/activities including sports.

This is bizarre. Who were the people encouraging them to try travel teams?

Coaches, teammates shifting up to the more intensive travel team from their more low-key local sports involvement, going into more competitive modes which involve more practice time/extensive travel (in one of our child's cases, gymnastics). I'm not sure what about my response you think is bizarre. We just shifted away from all efforts to "intensify" our kids' involvement in sports even though they were sometimes pegged as being talented because it doesn't accord with how much we as parents wanted to devote any our life energy to kids' sports.

you didn’t do it despite being told they had a talent for it because of The bolded reason, not your underline ones. No problem with the choice or why you made it but it seems it’s rwally about not wanting to have your time sucked into the black hole competitive sports requires.

No, I think I worded it a bit off there--I think we as parents made a decision that this is not what we valued for our kids' lives --that we felt there's more to growing up well that too much involvement in one sport can eclipse--AND that there was too much in our own lives we valued not to have our time sucked in. We probably spend just as much time in family activities (we go hiking a lot together, have tickets/memberships at a lot of places, travel) as we would have on their respective sports, but I didn't want to communicate to our kids that one particular sport had that much value if that makes sense. That said, I think it was helpful we had this foresight to shift gears a bit earlier on to broader engagement in activities--because I think it gets harder when a kid gets more immersed and more of their social ties/rewards/self-esteem are tied up into the one activity. It was easier to frame it as -- I want you to have time to try all these other cool things too. So I think there's not one "real" reason but rather a multi-faceted set of values.

Anonymous wrote:Ballet for 10 year old is still less than that, but will quickly go over once she hits middle school. Classes, private lessons, pointe shoes, summer intensives away from home. She absolutely loves it and has a lot of natural talent so it's worth it for us.

Tennis and music lessons for other DD 8 will also be over that amount within the next few years.

Those two are thankfully balanced out by another DD 12 choosing chorus and track & field/cross-country as her preferred activities.

Ballet mom here. Why do you think intensives away from home are worth it? My daughter has always done local summer intensives and outside of the fun of being away from home, I'm not sure what the benefit of going out of town for an intensive is over staying local.

Anonymous[b wrote:]We were at about $15-20 k on figure skating for several years. It’s an all consuming sport. My daughter was not even close to Olympic level but enjoyed it.[/b] Lessons, ice time, skates, dresses (sometimes borrowed), testing fees, club fees, travel. It was hard to scale back without quitting. We ended up convincing her to try other activities to be more well rounded while also impressing upon her the financial impact. She still loves skating but is no longer competing.

Not trying to sound critical here, but I often wonder what makes parents think this is worth the expense. Especially if your child isn't close to the Olympic level. Especially for a sport like figure skating which isn't a life long sport. Most likely once your child goes to college, the only ice skating she will ever do again is recreational, and probably not very frequently. Again not trying to be critical, but for those of you who are paying this kind of money for sports which you don't believe will last beyond HS, what makes it worth it.

Anonymous wrote:$13,000 dance classes, private lessons and summer intensives in LA and NYC.

Another dance mom here. Just curious, what intensives does your child attend?

Anonymous wrote:Curious about the people who spend more than 5 figures on a sport.

What do ya'll make?

Cuz the OP in another thread is being roasted for spending 50k on vacations for 5 people.

I'd love to see what they'd say about spending 30k on figure skating or a horse!

HHI of around 300k. I offset expenses by boarding horses for other people and occasional sales, as I said before. The horse business doesn't always make money (depends on whether I sell one) but it's enough. When I do sell I tend to make mid five figures too so there is that. Having my own farm helps because I can purchase a foal when they are cheaper (around 10k), then sell as a 4-5 yo showing potential. But there's a lot of risk involved -- they go lame, get hurt, colic, turn out to have a difficult temperament, don't have the scope over jumps their breeding would indicate, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is perhaps a controversial response, but I always stepped away from supporting my kids in intensive involvement in a sport--so when they were encouraged to join travel teams or whatnot, I played it down. Encouraged them to try other sports and activities too. Skip a sport for a year to do something else. Not because of the financial costs, but the opportunity costs. Yes, I know that kids love it and develop whole social worlds/bonds around it, but there are so many facets of life: creative endeavors, intellectual activities, play, rest, daydreaming, reading. Bodies also need varied activities to develop well and avoid injury. It just seems to cost too much of life for my tastes. We probably spend 3k a year per child on varied interests/activities including sports.

This is bizarre. Who were the people encouraging them to try travel teams?

Coaches, teammates shifting up to the more intensive travel team from their more low-key local sports involvement, going into more competitive modes which involve more practice time/extensive travel (in one of our child's cases, gymnastics). I'm not sure what about my response you think is bizarre. We just shifted away from all efforts to "intensify" our kids' involvement in sports even though they were sometimes pegged as being talented because it doesn't accord with how much we as parents wanted to devote any our life energy to kids' sports.

you didn’t do it despite being told they had a talent for it because of The bolded reason, not your underline ones. No problem with the choice or why you made it but it seems it’s rwally about not wanting to have your time sucked into the black hole competitive sports requires.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is perhaps a controversial response, but I always stepped away from supporting my kids in intensive involvement in a sport--so when they were encouraged to join travel teams or whatnot, I played it down. Encouraged them to try other sports and activities too. Skip a sport for a year to do something else. Not because of the financial costs, but the opportunity costs. Yes, I know that kids love it and develop whole social worlds/bonds around it, but there are so many facets of life: creative endeavors, intellectual activities, play, rest, daydreaming, reading. Bodies also need varied activities to develop well and avoid injury. It just seems to cost too much of life for my tastes. We probably spend 3k a year per child on varied interests/activities including sports.

This is bizarre. Who were the people encouraging them to try travel teams?

Coaches, teammates shifting up to the more intensive travel team from their more low-key local sports involvement, going into more competitive modes which involve more practice time/extensive travel (in one of our child's cases, gymnastics). I'm not sure what about my response you think is bizarre. We just shifted away from all efforts to "intensify" our kids' involvement in sports even though they were sometimes pegged as being talented because it doesn't accord with how much we as parents wanted to devote any our life energy to kids' sports.

This makes much more sense. People from Rec programs were encouraging the change. I thought you meant club coaches saw your kid and were essentially recruiting them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is perhaps a controversial response, but I always stepped away from supporting my kids in intensive involvement in a sport--so when they were encouraged to join travel teams or whatnot, I played it down. Encouraged them to try other sports and activities too. Skip a sport for a year to do something else. Not because of the financial costs, but the opportunity costs. Yes, I know that kids love it and develop whole social worlds/bonds around it, but there are so many facets of life: creative endeavors, intellectual activities, play, rest, daydreaming, reading. Bodies also need varied activities to develop well and avoid injury. It just seems to cost too much of life for my tastes. We probably spend 3k a year per child on varied interests/activities including sports.

This is bizarre. Who were the people encouraging them to try travel teams?

Coaches, teammates shifting up to the more intensive travel team from their more low-key local sports involvement, going into more competitive modes which involve more practice time/extensive travel (in one of our child's cases, gymnastics). I'm not sure what about my response you think is bizarre. We just shifted away from all efforts to "intensify" our kids' involvement in sports even though they were sometimes pegged as being talented because it doesn't accord with how much we as parents wanted to devote any our life energy to kids' sports.

Anonymous wrote:This is perhaps a controversial response, but I always stepped away from supporting my kids in intensive involvement in a sport--so when they were encouraged to join travel teams or whatnot, I played it down. Encouraged them to try other sports and activities too. Skip a sport for a year to do something else. Not because of the financial costs, but the opportunity costs. Yes, I know that kids love it and develop whole social worlds/bonds around it, but there are so many facets of life: creative endeavors, intellectual activities, play, rest, daydreaming, reading. Bodies also need varied activities to develop well and avoid injury. It just seems to cost too much of life for my tastes. We probably spend 3k a year per child on varied interests/activities including sports.

This is bizarre. Who were the people encouraging them to try travel teams?

Curious about the people who spend more than 5 figures on a sport.

What do ya'll make?

Cuz the OP in another thread is being roasted for spending 50k on vacations for 5 people.

I'd love to see what they'd say about spending 30k on figure skating or a horse!

This is perhaps a controversial response, but I always stepped away from supporting my kids in intensive involvement in a sport--so when they were encouraged to join travel teams or whatnot, I played it down. Encouraged them to try other sports and activities too. Skip a sport for a year to do something else. Not because of the financial costs, but the opportunity costs. Yes, I know that kids love it and develop whole social worlds/bonds around it, but there are so many facets of life: creative endeavors, intellectual activities, play, rest, daydreaming, reading. Bodies also need varied activities to develop well and avoid injury. It just seems to cost too much of life for my tastes. We probably spend 3k a year per child on varied interests/activities including sports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, but I'd rather spend the $6000 on building their intellectual horsepower. My kids were all good athletes but size and speed were not in their gene pool. My son was a varsity tennis player (good but not great) but he really got into science so he went to a couple of science camps. He went to Harvard and he is now a doctor. It's unlikely that tennis would have gotten him to the same place.

So he is a doctor now, this was what? 20 yrs ago. To get into Harvard now, he’ll have to be an outstanding athlete AND outstanding in the sciences or whatever. My friends and I like to joke that we would not have gotten into our respective ivies if we applied now.

No worries, today he'd still have the (((legacy))) credentials he had back then.

Why is "legacy" in double parentheses?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well our daughters sport turned into us buying a horse. So we are at about 27k a year with boarding, fees, vet bills, and then the competitions itself. Still worth it as she is very grateful and very hard working. She's been at the stalls everyday at 545 am since we bought the horse 17 months ago. Literally every.single.day.

Heh, a friend of mine who bought his daughter a horse said that a major advantage of it was "she's too busy to bother with boys".

also you often smell bad

My DN who’s been riding since she was 6 works to support her horses and their upkeep. Her father still subsidizes. She is 21. It gets ridiculous.

My GF who is a very well paid lobbyist jokes that she mainly works to support her horses.