My DD does agility with her dog and it's 10k. Some of it, like vet bills and food, we would have paid anyway since the dog is a family pet. But there are also additional expenses like the dog gets acupuncture to be competition ready, and DD gets private coaching as well as dance classes that focus on footwork used in agility. Sometimes she pays she will win a steeplechase with a big purse and pay us back but I just want her to have fun and hopefully this all will help with her leadership skills or something.

All Star Cheerleading - two girls in the sport thus I’m paying around $15k a year after travel, gym costs, private coaches, clothing, etc.

DS plays chess and squash. We spend ~45k a yr. entrance fees, traveling to tournaments, hotels, food, private coaching, camps, etc.

The costs pale in comparison to my niece who is an equestrian.

Yay

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So only the top 1%-10% families can even have kids competing in some of these expensive sports? I would never say the child getting private skating lessons and training isn’t good at figure skating, but there can only be so many kids even wealthy enough to compete—and those that are, how much is it about natural talent and how much is it about the amount of money parents are willing to throw at a sport?

We live in a small house, drive older cars and live under our means. Its all about priorities. We have the money available because of the choices we make. We are far from wealthy.

lol you are probably still in the top 5%. Definition of wealth in DC!!

Not even close to top 5%.

We choose to spend around 11k for one kid’ dance activities and a few thousand for a younger kid to fence . Neither kid is a natural. I want them to have some sort of physical activity that they love doung. The money is worth that to us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:swimming is cheap, ice skating is not. I think you can go slowly and just do the group classes for awhile.

My niece's volleyball was around 1k/mo between club fees and travel, and you basically had to be on the club team to get the experience to keep up with the high school team.

All of the sports add up, but I think horseback riding and skating are the highest.

Riding puts it all to shame. Tens of thousands without even considering how much it costs to buy a horse, truck, trailer.

yes, I have read skating is about ~30k per year, but riding you have to buy a horse, all the stuff to move the horse, board the horse, pay for vet bills. I grew up with cousins who rode and it was $$$.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our DS plays golf. We spend about $40,000 a year.
He enjoys it.

How can golf be that expensive? Is his coach Tiger Woods or what?

Are you including your club fees to reach that total?

Spend a little under $6k a year for fencing for one child including two group and one private lesson each week. We haven't hit the tournament scene yet so I am sure that cost will increase.

More than $6k for a serious tween-age ballerina (pre pro program, summer intensives, pointe shoes).

Anonymous wrote:Around $15k a year for two kids in fencing which covers classes and private lessons. Doesn’t include $ for fees/travel/lodging for tournaments or summer camp. Kids enjoy it and are pretty good at it, so I feel it’s worth it.

My son used to fence and with once a week private lesson and once a week group lessons, it ran nearly $3K per year. Add in equipment and tournaments and camps (all within driving distance but an occasional hotel stay) and it was up to $4K per year. I'm a single parent and a nurse so I was kind of relieved when he wanted to stop. It is a great sport but full of people with so much money. It was hard to keep up. A few of his friends were traveling up to NYC every weekend to fence with coaches up there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:swimming is cheap, ice skating is not. I think you can go slowly and just do the group classes for awhile.

My niece's volleyball was around 1k/mo between club fees and travel, and you basically had to be on the club team to get the experience to keep up with the high school team.

All of the sports add up, but I think horseback riding and skating are the highest.

Riding puts it all to shame. Tens of thousands without even considering how much it costs to buy a horse, truck, trailer.

I was talking to my old coach recently and asking casually for a friend about buying a Children’s Hunter for their 12 yo. He said you need to spend in the six figures to get something competitive now. It is insane.

You can spend an infinite amount of money on riding. I saw an article a few years back about the top riders in the U.S., and I think Bruce Springsteen's daughter was the poorest person on the list. The rest were mostly the children of billionaires. It's difficult to compete if you're just a plain old 1%er.

Yeah, I've seen that the teenage daughters of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are really into riding. Unless you really have money to burn, it seems best to avoid that sport in favor of so many other sports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:swimming is cheap, ice skating is not. I think you can go slowly and just do the group classes for awhile.

My niece's volleyball was around 1k/mo between club fees and travel, and you basically had to be on the club team to get the experience to keep up with the high school team.

All of the sports add up, but I think horseback riding and skating are the highest.

Riding puts it all to shame. Tens of thousands without even considering how much it costs to buy a horse, truck, trailer.

I was talking to my old coach recently and asking casually for a friend about buying a Children’s Hunter for their 12 yo. He said you need to spend in the six figures to get something competitive now. It is insane.

You can spend an infinite amount of money on riding. I saw an article a few years back about the top riders in the U.S., and I think Bruce Springsteen's daughter was the poorest person on the list. The rest were mostly the children of billionaires. It's difficult to compete if you're just a plain old 1%er.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:swimming is cheap, ice skating is not. I think you can go slowly and just do the group classes for awhile.

My niece's volleyball was around 1k/mo between club fees and travel, and you basically had to be on the club team to get the experience to keep up with the high school team.

All of the sports add up, but I think horseback riding and skating are the highest.

Riding puts it all to shame. Tens of thousands without even considering how much it costs to buy a horse, truck, trailer.

I was talking to my old coach recently and asking casually for a friend about buying a Children’s Hunter for their 12 yo. He said you need to spend in the six figures to get something competitive now. It is insane.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So only the top 1%-10% families can even have kids competing in some of these expensive sports? I would never say the child getting private skating lessons and training isn’t good at figure skating, but there can only be so many kids even wealthy enough to compete—and those that are, how much is it about natural talent and how much is it about the amount of money parents are willing to throw at a sport?

We live in a small house, drive older cars and live under our means. Its all about priorities. We have the money available because of the choices we make. We are far from wealthy.

lol you are probably still in the top 5%. Definition of wealth in DC!!

Anonymous wrote:Are you all also saving $ for college in case kid does not get scholarship money - or are you fairly certain in these situations that some scholarship money is certain? Do coaches or other advisors give you a reasonable prediction of what you can expect?

Figure skating mom here and there’s no money for college scholarships. In fact if she’s able to skate on a team in college, it will likely be thousands in addition to college tuition. We do it for the current enjoyment, with no expectation for the future.

Anonymous wrote:swimming is cheap, ice skating is not. I think you can go slowly and just do the group classes for awhile.

My niece's volleyball was around 1k/mo between club fees and travel, and you basically had to be on the club team to get the experience to keep up with the high school team.

All of the sports add up, but I think horseback riding and skating are the highest.

Riding puts it all to shame. Tens of thousands without even considering how much it costs to buy a horse, truck, trailer.