Okay, I think that we all need to be honest with each other. The sports that our kids do are getting a bit out of hand.
We used to walk to the local little league park carrying a bat (if we were lucky enough to own one) and our mitt. It would cost $50 or so to be on that team and that would be the only cost except for a pair of cleats that we would hand down to our younger brother. Or maybe we would play basketball for our middle school team. That sport would be free except for the cost of getting to and from the games in the local area and the cost of basketball shoes.
Unfortunately, this quaint time has long passed. Not only have the costs of sports kept up with inflation, but they have soared past it because of the new expectations in sports. The normal sports-minded child can’t just play in the local AYSO or Little League if they want to “succeed”. Instead they must do time-intensive travel sports, where costs can reach into the thousands of dollars.
As Bob Dylan sang, “For the times they are a-changin'”.
As an example, a friend of mine told me that his daughter’s dance class cost $9,000 last year! Another friend makes a two-hour drive, 4 days during the week so that her daughter can play travel softball. I also heard about a travel hockey team based out of Chicago that plays their “home” games near Detroit (a distance of 280 miles from their actual homes)!
When travel soccer, at a cost of $3,500 per year, is considered cheap, then maybe we are spending way too much money on the athletic futures of our kids!
As Mr. Garvey asks on the Substitute Teacher skit, “Have you lost your … mind?”
The cost of $9,000 per year doesn’t even include the time spent driving to practice or the cost of paying for hotels when traveling to tournaments! This doesn’t include the cost of gas and vehicle depreciation or the money that we spend making sure that our kid has the best new bat in softball so that the ball will fly just a little bit farther!
Maybe Mr. Garvey is right …
We make the choice to put off saving for retirement so that we can travel to the regional baseball tournament. We rationalize that it is okay to not put any money away for college as long as our daughter is on the right basketball team. Many of us know that it is silly to buy a BMW because the payment of $550 per month is much too expensive, but we think nothing of putting this amount of money and more into uniforms, lessons, and travel teams.
Now what I have to say next may be difficult to take … so please bear with me. Please don’t take it out on me in the comment section : )
Your son … my daughter … none of our kids … will play professional sports.
I know, this is kind of difficult to take.
I’ll wait a minute …
Hopefully, you are all still with me? Odds are, you may have thought that you would be a professional athlete when you were younger. My sport that I was going to go pro in was baseball … and then it was tennis … and then it was running. Even though I wanted to be the next Alan Trammel, it didn’t quite happen.
The odds are pretty low that our kids will not be the next Lebron James or Serena Williams. However, the odds are pretty good that we will want to retire one day in the future. The odds are pretty good that we will want to pay off our mortgage debt before we retire. The odds are pretty good that we should spend a bit more time taking care of ourselves and our family and a bit less time driving to the next tournament.
Let’s play the odds!
Even I (in the spirit of full disclosure) realize that I can do better with sports for MY KIDS. I’ve taken my son and family to the state baseball tournament. I’ve allowed my son to play travel soccer (at a much smaller cost than $3,500). I’ve watched many ballet practices and softball games for my daughter. I even am sitting here watching my son practice hockey as I type this to you!
Now please don’t take this the wrong way. I actually love sports and love to invest a lot of time in them. One of my favorite things to do is watch my kids score a goal in soccer or play a great role in the local play.
But sports can take over our lives and our finances. Even though we want what is best for our kids, playing catch with them in the yard might be better than putting them on a baseball team that plays tournaments 3 states away from where we live.
Our kids’ sports don’t have the be the BMW of the middle class!
As my kids have gotten older and I’ve (hopefully) gotten a bit wiser, I’ve found that there are a lot of things to do to be smarter about sports.
- When I take my child to practice, I use the practice time to go for a run, play with another one of my kids, or even write this blog post.
- I coach my kids, which allows me to actively participate in their activities.
- I try to sign my kids up for teams that are close to home and limit travel tournaments to just a few per season.
So, like the title of the post suggests, my daughter HAS to do dance … but she doesn’t have to pay $9,000 for it! Instead, she dances at a local studio and is happier doing that then she would have been if she was dancing all over the country.
Tell us about the sports or activities that your children are in. Do they take up too much of your Budget or do they add a lot of Life to your family?
And thanks for reading!
~Nathan
Let’s keep living a great life … with the help of money. So what’s next?
- You can travel for free by using rewards credit cards.
- You can get motivated and get out of debt.
- You can check out the next post or the previous post and continue to learn.
But no matter what you decide to do, let’s leave the ordinary behind and take action today!
