I don’t know about you, but I want the best for my kids. Maybe you do to? Even if you don’t have kids, you probably know a parent, and if you think they may benefit from this email, please forward it to them!
Recently, we decided that we were going to enroll our boys in football – the American version. My husband was an All-Star soccer player, so I was surprised that he picked football over soccer for our boys. But I was excited because if you know anything about me, you know I love me some SEC football!
Seriously, football is the only sport that I could realistically hold a conversation about because it’s the only sport that has ever interested me. So I was thrilled at the idea of my boys playing football and me getting to be a cheerleader on the sidelines cheering on my boys.
So when registration opened up, I was all ready. I mean, I had been stalking the local football organization’s Facebook page for weeks in anticipation. I was ready and had money set aside ready to register my boys for fall.
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But, when registration opened up, and I saw just how much money it was going to cost us to enroll both of our boys in football for the fall, I nearly choked on my coffee!
To register them was going to close to $600 and that didn’t include the camp that my boys were going to need since they’ve never played football before and it didn’t include their cleats or helmets!
In the end, it was going to cost us roughly a $1,000 to enroll our boys in football!
That was wayyyyy more than we were expecting but we wanted to be “good” parents. Not to mention one of our children has been diagnosed as having ADHD, and it has been recommended to us that we put him in sports. We felt like we needed to put our kids in sports.
For weeks, I kept trying to make room in our budget to set aside the money to pay for my boys to play football. But it wasn’t happening due to taxes, an escrow account shortage, and us still needing to put gutters on our house.
Cash flowing can be so challenging sometimes.
So we started talking about enrolling them in a different sport. But once again we found ourselves realizing that it was going to still costs us a pretty penny to enroll our boys in sports.
And heck, we weren’t even sure if they would like to play the sport we were considering enrolling them in! The thing is, we simply didn’t have the cash to make it happen. And if we wanted to make it happen, we were going to have to make some really tough decisions.
So after a long night talking it over, we decided not to enroll our boys in sports for the year but to start putting money aside so if next year they want to play a sport we’ll have the money to pay.
I wish this internal battle stopped here – with us not being able to afford it – but it didn’t. For weeks we felt like bad parents and like our kids were going to suffer because they weren’t in sports. We worried about them feeling left out and like they were lacking.
And I know that we’re not alone in this saga.
I’ve talked to several parents who have expressed the same thing. We’ve had friends rack up thousands of dollars on their credit cards in sports fees, travel costs, and the like. I’ve hugged moms who sat crying because they were exhausted from trying to keep up with the pressures of keeping up with the “sport” mentality.
I used to think that parents that spent so much on kids’ sports and wreck themselves over pushing their kids in sports had lost their minds. I mean, to my childless self it seemed insane but a simple problem of “if you can’t afford it, you can’t buy it.” But when is life ever that simple?
I share this with you because maybe you’ve found yourself in a similar spot – perhaps not with kids’ sports but the pressures of keeping up with the pressures of raising perfect kids. And if you have found yourself in this spot, I want to encourage you that you’re not alone and that it is entirely okay to say “no.”
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Yes, your children may be sad when you tell them “no” but if your kids are old enough, maybe give them the opportunity to pay for the expense themselves. It’ll teach them the value of saving and how much the sport means to them. One of the most significant blessings my parents ever gave me is that they didn’t sugar coat it when it came to affording things.
They would straight up tell us they couldn’t afford it but if we wanted it bad enough, we could pay for it. It helped my brother, and I understand that money was a real thing and not something imaginary and that things cost money.
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I took gymnastics for years. I can’t imagine what it wound up costing my parents :/ Though it did give me a ton of discipline (and maybe a little too much competitiveness 😉 )
Couldn’t you put the kids in a cheaper sport like rec soccer just for this year?
We don’t have those type of programs here. 🙁
I can so relate to this! I have been surprised when talking to other parents who have kids in sports at how much they were spending and how much time it was taking up. I have 5 kids, 4 of whom are old enough to play something and that has really caused a dilemma for us in how to afford them all being able to play. Over the years we’ve come up with a few things to keep the costs down.
First we talk to each kid and make sure that they truly want to play the sport. I don’t want to pay a bunch of money if they aren’t really into it in the first place.
Second I try to look at as many organizations as possible that offer that sport to find a cost-effective place for them to learn how to play. We have had a lot of luck with the Upward program (it is faith-based, fyi) where my kids are able to all play games and or practices within a two hour period of each other which has made it so much easier on our family. It’s a great way to learn a sport and it costs around 60-70 dollars per kid per season and that includes a uniform.
As one of my kids who is really interested in sports has progressed, we have had a lot of luck in city leagues and have not found them to be too expensive.
Also, check your school district during the summer as they might offer sports camps. They are a great way to try out a sport without having to commit too much money.
Good luck!
I have raised 4 children , 2 girls & 2 boys with 15 yrs between oldest to youngest & I applaud your advice that saying no we can’t afford it never hurt anyone. Letting them decide if they want to save to help pay for sports, special expensive tennis shoes, prom dresses etc never hurt any of my kids & they took such pride when they contributed to that special thing. Today my daughter has past that on to my 2 granddaughters & they save birthday & Christmas money for these things.