How much do your children's expensive hobbies cost each month?

[SocialSkills00]

if your dc has an expensive hobby, how much does that cost you monthly?

I spend approx £200 a month on horse riding. I thought that was bad, but a friend says she spends £500 per month on dancing (!) which includes lots of private tuition & competitions.

450 a month on dance and drama and singing - but DD struggles academically and gets so much confidence from it, it feels like money well spent.

(That's about 14 hours a week of lessons, plus rehearsals on top when she has a show coming up)

£17 a two hour lesson- climbing.
£25 for a 5hr outdoor lesson

£70 weekly for piano lessons, £700 per term for Saturday morning music school including instrument hire. Which adds up to about £5K per year.

£140 on music.

Four of them.

so two ride, that’s 25 each a week. So say 200 a month.

two do gymnastics. 100 a month.

all swim. Another 100 a month.

plus probably £400 on horse events in summer and the same for gymnastics events.

I realised recently that we were spending £100+ a week (during term time) on DD2’s extra curriculars, but she does them all enthusiastically and puts the practice in so I don’t begrudge it (plus we are lucky enough that we can afford it).

DD1 is slightly cheaper, but prob still £50 a week.

The most expensive by far is music lessons provided by our local council run music service, which are almost double the cost of “private” lessons!

Dancing, normal months £200. When its show time which is 3-4x per year thats £250-300 then costumes and uniform, tickets to watch all the shows and performances it averages out at £350 per month I think

£225 a month on gymnastics for a 9yr. Thats 8hrs a week 4 x 2hrs so works out around £6.50ph

But then have competitions / costumes /travel to venues /odd hotel stay if comp is miles away

plus a cheeky hot chocolate x 2 a week at £7

Averaged over the year £500-£600pm excluding equipment.

Equipment cost about £6k every 2 years.

He does a competitive sport though so that includes entries and travel.

I’d never really added it up before but that’s quite eye watering 🥴

I've long said that dancing costs my friends faaaar more than my DD's horse riding! People always do that raised eye 'ooh, expensive' thing when we say DD rides.

We spend around £200 a month on riding too, but then also need to buy gear periodically.

DD also does Scouts, which is cheap as chips. I didn't count music lessons, didn't think to. We spend £20 a week in term time on a 30 minute flute lesson too, as well as £22 a month on hire of said flute. Will be buying the flute this year, but in Junior school DD was lent one for free and when she moved to Secondary I wasn't sure if she'd stick with playing, so didn't want to commit to buying it up front!

DS1 & DS2 don't do any clubs any more, they're a bit older now.

About £250 a month, gym membership, range time at shooting range, boxing club, guitar lessons and that’s about it.

That’s expensive! We pay about £150 per month for 16 hours per week.

Currently £800pm on football. Includes lots of private sessions with top coaches

My son plays ice-hockey.
We pay $450 per month for the practices, approximately $6000 per year for the ice fees, then the expenses to travel (often including a flight or a long-drive, plus a hotel stay) to be on travel team.
Ice-hockey boots fitted to his feet cost approximately $800 per set, plus more for all the other equipment.
It is ridiculous. He is 8 and it will only get more expensive as he continues.

My ds plays golf, the membership itself is not overly expensive as it's a community course (£150 a year) but clubs, balls, gloves, clothes, competition fees, it quickly adds up!
He also has gym membership and a football season ticket.

My other ds does basketball which is about £250 a year fees plus kit £75, shoes around £150 and then camps are extra. It's not an overly expensive hobby but most matches are about 60-100miles away so it's heavy on petrol and travel.

Those costs are insane, especially for an 8yr old. It sounds like you are in the US? Are those costs typical of it your son some sort of elite athlete? It's a shame because it sounds like many would be excluded from the sport because of cost.

Yep it’s very costly but they hav a set price that all pay the same so when do increase sessions you pay the same but the hourly rate lessens

so dd does mon tue Thur sat 2hrs each. When older /moves up group she will do 3 hrs a session so 12 a week and will still be £225 but then costing £4.30 ish ph

they said seemed th fairer way so if they improve didn’t cost more

equally we started on 2 x 2 so 4 so was paying a much higher rate ph

100 a month for music lessons...25 for a half hour lesson every week.

One of them, nothing really.

The other we pay maybe £400-500 a term (gymnastics), which is 3-4 sessions a week, so that’s 3 terms a year. So £125 a month. She also works as an assistant coach though, so she actually earns about that much every month through her role in the club. We don’t make her pay for it herself so she can use some spending money and put some towards savings, but she does use some of that money to buy kit, leotards, etc.

I can’t talk though really because I have a horse and he costs me probably £500 a month.

£80 pcm piano, £40 swimming, £35 gymnastics, around £200-300 pcm in after school clubs.

My daughter events her horse, us equestrians never tally up costs, it’s an unspoken rule, but…monthly
livery 205
hay 60
insurance 45
lorry insurance 60
lorry tax/maintenance 100
shoes 120
feed and supplements 80
bedding 60
lessons/arena hires 250
competition fees 200
physio/dentist/saddler/vets 160

so before replacing tack, rugs, paddock maintenance or anything unexpected, oh or fuel for lorry, we’re at £1340 a month

Shocked dance so expensive

Those of you doing 16 hours a week of gymnastics how do you fit that in? Do you not work? Do kids not have homework?

Oh gosh I don’t even want to add it up. My daughter is a dancer - 7 classes a week plus the competitions and camps and uniforms and costumes. We are going to an international competition this summer on top. It’s a huge, huge amount of our spare income. Hundreds and hundreds a month. She absolutely loves it but we have said we aren’t doing any more than this as it’s getting a bit unsustainable. She’d happily add more classes but we just can’t always prioritise it.

luckily our son ‘just’ does football and taekwando and they’re both local so affordable and inclusive.

Kids have to be organised with homework - they don’t get that much, plus I work part time which helps with getting them to gym.