Anyone else's kids got extremely expensive hobbies?

[bjorni9]

What started as a casual club, has turned into a lifestyle. Mountain biking, 4x, bmx freestyle, bmx racing. It has saved my ND child's sanity, and drained my bank account. I buy and sell and work so much overtime just so we can continue. It is far better than any play therapy or council funded clubs we've ever received (especially for his mh and mood). Anyone else making big sacrifices for their kids' hobbies? If only football would've stuck!

Polo

Just about to embark on an ice skating journey with my one….!!! 😬

We got a bit deep into gymnastics which was £££ due to DD spending every waking hour there. Thankfully no more

Canoeing. Not so much the actual hobby after the initial outlay, but the cost of driving to whitewater parks in the country.

Irish dancing 🤯

Gymnastics.

Musical theatre

Horse riding , piano , gymnastics, tennis x2 children, got a third whose a toddler too
tell Myself they only get one childhood but it’s pricey for sure

Yes, 15K a year worth at least. But it was pre-professional level and full time, could have led to a job.

Motocross

Horses. Dd1 only. Thankfully the others were not fans of them.

Yes - a sport that shouldn’t cost so much but does because they’re pretty good at it and we don’t seem to know how to say no as want to take advantage of the opportunities whilst they’re there. This year alone, we’ve spent over £20k funding this sport and we’re not massive earners. The £20k could have paid off more than 10% of our mortgage. 😭 I think next year we will be cutting back on the sport expenditure but I’ve not yet shared that news 😬

DD did squad swimming and that was fairly expensive relative to her county hockey. Squad fees/pool admission fees were the killer.

Yes ive spent 6k on hotels! Madness

Ice hockey is bad, goalie even worse.

Get a cheap camper van, and convert one if you can.

Ice hockey 🤦🏻‍♀️

Another ice hockey mum here. We are on a travel team. It costs a FORTUNE.

OP I would love to pick your brain as we are just starting out on this.

If you had your time over, would you do anything differently?

My ds is 7 and not ND but struggles with confidence at school because he’s partially deaf. He loves riding his bike - it’s his favourite thing to do. Mostly he does road biking and some gravel at the moment on a regular kids bike with his dad who also loves to cycle. They tend to head out early Sundays without much of a plan and do 25 to 30km, or they head to the local MTB trails. We don’t have any specialised kit yet but ds will be getting a full-face helmet for Christmas since he’s picking up speed on his MTB and I don’t want him even thinking about starting to jump without proper protection.

We went to a CX race with a short under 8 kids race in the summer and I was quite shocked by how incredible and well-invested in the sport even the young kids were. Some seems very serious! And speaking to parents, some had vans with very expensive specialised bikes in the back.

We have a choice - we could carry on as we are; or we could sign ds up to one of the local cycle clubs so he goes down a CX or MTB club. (I don’t think we’ll get him into BMX - although we have a few pump tracks I think what he enjoys is the freedom and the speed, I’m not sure tricks will be his thing.)

I have always thought “breadth not depth” when kids are young, and was thinking we’d try him out at the local sailing and kayak club next year - both also expensive sports! But easy to do locally.

By comparison my dd did martial arts and bouldering - both pretty cheap if you are not too serious about it.

I did breadth rather than depth when my children were younger, but when it became clear that DD was talented enough to make it her career, she dropped everything else and just concentrated on the one thing…. Which was, and is, extremely expensive.

There’s nothing I would do differently looking back. She is passionate for this, and I do believe everyone should do what they have a passion for if possible. I also think doing anything to a high level has many transferable skills even if they don’t end up doing it as a career. Once it goes beyond the “hobby” stage, the discipline involved teaches resilience, confidence, self control, team work and maturity.

Yes - horses X2 DC. At least you don’t have to feed the bike or pay to house it 🙈😆

Add in travel to / from training and events (even if you’re car sharing), competition entrance fees, overnight accommodation, training camps, racing kit etc and you’re into a small fortune.

Horses/ polo probably win, but competitive sailing was pretty eye watering too. We used to joke that at least we didn't have to feed and muck out the boats.

Rowing 😬 x 2 at the mo. 3rd not old enough yet.

Music.