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!

Ballet… my Ddad moaned about the cost of the shoes, the leotards, tights, wrap cardigans, shows, and bloody tutus.
I now moan about the state of my camels hooves mis-sharpen and always aching feet.

I swear to God, if we knew how buggered up and painful our bodies would be in older age, we would never have taken up ballet ( and gymnastics ) 😵‍💫

Cricket, swimming and karate here. Cricket is by far the most expensive as he has 1-1 tuition costing £45 ph and 2 or 3 hours per week in winter when you have to try to improve ahead of next season. Then the travel around the country to play and the expensive kit. He did the swimming and karate to keep fit for the cricket but got quite good at swimming and swam for our town. He's a black belt at karate so has had a lot of lessons. I don't mind because I'd far rather he got fitter and stronger than spent every waking hour on an X box like a few of his friends do.

Pedal harp - not only are they eye wateringly expensive and you spend your life buying new strings you also need an estate car to transport them. That DC also fences at a national level - the kit is eye watering before you look at the cost of getting to and staying at comps etc.

Ten pin bowling 🎳
Custom balls, shoes, membership and coaching. Then there’s the dawn drive around the country for tournaments. Cost me ££££ Miss it now though.

Martial arts and swimming here but thankfully swimming ended a few years ago as the cost of the competitions was ridiculous especially when both were doing them. Their Martial arts hasn’t been too bad really but 11 years of petrol and lessons would make me cry if I worked it out.

My nearly 20 year old will forever mourn he wasn’t born into a family rich enough to enable him to start with go-karting and end up as a formula 1 driver… 🤣

Horses! Blast my dh who bought my dd a riding lesson as a treat on Christmas Eve 10 years ago.

buying the horse for 1000s of ££’s was the cheap bit.

Polo makes me shudder, the ponies dying. Awful.

Do you get DLA for your child? My son receives child disability payment and we use it mainly to pay for the hobbies that give him and outlet and keep us all sane. Gymnastics, football, tennis so main outlay is the classes themselves and basic equipment and kit.

DD(5) rides. Thankfully only one cheap-ish (for our area anyway) lesson per week at the moment. Bloody jodhpurs and boots are costing me a small fortune ant the rate she’s growing though. and DH keeps going on about buying a pony in a few years though!! He’s also decided he wants to learn to ride!! She used to do ballet, tap and modern but thankfully the lesson times have changed and she wasn’t too bothered about continuing so I’ve swerved that. She’s just about to start gymnastics too, although it’s just a small local club and her first term is free (they got some lottery funding or something recently) so it’s not a big costly endeavour. She won’t be getting seriously invested as I had a relative that did national level gym and the way it took over her life was horrendous!

DS(8) does nothing. Been offered all the same opportunities as DD but his PDA just makes organised activities and lessons impossible. I think he’d love cubs if he’d only give it a go and something like a martial art would be amazing for his dyspraxia and need for heavy proprioceptive input but he’s too anxious to try.

Competitive outdoor karting

Outdoor go karting. In 2 weeks I have just paid nearly £800. £150/month storage, £110/day mechanic, £100 strip down and set up before each session. Then track fees and new tyres plus parts!! To top it off kit and the actual buying of the kart. Cheaper if we done it ourselves without a team but not enough knowledge about karts yet. Seriously regret saying yes.

I grew up riding and had my own pony. It was awesome at the time and really made my childhood, but as an adult I'm really hoping my daughter doesn't follow suit. I really don't want that amount of expense in my life.

Yes but I can't tell you what they are. Far too outing

My AC in in their 30s with their own families, and apart from one DGS playing U10 football they’re not doing anything expensive.

However, when mine were young we had ponies. Luckily we were able to keep them at home as extended land beside the house, but their father had left when DD1 was 11, the kids went to schools out of catchment area and I worked part time to be able to do all the school runs (the kids were at different schools right through).

Apart from the considerable cost of actually keeping the ponies, DDs were in Pony Club and Riding Club, competed in dressage, show jumping and eventing, the younger did tetrathlon, both did affiliated showjumping. Some of their membership subscriptions required separate registration (and payment) for each child, and two ponies each, and I as the parent had to be subscribed too. Training in groups at club level or individual lessons, taking two or three ponies out most evenings and competing weekends, usually hacking before school. We sold three ponies over the years, all the others stayed with us until the end of their lives. My DDs weren’t afraid of the commitment and hard work, they made the effort, got up early, pulled their weight looking after the ponies and the yard. But…

Looking back of course it was my coping mechanism: post separation, teenagers becoming increasingly challenging, I used to think that at least if DD was on a horse I knew where she was, and with whom.

The large debt I built up during those years is cleared now, I’m retired and the last pony joined the others in the sky herd years ago. I gave away almost everything, but my house is full of their photos to remind me it wasn’t all a dream.

DS had a dirt bike and had hoped to do schoolboy scrambling, but ended up committing only to local football. I’ve no doubt he resents that I didn’t divide my time and my spending more fairly. His father was too busy with his new partner to be generous with his time, good as he was with financial support. I can’t reverse that and now he lives abroad.

DDs sometimes suggest taking the DGC for riding lessons but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it!

We had one who was only into football which was fine. A few pairs of football
boots and kits plus cheap subs each term. The other was on the opposite side of the scale -
singing lessons, drama lessons, dance lessons, piano lessons, steel
pan lessons, clarinet lessons. He cost us thousands every year!

Chess for one kid( travel and paying for tournaments at home and abroad) and ballet for another (6 hours dancing a week adds up, plus shoes, costumes etc).

Flying lessons

I would add that when they were little both my DDs did a year of ballet / tap / junior jazz before getting seriously into riding and thankfully were absolutely rubbish, I couldn’t cope with all the hair and costumes and ribbons and preparing for shows. Ditto gymnastics, hopeless, piano and flute, hopeless and not interested
in practice. DS was more easily pleased with a football.

I regret that none of us learned to ski, nor sail.

No, they don't have hobbies like this. I pay their gym subs, that's it.

Yes, horse riding. Specifically show jumping. Which is extremely expensive. Travelling up and down the country competing. Lots of expensive equipment, training sessions, not to mention buying the horses to start with. Then there’s general upkeep in stabling costs, farriers for their shoes, physio, feed, supplements etc. we have easily spent in excess of 200k on this sport. But it keeps them off the iPad I guess 🫣

Skiing. And of course the alps have the best snow so that’s where we go 2x per year! It’s bloody expensive

yikes

Yes I do, but only the lower rate. It goes towards sen coaching sessions!

Freestyle dancing x 2. Lessons, private lessons, costumes, hair pieces, make up, travel, festival tickets. It's endless but they get so much out of it.

Tennis.
One on one coaching for years, then expensive 3 hour regional squad coaching for years....thousands upon thousands.
Then they have taken a break.

Likewise my childrens piano lessons with a truthfully fabulous teacher.
All the grading done, they play beautifully until they don't.
Between 4 of them, 20 years of lessons...probably 60k.
No one playing.
They have pushed back against the piano being sold, so maybe some day.
My boys had serious talent apparently, my daughters had commitment and determination...more than talent.