How Much do You Spend on Kids' Sports? (And Ways to Save)

Here's a piece from MSNBC that says many families are spending a bundle on kids' sports each year:

According to one estimate, many families spend at least $2,000 a year on sports-related expenses for their children.

Of course this is likely an over-blown stat to get attention, but I have no doubt that many families do actually spend a ton of money every year on kids' sports. I know several friends of our who regularly spend $1,000 a year or so. How about you? How much do you spend so your kids can play sports?

We spend about $500 ourselves if you throw in EVERYTHING (gas to and from practices, driving to games, fees, etc.) and this is only for two sports a year for one kid (my son plays basketball and soccer -- my daughter has other interests though she did play soccer for many years.)

MSNBC also lists ways to save on sporting costs as follows:

1. Buy used equipment.
2. Know when not to buy used.
3. Sell your own used stuff.
4. Get on the right mailing lists.
5. Keep your options open.
6. Save on team travel costs.
7. Have your kid contribute.
8. Conduct an honest assessment.
9. Know when to say when.
10. Seek out charities.

Here's what we do to keep our expenses as low as possible:

1. Get early sign-up discounts. We saved 25% off basketball fees because we committed early (in June) to play basketball in the fall.

2. Sign up for special "deals". I'm a coach for the basketball team and so I signed up with a Dick's Sporting Goods to get coupons sent to me regularly. I don't use most of them, but every so often there's a really good coupon (like $10 off a purchase of $10 or more.)

3. Get hand-me-downs. My son uses soccer shoes from an older friend who has since outgrown them. These are hardly even used (kids grow so fast that shoes often only last either the summer or fall soccer season) and they are an excellent way to get good shoes for nothing. Once we're done with them, we pass them along for others to use.

4. Control our desires. IMO, a 12=year-old doesn't need $75 basketball shoes to play well. There are waaaaay better alternatives.

5. Limit the number of sports. My son could play football and baseball as well, but we refuse to have our family life pulled all over the place by constant games and practices throughout the year. It's bad enough now that we're on the go from October through February (basketball) and April through June (soccer.)

6. Turn it into a money making effort. My son and I love soccer but the truth is that he's not good/dedicated enough to play much longer (if he really wanted to make soccer "his" sport, he'd need to play in the fall as well.) But we both want to be part of youth soccer in our town so we're working towards being soccer refs. Guess what -- they PAY people to do this! What a deal!

7. Resist the "elite" level. Unless your son/daughter is really good at a sport, I'd advise you forego the travel teams that cost a fortune and have kids/parents drive across several states every weekend to play games. These cost a fortune, take a toll on family life, and for what purpose? Besides, aren't there local alternatives that are almost as good? My son is good enough to play on a traveling basketball team but we're not going down that road. It's too costly in both time and money (and he's only just good enough to barely make such a team anyway.)

How about you? What do you do to save money in this area?

Comments

[Miranda]

Thanks for this great post! We're starting kids' sports this year with our son (soccer) and these are great tips! I played tennis and swam for my high school sports teams, and I remember some costs (my parents split the cost with me). I used my dad's old tennis racket at first, until I saved up for a new one. But for swimming -- used equipment is kind of gross ;)

[Craig]

We have a son on a competitive soccer team which travels for games and tournaments across the state. The fees/uniforms alone are $500 (some teams pay their coaches, and the fees exceed $1000/year) and travel/lodging/dining are all extra. The fees for his basketball team are over $200, but there's no overnight travel. My other child is in sports which total about $500/year. We easily spend over $2000/year including travel expenses.

[cmadler]

All I have to say is that Pelé's parents could not afford a proper soccer ball for him, so growing up he usually played with either a sock stuffed with newspaper and tied with a string, or a grapefruit.

[Mark]

We spent $7000 in 2007 on swimming alone. Mostly travel expenses, but also coaching and equipment for 2 of my sons. Plus football, lacrosse and basketball, which are all relatively cheap.

It's a lot of money, too be sure. But I have 3 boys, 9, 11 and 13, and I want to keep them too exhausted to get into any trouble. So far it works -- as long as their grades stay up, they can do whatever they want.

[Kim]

My son is on the golf team. It's a cheap sport during the season, because green fees, bag, and shirt are supplied by the school. Very expensive to practice during the off-season though - I definitely spend more than $1000 a year, not including travel expenses.

[Cheap Like Me]

Oh, when it comes to my daughter, I'm not cheap, I'm a sucker. :) Her soccer costs around $100 a year (much cheaper if you sign up for the whole year rather than a semester at a time). We can re-use last year's uniform and ball, and we buy cleats at the consignment shop (and re-sell them when they are outgrown). But she also takes horseback riding at a nonprofit farm in our city for around $500 per year, plus boots (which we found at a thrift store last year for $6, and her jodhpurs were hand-me-downs from another family), and a helmet that was her birthday gift. This year she wants to take gymnastics instead of riding in the spring -- likely another few hundred dollars. And she's in a choir that costs $500 per year.

However, at this age, I am pleased that she is athletic and getting the benefits of fitness ingrained in her "lifestyle" -- and I'm happy for her to experiment with several activities while she doesn't have homework and it isn't serious. In a few years, she'll need to focus. And of course, if she gets really good at something and earns a scholarship one day, it'll all pay off. ;) Yeah, that's the ticket ...

[Matt]

Currently I'm not paying anything for children's sports because the child hasn't arrived yet but I think that number really depends on the sport. If the sports are soccer and softball there is a much smaller amount needed for equipment. But if your child plays a sport like hockey where equipment costs and league costs can really add up I can easily see a $2,000 per year (especially for a traveling team)

[Jennifer]

Well, we spend over $2000 a year on just one of our children. She is a competitive gymnast - for now. We will be rethinking it next year. When we are contemplating kids sports, we try to pick ones that are close to home, requires little equipment (soccer, flag football), includes the uniform in the fees, and when possible signing up more than 1 child for the same thing. Right now, both boys are playing football. Practices are back to back on the same night, eliminating a trip out each week to a different practice if we had signed them up for different sports. The games are at the exact same time and place. We choose this place because they make it so easy to have multiple kids signed up for the same thing. With gas prices the way they are close to home is the way to go.

[Early Retirement Extreme]

I don't have any kids, but I am one myself. Incidentally, how come so many people stop doing sports after they leave college?!

Aside from some of the ways already mentioned, I also do the following.

1) Check clearance sales on the online retailers weekly. Sometimes discounts are 80% or more.

2) Arrange bulk deals with fellow team mates. I play inline hockey and it's not unusual for one of us to order 120 wheels at 99c each (see point 1) instead of each of us ordering 8 wheels at the regular price of $1.99 every other month.

3) This may not be a money saving tip, but I try to spend more on practice/playing time and less on gear. There's a temptation to go with the pro-gear. It's nice but unless you're a pro, you're unlikely to benefit from the features.

[Jade]

$2,000 a year? That's it? Wow, pretty cheap if you ask me...

I used to figure skate competitively. Started as a teenager. I wasn't really that serious, but adding up all the expenses... must have been about $4,000 a year. And for a figure skater that's cheap.

I used to skate with some kids that spent a lot more on skating. Spending $1,000+ a year on skates was not unheard of, $4,000 a year for ice time was a screaming deal, coaching, choreography, ballet classes, off ice training could run $10,000+ a year. And then you have costumes (anywhere from $200 - $1,000 a pop, 1-2 costumes a year for freestyle, 2-4 costumes a year for ice dancers), competition entry fees (about $80-$140 depending on the competiton), travel to competitions (at least once a year going out of state unless you were lucky and regionals were held in your home state), all that good stuff. $20,000 a year is pretty cheap for this sport, and I'm sure there are some skating parents out there laughing at that figure...

And mind you, none of these kids (whose parents spent $10,000 - $30,000+ a year just on skating) I skated with ever ended up on TV. Oh we had a few here and there that go to nationals (highest placement I know of was 7th), occasionally someone wins junior nationals (which is almost never televised), but they never place high enough that you see them on TV, and rarely do they go to an international competition. But for the 5 kids I know of that went to nationals, another 40+ never made it out of qualifying. Nobody I knew of got any endorsements or anything like that to make money on. Maybe they got the occasional sponsor or training grant, but that hardly began to cover their training costs. And figure skating scholarships are pretty rare.

Some skaters do eventually go on and coach, it makes a good side job while they're in college, and some coach for the rest of their lives. Some skaters join ice shows, like my former coach who skates in shows on a cruise ship. Others go on and judge, but judges aren't paid, so they make their living doing something else.

Some parents have the money to blow on skating and their kids are happy and staying active and out of trouble so the parents are happy about it (that's how my dad felt about my skating, well, that and because his tax dollars were subsidizing the local ice rink whether I skated or not... politics...). Other parents seem to think that their kid is going to the Olympics and will throw a ton of money into the sport even though the odds of a huge payoff are so slim. Those are the parents we like to call the skating moms from you-know-where, although every sport has those kinds of parents, they just seem to be more common at the ice rink...

[Hockey Dad]

My advice is to stay away from hockey. I have two kids and one is in a town program - $1950 per year and one is on a travel/elite team - $3500 per year and it is not worth the money. Our weekends are killed from September through April, we are at hockey rinks at least 4 nights a week for practices and we pay for travel throughout the New England area. I was a player growing up and through college and love the game so I volunteer as a coach for both teams.

When you add in equipment costs, travel, league fees, etc. We are easily spending $10,000 a year on just hockey. It sounds really stupid when you start to add it all together.

[Liz]

I spend about $6,000 a year for my 13 y.o. son to play comptetive soccer, that includes uniforms, cleats (2-3 annually), keeper gloves, training, etc. This is not unusual, most competitive sports run several thousand annually, and more if your child plays on more exclusive teams.

In 2009, my expenses will be much more as his futsal (indoor Brazilian soccer) team will be traveling to Brazil for a tournament. The team will do fundraising to cover airline tickets, but the rest is up to each family.

[GRANNY TERRY]

MY GRANDDAUGHTER DID NOT COST A LOT FOR HER TO PLAY VOLLEYBLL IN SCHOOL. SHE REALLY LOVED THE GAME BUT IT WAS ONLY OFFERED IN THE FALL IN OUR AREA. (WE LIVE IN A TOWN OF ABOUT 1500 PEOPLE AND THE NEXT TOWN IS ABOUT 60 MILES AWAY) SO INBETWEEN SHE WOULD PLAY BASKETBALL AND SOFTBALL. IN 2009 SHE WAS ATHLETE OF THE YEAR, GRADES ARE ALSO CONSIDERED WITH SPORT ABLITIES. SO FAR THE COST WAS ABOUT $75 A YEAR. THIS SUMMER IT WILL COST HER OVER $5,000 BECAUSE SHE WAS CHOSEN TO GO TO THE "TRANS PACIFIC AUSTRALIA CUP", ALL OF A SUDDEN THE COST OF SPORTS HAS COUGHT UP TO HER AND HER FAMILY. I HOPE THE TOWN LIKES A LOT OF COOKIES AND CAR WASHES!!!