How to Afford Kids’ Activities Without Going Broke: Real Tips for Parents
I was leaning against my dented 2016 minivan outside elementary school pickup last month, a half-eaten cheese cracker sticking to the knee of my sweatpants, when the PTA monthly newsletter popped into my inbox. My 8-year-old daughter Lila came bouncing over before I could even lock my phone, chattering about how her best friend Mia does soccer, after-school pottery, and the new robotics club, and she wanted to do all three. I did the quick math in my head: $115 for soccer registration, $75 a month for pottery, $50 for robotics supplies, and that didn’t even count cleats, a pottery kit, or competition entry fees. I’d just written a $600 check for a new water heater that week, and the number made my chest tighten. I told her we’d talk about it after dinner, and that’s the honest truth: I’ve been working this out for three years, ever since Lila started asking to do things beyond the playground in our backyard.
When Lila was 5, I made the mistake all new parents make, I think. I signed her up for fancy gymnastics at the shiny new studio across town, $145 a month, plus $80 for a brand-new leotard and grips. She went three times, said the uneven bars scared her, and refused to go back. I lost almost $400 for a month of half-attendance, and that’s when I realized I couldn’t keep this up. I couldn’t drain my savings to give Lila every activity she asked for, and I didn’t want to.
I started small, figuring things out month to month, and I’ve picked up a few tricks that work for us, that don’t require taking out a second mortgage or saying no to everything.
First, I started checking what’s already free in our area, before I even look at paid options. I used to assume that any structured activity for kids cost money, but that’s just not true. Our local park district runs free drop-in art on Saturday mornings, and free weekly hikes for kids in the spring and fall. The public library has a free chess club, a monthly LEGO build challenge, and even a kids’ gardening club that meets every other Wednesday. Lila draws every Saturday at the park district art drop-in now, and it costs me nothing but the 10-minute drive there. She brings home a new stack of drawings every week, and she gets to hang out with her friends, same as she would at the fancy $80-a-month studio. The only difference is I don’t have to panic about the credit card bill when it comes.
I also started swapping and splitting costs with other parents in the neighborhood. My neighbor across the street is a former piano teacher, and her 7-year-old son has been begging to learn soccer. My husband played soccer in college, and he coaches a rec team for extra cash, so we worked out a deal: he gives her son one private soccer lesson a week, she gives Lila one piano lesson a week, no money changes hands. When Lila wanted to learn guitar last year, instead of signing up for lessons at the music shop that were $40 a lesson, I put a post up on our neighborhood Facebook group asking for a high school kid who plays guitar and wants extra cash. We found a 10th grader who comes to our house once a week for $20 a lesson, half the cost, and he’s great with Lila because he’s closer to her age than the older instructor at the shop. Gear is another big hidden cost I stopped paying full price for: I buy all cleats, leotards, sports equipment, and art supplies from the neighborhood swap group, or from the twice-yearly kids’ consignment sale the rec center hosts. Last year I got a brand-new pair of soccer cleats that still had the tag on them for $3, that would have cost $45 new. Kids outgrow stuff so fast, most of it’s barely worn, and people just want to get it out of their house.
One of the biggest changes I made was setting a fixed annual activity budget per kid, and sticking to it. For our family, that’s $500 a year per kid, total. That includes registration fees, gear, everything. If Lila wants to do one big expensive thing one year, like the $350 week-long horseback riding camp she wants to go to this summer, that means all her other activities that year have to be free or low-cost. If she wants to do a couple smaller paid things, that adds up fine too. It takes the guilt out of saying no, because it’s not that I don’t want her to do the thing, it’s that it doesn’t fit in the budget we set aside for activities this year. I also always ask for a trial class before I commit to a full season or semester. Most places will let you do one or two trial classes for $5 or free, to see if your kid actually likes it. I used to just fill out the form and pay for the whole 12 weeks up front, because that’s what everyone else did. Last year Lila wanted to try cheerleading, we did one trial practice, she came home and said her feet hurt and the chants were too loud, and we only lost $5 instead of $180. That’s saved me hundreds of dollars over the last few years.
I still have guilty moments, sometimes. I see other parents posting photos of their kids at fancy ski camps or private soccer academies that cost thousands of dollars a year, and I wonder if I’m shortchanging Lila. But then last week, she came home from the free park district hike, covered in mud, carrying a bucket of rocks she collected, and told me it was the best day of her whole life. She tapes all her drawings from the free art drop-in all over my fridge, and she practices piano on a second-hand keyboard I got for $20 off Craigslist, and she seems just as happy as any kid in a fancy expensive activity.
We still figure it out month to month. Sometimes she asks for something that’s just out of budget, and I still get that little twinge. But so far, this system works for us, and it hasn’t broken the bank. I think that’s about as good as it gets, right now.
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