Very limited funds; question

[redhotcoach]

Club sports offer exposure . Grimm.

Soccer dd's friends sister is on a team that is traveling Europe. Her mom asked about funding at the meeting and was looked at strangely by all. She said "guess I am the only one that can't afford to have a kid travel the world."

She is working on things now, but found out that baseball teams and arenas will give fundraising for work. She said it is between like $75-$100 per shift and somehow the way they do it ends up tax free. She can still work her job and the 2-3 hour events. So, like she is planning she can make her dd a couple thousand by ushering every concert that comes to town and see some good events for free.

 

[JJsqueeze]

contact teams and let them know your situation, someone out there will get creative if your kid can play ball.

 

[Jojo]

raoul, I went through the same issues you are having. Having NO disposable income when it came to my DD's softball life.
Every out of town tournament we went to we camped. Sometimes tents, sometimes cabins. KOA's have awesome cabins and during one summer of Nationals when we lasted the entire week our cabin fee was under $200, for the entire week.
Her team was paying over $100 a night in their hotel.
It was great eating BBQ every night!
We always explained to her team/s that we were not up front payment people. We had to volunteer for every fundraiser and we worked our hineys off during them.
As far as equipment, I searched sales and got all her cleats off clearance. As for her glove, it lasted till she was a junior in college. 11 1/2 inches, I became an expert glove repairer and was usually fixing someone's at every tournament.
Bats, I can't help you there. Her teams had no problem allowing her to use theirs. She practiced in the cage with her $40 bat.

And there were times when we just couldn't go and had to send her with other parents.
So yes, it can be done, we were extremely low income and were able to get through an expensive sport competing at the highest levels and for us it paid off in the end.
I won't say it was easy because it wasn't. We stressed all the time about finding the money, but we seemed to always find a way.
She received a full scholarship and the only money I ever had to spend while she was in college was a little spending money for extra's; food, clothes, toiletries, etc. (The money we saved not having her at home).
She's since graduated, and has a career and doing MUCH better than us at her age now.
Here she is at the KOA in Boulder during one of the Fireworks tournaments.
And this Boulder trip we were nursing our "92" Chevy van with a water leak, all the way from Texas and back.

 

[Elk Grove Hurricane]

Lots of great advice here! I've had good luck with equipment on the clearance aisles at the major stores, you can get a good bat and glove for a fair price occasionally (now is the time to look, they need to get rid of inventory to get the new stuff on). Ebay in October-March is another great place to find someone who needs to get rid of stuff, Craig's List is hit and miss but once in a while the deal is there. For fees, I haven't had much experience, but a local organization grants scholarships for players in return for a few hours of volunteer work.

 

[00fpdaddy]

Who knows, my dd just turned 15 freshmen, northeast. HS V coaches out of touch, dd has no idea whats she want to do in colllege. No major, young at heart, hasnt shown us (parents) to take the next step. She aint the fastest, the tallest, the strongest, BUT mentally the fiercest, will drop 3 changes in a row on a 3-0 count

Her dna will never come close the D1 colleges are looking for. We cant afford the traditonal top tier travel rout. Tuiton is fine, its the airplane travel we cant afford. To each thier own, as soon as what colleges my dd is looking at, is the schools she will be emailing for clinics, camps and so on. That is if she wants to take the next step.

 

[sluggers]

If your DD#1 is as good as you say she is, you should shop her around to different teams and explain the situation.

If you find the team where she meets their needs, I bet that they will be able to come up with something.

As to DD#2...Lack of dedication usually means, "I don't like the game." Have a heart to heart with her. Try not to be judgmental. If she wants to quit, let her.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

I know a mom that has 2 daughter's in dance. The lessons and costumes are out of reach for this family. They hold 2 large garage sales a year. She goes on her Facebook page and begs for people's junk and things they can give away. The girls are 13 and 11, so it on them to help. But, it is a large undertaking.

Camping is not an option at some tourneys around here. You are required to stay in the hotel.

 

[redhotcoach]

...and if you don't already, write a budget. I used to coordinate Dave Ramsey's total money makeover and one of the things often said is "if you want to give yourself a raise, get on a budget." His budget tools are free if you google them. We have an envelope system that we use. You can learn about that for free from him too. Basically we have several envelopes like "groceries" "clothes" "gas" and have have 3 sports envelopes "fees" "camps" and "travel". So every pay check gets cashed....YES cashed, and split up into the envelopes according to the budget. So right now we have cash to pay for fees that are not due until summer. A great side benefit is that you KNOW...you know right where you are at. If there isn't money in the envelope for clothes...then NO you don't get any clothes. If you don't have $2000 for a softball team, then you tell the club "I have $800, can you help make that work, or it's a NO". Takes a lot of the worry out of everything, it's not worrying about how to do it, and extend yourself, it's cut and dry "not in the budget, not gonna do it."

Some other themes from the course are "LIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE, SO LATER YOU CAN LIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE", Jojo fits that moto to a T. "Don't worry about fitting in with the Joneses, because the Joneses are broke."

And right now, if you REALLY want to make it work for the girls, go at it with what Dave calls (in class it's about getting out of debt) GAZELLE intensity. The intensity a gazelle has when it spots a cheetah...."CHEEEEEETAHHHHH!!!!!" There are tons and tons of stories of people paying out 10s and 100s of thousands of dept with little income. Some main techniques people use is: sell everything you can! Sell the house and get a cheap apartment. Sell the car(s) and get a reliable <$5k car. And almost everyone picked up another job. The huge majority deliver pizzas (a great gig again now that gas is cheap), my wife started serving out samples for wine companies in supermarkets. She still does it cause she loves visiting with people and they encourage you to sample with the customer. So for 2 hours on some Thurs/Fri/ and some Sat she drinks wine with friends, makes new friends and get $60 cash. So in the winter she gets $180 that goes straight into the sports fee and camps envelopes every week.

With all of it you have to remember the motto "live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else." The apartment, the cheap car, the extra work, it can be very short lived if you have gazelle intensity. People are getting out of debt and buying cars with cash and getting houses with short term mortgages in just a year or two. You find your values change also, 8 years ago when we first started the course, I drove a new Cadillac Escalade...well that had to go. I was sick for weeks thinking about selling that. Now I would not ever consider buying a car that is less than 5 years old. My kids had to live in a small house. My kids never had friends over (they wouldn't claim it), they were embarrassed that my son and younger dd shared a room. Now we have a big house that all their friends hang out at.

Blabbering on enough about me, but check out Dave Ramsey. The podcasts and radio show are full of amazing stories. The class is offered in 1000s of towns. It's around $100 for all the materials, but that is waved for many many people in each class. I coordinated 6 sessions of it....and you do open up your finances in there...the shocking thing...every single session had many people coming to the first class with brand new Mercedes, Bmws, expensives suits and jewelry, you find out in a few weeks that they are almost all flat broke and had collectors beating on their door. The real cool thing is in just a few more weeks these people learn that their material items don't matter, they sell stuff, and get the monkey off their back.
You/anyone can do it for your girls, but you may have to "live like no one else" for a while.

http://www.daveramsey.com/article/gazelle-intensity-do-you-have-it/lifeandmoney_debt

 

[Amy in AZ.]

I would like to add, shop at GoodWill or similar and check the on-line yard sales. 90% of my granddaughter's clothes were purchased used. Use grocery coupons. (That one is hard for me, because I am not that organized.) And anytime your folks want to get you something, I would say "Please make a deposit in the softball fund." (I did that, this last Christmas.)

Why has no one posted the sign of the guy begging by the side of the road? It is funny.

 

[redhotcoach]

I would like to add, shop at GoodWill or similar and check the on-line yard sales. 90% of my granddaughter's clothes were purchased used. Use grocery coupons. (That one is hard for me, because I am not that organized.) And anytime your folks want to get you something, I would say "Please make a deposit in the softball fund." (I did that, this last Christmas.)

Why has no one posted the sign of the guy begging by the side of the road? It is funny.

Great advice. Couple years ago dw would coupon at Walgreens and cvs....we had a basement full of cleaners, toothpaste, toilet paper, and etc for little to nothing. My girls love to go to goodwill, they find a lot of stuff that stills has the tag on it! (The wealthy neighborhood ones anyway).