Let’s face it there are many exciting, enrichment, confidence-building after-school activities that children can benefit from and it isn’t difficult to see how important these activities can be to a child’s life. Even though back to school is behind us, we still need to find ways to keep our kids busy. However – we also know that many of these activities, soccer, swimming, music lessons, and so on, can be really expensive, especially if your child is involve in multiple activities – and even more so when you have more than one child will your bank account strongly be affected!
As parents, we want to do our best to have our kids involved in as many things as possible, as well as encouraging them to find the areas that they are interested in pursuing. Being involved in after school activities is proven to be good for the mind and body of our developing kids. Therefore – in order to ensure we can financially manage all of these costs I have looked up some important strategies for being able to both budget for the costs of some of these activities.
Managing the Costs of After-School Activities
1. Making a Realistic Budget
You have already budgeted for back to school expenses, which are likely to have included school supplies, books, pencils, paper, binders, clothes, etc and this budget can also factor in the amount of money you will have to spend on after school activities throughout the course of the year as well. Planning for these expenses can be arranged in advance as well as with the help of your children, depending on their ages. Together you can decide which activities, groups, and clubs they want to be involved in – and of course which ones will be an affordable option for your family.
2. Prioritizing Activities
It may be that there are a lot of activities that your children are interested in and also areas where you think they would thrive, however, sometimes there are too many options and so little time – and money. Aside from the financial costs, it may actually be a better idea to choose one or two activities to focus on at a time, knowing that others can be explored later on. Not only will it be more manageable for parents to afford as well as fit into their weekly schedules, it may also be less stressful and overwhelming for your children to just spend time devoting their extra time to. You can involve your children in this process as well and they can help choose an activity of interest, as well as helping them to get a glimpse into how they can prioritize other decisions in the future.
3. Determining the Exact Cost of a Particular Activity
After choosing a couple of after-school activity options, it will be important to determine the exact cost of that activity. You can talk to other parents, coaches, team leaders, teachers, etc to find out this type of information and find out how much you will expect to pay towards registration, equipment, food, unions, traveling costs, and so on. Once you are aware of these costs you can adjust your budget accordingly. As there are likely to be ongoing as well as upfront costs associated with various activities, budgeting enough money will be crucial, in order to keep up with these expenses and also so that there are not any financial surprises along the way.
4. Finding Less-Expenses Activities
If you are finding that the after-school activities that you and children are interested in are too expensive, you can look to cut down of these costs by finding less expensive programs as well as cutting back on some of them. If you have your children signed up for too many programs, for example, then cutting this back to 1 or 2 activities may make things more financially manageable for you. Additionally, there are some non-profit or school-based programs that do not cost very much and your children can still have the opportunity to learn and grow from some very caring and experienced role models.
5. Planning ahead for Snacks & Meals
One last area of expense that can add up and is closely associated with the after-school activity lifestyle is the cost of snacks and meals. Especially if you are going to activities that are out of town as well as right before or after the dinner hour, figuring out what you will do for these meals each week will take some planning. While it may be a lot easier to just grab some food at a drive-thru restaurant, if you are getting into the habit of doing this all the time, the cost can really add up. Preparing and packing food ahead of time that can be taken with you while you are ‘on the go’ or that can be heated up fairly quickly before you leave the house, can be a more cost-effective way to manage these after-school related expenses, as well maintain a goal of eating more healthy foods each week.
I have come to realize that it really doesn’t matter what you are doing, planning ahead is almost always a good idea! Some other areas that I have learned from investigating this particular topic is that an after school activity doesn’t have to be overly expensive to be a quality program and to provide our children with a valuable experience. How the activity fits into our schedule, however is – not to mention whether we are capable of budgeting for this expense over the course of the year or however many months the activity will run for.
Ultimately our hope is that we can involve our children in some after-school activities that will be affordable for our household and ones that will offer them an engaging and confidence building experience at the same time. If this is your goal too, I hope some of these tips will help guide you towards this ‘end game’ as well.
