Facilitated by: Laura E. Riley (Caroline’s Mom)
Welcome to the parents’ corner of MySkatingMall.com! As the parent of a figure skater, you play a key role in your child’s chosen sport – of course, so does your pocketbook. If you are like me, you might find it difficult in today’s economy to finance “must have” fashion pieces, movie nights and slumber parties. Add in a sport that has a reputation of being “extremely expensive,” and you find yourself scouring the want-ads for a part-time job to offset the costs and keep your child(ren) skating. But if you are working two jobs to support the “habit” who is going to chauffeur your budding star to practices five, six or more times a week?
Being a figure skating parent is a challenge, a juggling act, and not without its sacrifices. For me, it’s a little easier because I LOVE SKATING! My daughter at age 5 is living my childhood dream – a dream that was cut short for me by the high cost of skating. I grew up and still live in the South, so I was a quad roller skater. Ice rinks were in short supply in the South in the 70’s and 80’s. Even today, only the larger metropolitan areas have ice rinks.
Fortunately, we live in Atlanta, which will soon be adding its seventh sheet of ice in a northern suburb. But outside Atlanta, skating clubs in Georgia are scarce. One of the families in the Atlanta Figure Skating Club had been making a 200-mile roundtrip between Macon, Georgia, and Atlanta five to six times a week for their daughter to ice skate! With the high gas prices, that is a rather hefty extra expense.
The “high cost” of skating to a family’s budget and time is inevitably a popular topic at my daughter’s home rink, the Marietta Ice Center (http://www.themicice.com). Through this blog on MySkatingMall, I would like for us to share our thoughts and advice on figure skating financing and other topics of interest to parents and all members of your figure skating family, including grandparents. (My mother-in-law is covering most of the costs of my daughter, Caroline’s next out-of-state competition, so I can’t leave them out as a valuable resourceJ).
I envision this blog as a virtual meeting place for ice skating parents outside the rink. As I said before, I love skating. The best part of my week is spent perched above the ice watching my daughter skate. The parents, coaches and families at the MIC have become some of my closest friends. We all share a common interest that entails helping our young skaters get the most out of their sport! Like any endeavor, it doesn’t come without a price.
What bothers me is when I hear parents sharing “horror” stories they have heard (or overheard) about the high price of skating without being properly informed. I often tell parents, “Breathe. Relax. You don’t have to pay up-front or sign a contract to pay thousands of dollars over a decade.” As a parent, I try to face it one expense at a time.
I recently was helping my best friend to make purchasing decisions on basic skating items for her daughter and granddaughter (yes, she has both a four-year-old daughter and granddaughter, and they both want to skate!). I realized just how much information is needed to make good, educated choices and thus avoid overspending.
In the Southern U.S., ice skating equipment and apparel stores are not on every corner. In fact, the one decent store we had in metro Atlanta recently closed. The Internet, of course, offers access to everything a skater needs. However, it can be a daunting undertaking for the beginning skater or parent to shop for supplies on the Web. Otherwise, we are at the mercy of the rink pro-shops, which are primarily focused on hockey and are very expensive.
This is why I am “almost” as big of a fan of MySkatingMall as I am of ice skating! Ryan has given us a tremendous opportunity to educate ourselves about the sport, save money, make money for our teams, and otherwise collectively join forces to keep our youngsters skating!
As skating families, we need to condition our pocketbooks, just like the little skater’s muscles — slow and steady, a little bit at a time. I try to encourage others to save as much money as possible on skating equipment and apparel, so they can put the money where it really counts — coaching and ice time!
Of course, this is just my opinion. I am very interested to hear yours and any advice or other tricks of the trade you may have for creative figure skating financing. Other skating parent topics are open for discussion and will be regularly introduced. As I told Ryan, certain topics seem to “resurface” amongst the sideline chatter during practice. So here is your opportunity to join in while staying warm (unless you’re logging in from the rink).
Happy Skating,
Laura, a.k.a. Caroline’s Mom
to everyone who participated in the discussion regarding the limits of the 5% funding. The question presented was, “Should syncro and theatre on ice teams be able to receive the 5% funding like a skating club?” The final answer is…..drumroll please…….YES!
