My name is Jason. I’m a 42-year-old father of three. In 2024, I will have spent more on my 12-year-old daughter’s dance education than it would cost for her to attend Colorado State University for the year while living at home. I am a dance dad. These are my confessions.

Setting the Stage (and paying for it, too)

For the uninitiated, what you just read probably sounds basically unbelievable. How could a child’s activity cost as much as an undergraduate education? More importantly — I hear you plead — why would anyone willingly spend that amount of money on it?

The answer to how is pretty straightforward. My daughter trains with a competitive dance studio. The studio attends four or five regional conventions/competitions per year and one national convention/competition every other year. She competes in 7 group routines. For the past couple of years, she’s also attended one additional convention, intensive, or workshop in the winter and one (or two) in the summer. 

Let’s math it out in excruciating detail.

• Tuition and company fees: $470 per month, 10 months per year: $4,700
• Choreography: $190 per routine, 7 routines in total: $1,330
• Costume fees: $200 per routine, 7 routines in total: $1,400
  • Technique shoes and other dancewear not included
• Masterclasses, other in-studio conventions, intensives, recitals, and workshops: $1,000
• Regional convention fees: $300 per convention, 5 conventions: $1,500
• Regional competition fees: $70 per routine, 7 routines, 4 competitions: $1,960
• Regional convention/competition hotel: $350 per stay, 5 total events: $1,750
• National convention fee: $425
• National competition fee: $100 per routine (est.), 7 routines: $700
• National convention airfare (for two): $600
• National convention rental car: $500
• National convention hotel: $2,000
  • Out of everything on this list, I think that this particular expense is the most outrageous. This is two guests staying on-site, after taxes and resort fees, but before any additional guests ($15 per person per night) and parking (of an undisclosed amount). 
• Winter convention, intensive, or workshop with air and hotel (3-4 nights): $1,250 (est.)
• Summer convention, intensive, or workshop with air and hotel (5-7 nights): $2,000 (est.)

Grand Total: $21,115

Those of you who have experience here will notice that my daughter does not compete a solo (at least this year), and she is in a relatively small number of routines. For what it’s worth, there are kids out there competing multiple solos (at around $1,500 total for choreography, costume, and competition fees) and 10 or more (yes: or more!) group routines. My daughter’s “load,” for lack of a better term, is a product of both financial and non-financial decision-making.

To make it really clear, this is not a drop in the bucket for anyone, and it’s certainly not one for my family. We are still a family of five planning and preparing for retirement, college, and travel, all while living in an above-average cost-of-living state.

These confessions are really about what it takes to make all of that👆 happen. I am a financial planner, and this is what I do for a living. Let this work be your guide in making intentional decisions in your own financial plan and using your money as a tool, not a goal.

Confession #1: This is an intentional part of our financial plan.

I talk a lot about financial planning being an exercise in making priorities. Almost every financial goal is achievable if given the appropriate priority. Hybrid — that is, financial/non-financial — decision-making plays a huge role in this, too. From the very moment you decide to have a child, you’ve established a specific financial goal that, at the very least, you’ll provide food, clothes, and a roof to that human being until they are an adult.

It means that something else in your financial life, no matter what, will have to fall behind the essential needs of your child. Instinctively, parents know that we have made priorities and will sacrifice many things for our children’s benefit. On the non-financial side, sleep is the first sacrifice you notice (and everyone will tell you all about this, of course). Then you quickly realize everything is quite a bit more complicated, and “Can we bring the baby?” becomes the gold standard to which every non-financial decision must be measured.

As this transcends to your financial life, your financial goals now have their own “Can we bring the baby?” inflection point. A truly balanced approach will be nearly impossible to achieve because resources are inevitably limited. It means that one goal must take precedence over another and over another, and so on. For my family, our kids’ activities, and more specifically, their athletic and artistic pursuits, have become the focus of this period of our financial planning, and I know (with intention) that it puts us behind, or at the very least requires careful decision making, in other areas.

My hope (and yeah, it’s just that at the moment, I’ll be honest) is that this investment into creating the circumstances that positively influence good behaviors and good decision-making will come full circle for my kids as they move into adulthood. Anecdotally, dealing with adversity, pushing beyond one’s perceived limits, and simply putting in the work are a handful of examples of things that came much easier to me as a young adult because of how actively I was involved in athletics as a youth. 

I’m also encouraged by multiple studies (American Academy of Pediatrics, Cornell, Project Play, University of Kansas, to name a few) that suggest that engaging in competitive sports and activities can enhance academic performance, provide occupational advantages, develop and improve sound mental health, and nurture pro-social behavior and social skills in general. Casey’s and my experiment now is to turn up the volume, so to speak, and invest a good bit more into this experience for our kids.

Confession #2: My idea of a vacation is going wherever the next event is going to be.

I’ll just tell you this, but as you can probably imagine, big family trips to fun and exotic destinations are not very high on our financial plan priority list right now. What’s interesting about this, however, is that we still do find plenty of opportunities to travel, often in parts but sometimes as a whole family. The trick here was to turn the activities and their related events into the destinations. It could be an intensive, a convention, a competition, a workshop, or whatever else offers the next milestone or development opportunity.

So, seeking out a good ballet intensive in NYC is part “let’s learn better technique” and part “let’s see the city!” This summer, our family vacation will be piggybacked onto her national convention/competition. Next winter, my son’s baseball coach talks about heading south for some sunshine and a tournament. You can bet we’ll all be there with our swimsuits in tow.

Whether it’s just heading down to Denver for a couple of nights or across the country for a week, we try to find ways to get more out of the journey than we otherwise would. This also moves into the financial incentives that exist here. If you’re into loyalty programs, I’d say that dance dad-ing doesn’t get you to top-tier, elite-business-traveler status, but it will put you pretty darn close. Embracing the point of getting that status — the convenience it provides — is what should lead your decision-making here. I have never once regretted the choices regarding hotel brand, airline, or rewards card use that led to having a 4:00 p.m. late checkout or an upgraded seat on the plane, especially after a long weekend with a now exhausted pre-teen. The free nights and flights that come along with it are obviously awesome, too!

So, when I’m asked where I want to travel next, my reply nowadays is “wherever my kids take me next.” I mean, hey, in less than 10 years, the amount of time I’ll get to spend with them will decrease precipitously. Why not let them lead the way for now?

Confession #3: I get a lot of help — and I’m incredibly grateful for it.

First and foremost, my wife Casey makes this world go round, plain and simple. A fun detail about our dance experience is that my daughter’s studio isn’t local. There’s a time (and gas cost) commitment to just getting her to and from classes. There’s also keeping tabs on all of the classes, rehearsals, updates to the schedule, changes to the call time, and on and on. Casey is an absolute master at making the logistics of it all work seamlessly. 

To put it bluntly, the grandparents have bought in (pun very much intended) to the approach that we’re taking. And boy, have they stepped up to the plate with both financial and non-financial help that has made all the difference for Casey and me, but most importantly for all of our kiddos. Specifically, their financial assistance has allowed my daughter to get additional training opportunities and experience during the winter and summer. She continues to exude a great passion for it all and soaks up the lessons from these opportunities like a sponge.

Which leads to the subject herself. After all, she’s the one putting in all of this (very hard) work. In a way, I feel like it should simply be my pleasure to watch all of this unfold. What I get out of just seeing it all happen — the ups and downs, wins and losses, and her undeniable drive — is already a massive return on this investment. 

With that said, another upside of her efforts is that she and her teammates will earn scholarships and free competition entry fees based on effort and performance during a convention and/or competition. She tends to earn a couple of these each year and I like to remind her that it’s a meaningful contribution to her own development as a dancer and she should be proud. 

I’m sure you already know that I definitely am.