Money Matters

This month's youth sports heroes are giving the children of migrant farm workers in Florida and inner-city children in Buffalo a chance to play sports.

Buying clothes and supplies for back-to-school puts a strain on the family budget.  Whatever the age of their kids, sports parents not only need to find room in their budget for equipment and registration fees but also their time.

Advice to sports mothers on ways to cope with tough times strike their family , including what they can do for themselves and their kids to learn to bounce back from adversity.

Supporting an elite athlete is expensive. At the level of national and international competition, the level where it becomes understandable that a young athlete would concentrate on one sport, we are a nation of elites, and the phenomenon is fueled by private coaches, private clubs, corporate sponsorship, and parental sacrifice. How can you manage it financially?

With gas prices hovering around 4 dollars a gallon, and the cost of everything, from groceries to restaurants, having a child, or two or three, playing on sports travel team is becoming a luxury many American families can no longer afford.

So what are families doing to save money on the cost of playing on a travel team or to afford playing in a tournament five hundred miles from home? We asked parents in the MomsTeam forums.

Often overlooked in the quest to keep youth sports in perspective and balance for your children and your family is the need to keep sports from overwhelming the family budget. Participation in youth sports can be, and often is, expensive. One mother estimated that her family's expenses for her three children at $100,000 over a 10 year period.