This week in real life
560 miles. One week. Two kids. Zero regrets — but let's talk about the bill.
This week we drove from Springfield down to Medford for track and up to Portland for flag football. Two different kids, two different sports, one very tired Suburban.
I did the math on the way home Sunday night because that's apparently what I do now. 31 gallons of gas at $4.99 a gallon. $155 in fuel. $200 in food across two trips. $355 total for one week of kids sports travel.
Last week alone: 560 miles driven · $155 in gas · $200 in food · $355 total.
And here's the number that actually got me: if we have a travel week like this just once a month, that's $4,260 per year that never shows up as a single line item anywhere. It disappears into gas receipts and drive-through bags and nobody ever adds it up.
"The most expensive part of kids sports isn't the registration fee. It's everything that never makes it onto the registration form."
Which brings me to what I promised you last week — the activity budget breakdown and a free spreadsheet to track it all.
This week's money move
The real cost of one kid in one sport — the full breakdown
Most parents budget for the registration fee and call it done. Here's what one kid in one sport actually looks like when you add it all up:
What one kid in one sport actually costs:
Registration / league fees — $150 to $400
Uniform / jersey — $50 to $150
Equipment / gear — $75 to $300
Travel / gas per season — $200 to $600
Food on the road — $100 to $300
Tournament / entry fees — $50 to $200
Photos, end of season gifts — $30 to $75
Total per kid per season: $655 to $2,025
Multiply that by 4 kids in multiple sports and you start to understand why the family budget feels like it has a leak nobody can find. It's not a leak — it's a category you never built a budget for.
The fix is simple — build a sports and activities line item into your monthly budget before the season starts, not after the receipts pile up.
Here's the formula we use:
List every activity each kid is doing this season
Estimate the full cost using the table above — not just registration
Add 20% buffer for the stuff you always forget
Divide by the number of months in the season
That number is your monthly sports budget line item
Free: The Four Kids Later Activity Budget Spreadsheet
Track every kid, every sport, every season in one place. Built by a dad of 4 who got tired of being surprised by the bill. Free for all subscribers.
Insurance reality check
The one policy most dads are massively underbuying
Term life insurance. Specifically — most dads with families don't have nearly enough of it.
The standard advice you'll hear is to carry 10-12x your annual income in life insurance coverage. If you make $80,000 a year that means $800,000 to $960,000 in coverage. Most dads I know have whatever their employer provides — usually $50,000 to $100,000. That gap is enormous and the consequences of getting it wrong fall entirely on your family.
Here's why term life is the move for most families with kids:
It's cheap when you're young and healthy— a healthy 35 year old dad can get $500,000 of 20 year term coverage for $25-35 per month
It covers the years that matter most— while your kids are young and dependent and your mortgage is biggest
It's simple— you pay, you're covered, no investment component to confuse things
"The question isn't whether your family could survive without your income. It's whether they'd have to change everything about their life to do it. That's what insurance is for."
This week's action: Pull out your current life insurance policy or check your benefits portal. Write down your current coverage amount. Then multiply your annual salary by 10. If those two numbers are far apart — and they probably are — it's worth getting a free quote. Term4Sale and Policygenius both give you quotes in under 5 minutes with no obligation.
Note: I'm not a licensed financial advisor — this is education, not advice. Always do your own research and consult a professional for decisions specific to your situation.
Dad life
The thing nobody tells you about being a sports dad
Somewhere between the Medford track meet and the Portland flag football field this week I realized something. The $355 we spent wasn't a financial problem. It was a planning problem dressed up as a financial problem.
We knew both events were coming. We just never added up what both events in the same week would actually cost. So it felt like the money disappeared when really it just went exactly where we sent it — we just never decided in advance that we were okay with that.
That's the whole game with family finances. It's not about spending less. It's about deciding in advance instead of discovering after the fact.
Coming next week
What's in issue #003
The summer money leak — how three months of school being out quietly costs most families $3,000-5,000 more than the rest of the year, and how to see it coming before it hits. Plus: the best budget camping gear we've actually used with four kids that doesn't fall apart after one trip.