John Delony’s Most Controversial Advice?

[Music] brought to you by the every dooll app start budgeting for free today all right let's go to David in Colorado Springs hey David welcome to the show good to talk to you guys how are you doing absolutely we're great we're glad that you called us David how can we help okay um make a long story short um my stepdaughter has really been into figure skating since she was about six years old and about a year and a half ago she decided she wanted to start competing so we're like well we we'll give it a year see if she sticks with it and she really has and she started competing last year and is doing great the issue is that we are kind of on the low end of spending for this Sport and it's costing us almost $1,000 a month oh goodness and it just goes up from there um having more coaching working with a physical trainer uh starting to travel having to pay for the coach to travel to competitions and we're we really are probably over our budget with what we're spending now but at the same time she really loves this and we're kind of trying to figure out how do you balance her loving the sport and us not going broke man how old is she now she is 14 okay I I've got some unpopular opinions on this that I always get in trouble for can I just put them out there is that cool John stirs the pot in all I me very few things do I get in more trouble from the internet people than this but here we go um I would suggest that we've grown up in a culture we've created a culture where the kid is the star of the family show and ultimately where do you want to eat what do you want to do who do you want to become what do you want to be when you grow up what college do you want to go to what's your dream school we dump all of these things in our kids backpack think of them as rocks we just drop them in our kids and what happens without meaning to and this happens like us trying to love and honor and give our kids opportunities that we didn't have they end up carrying the weight of the whole house and I dude I'm a product of sports I played Sports all the way through I was a two sport Letterman I ran in college I did MMA with professionals like I'm all about sports and teams and workouts and discipline all that stuff's great and the greatest gift I can give my kid is not mortgaging my soul and our future and literally a second literally a second mortgage that some people do to pay for this stuff yeah to let them quote unquote do whatever they want or do whatever they're passionate about do whatever they what feels right the greatest gift I can give them is a stable at peace Mom and Dad that's the greatest gift and so before I get down a road where I'm paying for private coaching I got to fly the coach in or drive the coach in now we got to do this it it just starts building and like you said a little bit of success breeds this and if you try to back out it's like it's like a a time share salesman right they're like hey but we see really a bright future with your daughter and if you do this then it could lead to this and it could lead to this and you your daughter's just sitting there looking at you and you feel like you feel like the Antichrist pulling some of the stuff away and so I always think it's as to not follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole on this but it's to start all the way at the beginning with your wife and say hey what kind of home do we want to have and we're going to reverse engineer it that way and what can we actually afford so takes ice skating away and input Lexus if she was really passionate about Alexus and really a good driver and you couldn't afford Alexus you wouldn't buy her Alexus but for some reason Sports have become the altar that we sacrifice our families on and that we allow our families and our kids to worship and I I I think it's beyond Madness it's gone to pathology now um and at the same time dude I get it I can't imagine having a daughter who's starting to excel you're a stepdad You're Building relationships and connections and then you're going to sit down and like you're going to take this away right I get that I can't think of something that would be harder to do as a parent um I just am seeing family after Family Mortgage their souls for sports and travel Sports and the sake of whatever my kid wants to do I'm gonna I'm gonna do it and the kids can't carry that weight we end up burying our children what you think David yeah yeah it's that that's kind of my thinking it's you know more we draw a line in the sand and like yeah this is what we can afford Y and I'm I'm sorry yep and I and David honestly too if you don't do that nobody else is this ice skating Community isn't going to the the trainer's not going to the the championship tournament places aren't going like no one else is going to do that you literally could spend and spend and spend and spend and and there's nobody in the world that's going to be like hey David you got to stop so that's when Da that's when you and your wife together have to say we have to we have to put a boundary up because there's nobody else on planet Earth that puts up boundaries for us we have to create those ourselves and if you don't especially these little microcosms of life and kids sports is one of them you can just go down a train just like John's saying and it's and you look up and you guys have spent your retirement I mean you've done all of this and I I know I just it I just am so so cautious especially and I would say this too David even if you guys had the money it would be an interesting conversation too the urgency may not be there like at like with the money there's a little bit of a fine night we just we don't have the money like we can't do that and we're not going to stress ourselves out and miss mortgage payment for ice G like that's that's in like that's that's insane we can't do that we're are adults she's 14 and we have to make adult mature decisions in our household and run our household and then what comes after that is what we have to decide but we're not going to put ourselves in a financial bind for this we can't we won't and so you draw that line but even if you had the money I think what John's saying is interesting and I know it's so controversial here's the deal I've got friends that are athletic trainers at universities yeah and they continue to tell me that they're bringing 18 and 19 year olds with joint overuse injuries that they see in geriatric populations shoulders and knees and hips that were not designed to do the same sport yes day after day week after week year after year since someone was a child and all the way up through their bodies can't handle that right um so if there's like a and I and I don't know David what your options are but my encouragement would be hopefully to be able to find a group to plug in whether it's a wreck and not competition I mean I don't know what it is for ice skating but like where she can still do what she loves right and enjoy it but it's just not at this high specific level that is so narrow let me intense for 14 you know if this is my house expensive I would sit my son down who's 13 almost here and I'd walk him through our budget and then I would say here's what it costs for rent here's what it costs for electric water all that food what we spend and then here's what we got for this and this is our cap Y and then I'm not just going to say it in the vacuum but I'm going to show him here's what we can afford that's right create your free every doll budget today the simplest way to budget for your life