Figure Skating Progress and Cost Analysis Spreadsheet (Basic Skills 1-4)

[TheAquarian]

Those of you who have seen my posts in the other sections may or may not know that fairly new to Figure Skating, but have been training almost every day except Sunday since I started.  Initially I just wanted to make a quick spreadsheet to keep track of what I've learned in relation to the Basic Skills guidelines on the USFSA website, however because I'm a full time student, and also work full time I decided it couldn't hurt to create a summary of exactly how much the sport has cost me financially, and how much it continues to cost me on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

I didn't really plan for this spreadsheet to become so detailed or complicated when I started, however now that the first version of it has been made I figured I'd share it with the community should there be other people around who are interested in keeping track of the same types of information.  Since I made this sheet for myself, all of the information currently reflects my current totals, lessons, and Adult Basic Skills 1-4, but it should't be too difficult for someone to edit to suit their own levels and expenses.  Feel free to do so.

Terms:

Learned - indicates exercises / moves that have been shown to me by my coach.

Mastered - indicates exercises / moves that are not difficult for me and are satisfactory to both me and my coach

First Day On the Ice - The exact date (entered in mm/dd/yyyy format) you began training regularly.

Start Up Costs - Are currently a sum total of Miscellaneous expenses and Equipment, I may change it later if I encounter an expense in one of these categories that is not start up related.

Percentage - An indicator of how far you have come in the different levels of Basic Skills.   When all items at a given level have a 1 in both the "Learned" and "Mastered" column the percentage will become 100% indicating that there's nothing left for you to do at that level.

Notes:

- Your average monthly/weekly/daily costs will likely be much higher if you JUST started due to start up costs, and frequency/intensity of instruction.   For example, in my case my coach and I agreed that it would be better to start with longer more frequent lessons to establish a foundation quickly, so that I could become self sufficient enough to practice by myself outside of lessons.  As such the average monthly costs are higher now than they will be in 6 months when we no longer meet either as frequently or as long as we do now.

- If you are like me and have not even been skating a full month yet,  your averages may be somewhat askew depending on how you are billed for ice time and lessons.  As above this will level out once you have been skating a few months. 

- ONLY put 1s in the boxes for items that you have learned / mastered, using numbers of letters will mess up the calculations

- If you have a 1 in the "Mastered" column you MUST have a 1 in the "Learned" column also to be counted as completing that exercise completely

- I have not made the sheet smart enough to account for periods of absence.   It is possible to do, but it is not something that impacts my skating, and I didn't exactly intend for this to become a huge project when I started.

Microsoft Excel is required.   I used 2003 to make it, so it should work on newer versions of Excel, however I do not know about older versions or 3rd party Excel clones like OpenOffice.

I've just realized that I have no way to attach the spreadsheet to this message so I will reply to my own thread once I find a quick and free web site to host it.

[TheAquarian]

Download Link:

http://rapidshare.com/files/425508231/Figure_Skating_Analysis_-_Basic_Skills_1-4.xls

Disclaimer:

Needless to say that this file is malware and virus free, however for the sake of protecting myself legally should someone's computer coincidently blow up sometime after downloading this spreadsheet, I take no responsibility for what you or others do to this spreadsheet after it has left my computer. This file contains no macros, and consists only of MS Excel calculations, cells to enter raw data, and color formating. The file was uploaded 100% clean and virus free, and I can not be held responsible for any computer problems you may or may not have have any time after downloading.

[jjane45]

Wow that was brilliant! Thank you for sharing.
And wow @ the bills so far

[Twizzler]

Interesting, but frightening data. hate to tell you that the better skater you become, the harder the elements and at least for me (age 40+) the longer they take to master. I do all my financials on Quicken, but have never had the strength to run a report on how much I've spent on skating. Fortunately my husband doesn't know how to run these reports, LOL!  If you're like me you'll think it's worth every penny.  Enjoy!!

[TheAquarian]

Wow Justin, that was brilliant! Thank you for sharing.
And wow @ the bills so far

Tell me about it.       They had to put me right into a custom boot because  my feet were too wide for any non custom boots (8.5EE), so there was not only a more expensive boot to buy than anticipated, but a $100 customization fee.

My guess and hope is that the price will go down as I continue skating.  I just kept telling myself that  the financial commitment was a good thing, because it would encourage me to persevere through any initial discomfort with skating I experienced while learning until the sport became really fun - I wouldn't want to feel like I wasted money.  As it turns out the extra motivation to keep going was not needed.

Anyway, I'm glad that other people find the spreadsheet interesting.   I will most likely update it to calculate different things as different things come up in my training.  I've only been at this for 2 weeks and three days so it would be silly to think I've anticipated everything.

Take care!

[fsk8r]

Tell me about it.       They had to put me right into a custom boot because  my feet were too wide for any non custom boots (8.5EE), so there was not only a more expensive boot to buy than anticipated, but a $100 customization fee.

My guess and hope is that the price will go down as I continue skating.  I just kept telling myself that  the financial commitment was a good thing, because it would encourage me to persevere through any initial discomfort with skating I experienced while learning until the sport became really fun - I wouldn't want to feel like I wasted money.  As it turns out the extra motivation to keep going was not needed.

Anyway, I'm glad that other people find the spreadsheet interesting.   I will most likely update it to calculate different things as different things come up in my training.  I've only been at this for 2 weeks and three days so it would be silly to think I've anticipated everything.

Take care!

My experience is that the price only goes up with skating. The more you learn the more things there are to master and as the practice list gets longer you need longer (ie more ice time) to practice it all, and then you need more lessons to cover everything and the viscious cycle just gets worse. There's probably a small lull between getting started and the practice list becoming too long when things become bearable cost wise.

But I hide my skating costs from myself. I make sure I pay each lesson as I have it then I don't know how much I actually spend in a week. All my ice time comes straight from the bank like other bills so I never "see" it. I actually just had to pay a week's worth of lessons in one day and my eyes boggled. I even asked the girl not to tell me the figure as hearing it is worth than just signing the credit card slip.

[Doubletoe]

If I added up everything I spend on skating and divided it by the new elements I mastered and the medals I won, I would be trying to buy axel insurance and suing the USFSA for not making the medals out of REAL gold!    Basically, I'm spending my retirement money on skating, in hopes that I will die of a heart attack right after landing my first double axel at age 65. 

[aussieskater]

I tried to download/see the spreadsheet but got an error message that "the limit of 10 downloads for unassigned files has been reached"?

[kiwiskater]

But I hide my skating costs from myself. I make sure I pay each lesson as I have it then I don't know how much I actually spend in a week. All my ice time comes straight from the bank like other bills so I never "see" it. I actually just had to pay a week's worth of lessons in one day and my eyes boggled. I even asked the girl not to tell me the figure as hearing it is worth than just signing the credit card slip.

LOL you'd hate the system at my rink then, for LTS you pay by the term, Adult LTS by 1/2 term blocks and when you get up to private lessons you pay casual entry rates or bi-monthly membership (NZ$270) which costs about the same or more than a whole term or LTS

[TheAquarian]

Oh I didn't realize that it could only be downloaded 10 times on that web site.   I will  try another file hosting web site when I get home tonight.