Skydiving Incomes

[ryan_d_sucks 0]

So, I've been thinking recently. Just reflecting on my own situation, as a broke college student waiting/saving for spring to start AFF, how do people afford this expensive sport? No question the first year is quite expensive, with completing AFF/whatever training you choose, purchasing (or renting) gear, and buying jumps.. But even after these initial costs subside it seems as if the typical skydiver will encounter many more expenses such as travelling for tunnel time, travelling for warmer and better weather, taking time off work/traveling for boogies (I just read the Kenya Boogie article, which topped-off this question that has been on my mind), affording jump tickets, replacing gear, etc.

So my question is this... How does one _realistically_ afford this type of hobby? I know that one can afford most anything if they *really* try to... that is save up money, work extra hours, dont splurge on other things, and keep one monetary goal in mind, but how do those of you who are NOT doctors, lawyers, politicians, and inheritance-bound millionaires afford this sport? Of course answers will be different for those who are single (my income, my choice) versus those with families (must balance income with family needs). I am only curious as to how you all set aside the money to jump and also balance other commitments.

Perhaps my broke-student ass has become dissillusioned as to the opportunities and freedom that having a steady income (regardless of large or average amount) affords.

I'm interested to hear some strategies for balancing money for personal expenditure (jumping and all it entails) and money for other commitments (such as family or other things), ESPECIALLY when those others are non-jumpers.

Dont think TOO hard on it, just looking for insight and experience.

-Ryan

[bob.dino 0]

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So my question is this... How does one _realistically_ afford this type of hobby? I know that one can afford most anything if they *really* try to... that is save up money, work extra hours, dont splurge on other things, and keep one monetary goal in mind

You just answered your own question .

[ryan_d_sucks 0]

Certainly it could be taken that way.. But I feel like those strict guidelines for comming up with the cash are somewhat unrealistic when other people are depending on your income, especially those who don't jump, or furthermore don't understand it. I'm interested to see how others afford jumping while balancing the needs of those dependant upon them.

Thanks for your answer though, it definatley is legitmate and makes sense. I mean, if I didn't have to pay for anyone but me, I would tough it out, eat hot-sauce hamburger buns, save up and jump every weekend.

[freelyflyn71 0]

My wife makes $8.50/hr and I make $13.00/hr and we both jump an average of 2 times per weekend. It comes down to how much you want to be a part of this sport. You have to budget for what's important! You'll figure it out if you really want to do it bad enough! Trust me...if we can do it....you can! (edited to say...I just completed a USPA Coach course that costed me almost $300.00...and we're still doing fine)

The Braver the Bird...The Fatter the Cat.

[buzi 0]

I would love to give you a simple answer that will solve your problems, but no can do. I wish I could jumps more, but I am happy with what I can do. Be happy doing a few jumps every couple of weeks (four jumps with gas costs me around $ 150CDN), that souldn't break your bank. Save what you can, and be in no rush. In a few years you might be able to afford 100-200 jumps a year.
Be patient, and enjoy the blue skies.

[kelpdiver 2]

most people find a way to pay 200-500/month for a car lease/loan, plus the higher insurance costs of owning a recent year vehicle. I definitely should have gone that route for my first vehicle, rather than a nice new 4x4 truck for 18k.

If instead you get an older cheaper car, that's sufficient money to pay for some level of involvement in the sport. 100 jumps a year for translates to maybe 3000 plus perhaps 1000 for 1/4th of a rig?

[stratostar 5]

Work my ass at the dz, most if not all my student jumps were paid for by, doing everything I could do around the Dz to earn a jump, packing parachutes, taken out the trash, cut'n grass, getting the phone, painting the club house, washing airplanes ect.
Now I still work my ass off doing all the same shit as well as working in the air now that I have ratings and fly a lot of video/still cameras and have my own company for weekday work. Thats how!

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[indyz 1]

How much of your education are you paying for yourself? My parents paid my tuition, room, and board. I had a dorm meal plan so food was basically free. If I had lived in an apartment and had to buy my own food, or had a car and had to make insurance payments, it would have been tough. I got a job and cut my expenses, but I didn't live like a hermit either. I still had money to go out with my friends and have my non-skydiving fun, just not every night.

Basically it comes down to recognizing that little things add up. That $1.50 bottle of Coke? Two of those a day for a week costs you a skydive. Fast food seems pretty cheap, but every 4 Extra Value Meals costs you a skydive. Every night out at the bar costs at least a skydive. Every new CD or DVD costs almost a skydive.

I took a summer job and worked by ass off to buy gear. I didn't make many jumps that summer, but it was worth it in September when I had my own rig. Most skydivers I know don't go to the wind tunnel in an average year. Most skydivers I know don't travel to jump in the winter; if we can tough it out in Wisconsin, you will do just fine in Tennessee.

[Tornolf 0]

1. Parents had college fund for me.

2. Thanks to the wonder of standardized tests I actually net money by going to college due to scholarships and all that jazz. This renders college fund useless for college.

3. Packing.

A waddling elephant seal is the cutest thing in the entire world.
-TJ

[MarkM 0]

There's 2 ways to do it:

1> Make enough money so you can jump as much as you want.
2> Spend as little money as possible so you can jump as much as you want.

Your problem is that you're not in a position yet where you can make a lot of money(college student) and since you're in college, you can't exactly run away to live in a trailer dirt cheap on/near a DZ somewhere.

[hjumper33 0]

Started by getting a athletic scholarship to college and still working my ass off during the summer. Moved out of the midwest to go to medical school in california (of course skydiving wasnt a consideration ) and I live in a really cheap apartment and use my extra loan money to jump and still live like a poor college student otherwise. If you are willing to work for it, theres always money around for what you want it for.


p.s. I didnt do it because i didnt know about it, but a really cheap way to get into the sport is to do static line jumps. Find a DZ near you that offers it!

[sirenoremac 0]

When I was going to school, I would go out to the DZ every Saturday bright and early and pack as much as I could for most of the morning and into the afternoon. On an average day I did enough pack jobs in that time (plus a few after sunset) to make three jumps. Of course I was already licensed (skydiving father paid for that) and had a rig to borrow. But still, one day of hard packing can net between $60 and $120. I think packing is a fantastic way to pay for jumps.

[jeremy_o 0]

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No question the first year is quite expensive, with completing AFF/whatever training you choose, purchasing (or renting) gear, and buying jumps..

You could do S/L training. I know it is not the "hip" thing to do now-a-days but trust me..as a college student myself..it is the way to go if you are a broke ass. I got my A lic for ~750 dollars. All 25 jumps with rental gear and all. Just a thought...

Besides that, I don't buy any "worthless" crap, I rarely go out..if I do I get people to buy me dinner or whatnot I buy generic brand food at the grocery store. You get the idea, yes?

http://planetskydive.net/ - An online aggregation of skydiver's blogs.

[CSpenceFLY 1]

I think you will find alot of people have to budget for their skydiving.Alot of people are not at the DZ every weekend or both days.As someone else hit on it's all about what you deside you want to do.In your situation it mike come down to either skydive or go out with your friends for a night.If it gets in your blood there will be no choice to make.

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

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...as a broke college student waiting/saving for spring to start AFF, how do people afford this expensive sport...

Finish college.

Get a hair cut & Get a real job.



... but seriously, like some have said up post, there is potential to earn extra income around the DZ or you could get a part-time job... not sure if you work & go to school or not, but anyway, remember, you can go to school and have fun, but don't screw up your grades or drop out cause of too much F.U.N., I hate to sound like a stick in the mud, but school should come first, with that, many many more opportunities open up in the future. Good luck.

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[beowulf 1]

Finish college and get a job.

I make enough money to do about 300 jumps a year and a couple of trips.


I have no ratings at all and have no interest in working at the dropzone at all. I have never videoed any tandems or AFF students. I go to the dropzone to have fun and not work.

[peregrinerose 0]

Well, finishing college would be a start

My husband and I are both packers. We make more than enough money to make about 250+ jumps/year and take a couple of trips in there too. Plus coaches courses, my riggers course, and all of our gear. Packing can be very lucrative... no way we'd be jumping at all if we weren't packers.... I'm still paying for my grad school education.

Jen

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[WatchYourStep 0]

Did you do any sports in high school? If so officiate. I've been a wrestling official for the past ten years. I make enough extra cash in those 3-4 months to cover all the jumping I could do in a year plus travel.

I will tell you that wrestling officiating pays way more than other officiating from what I've seen. I can make $350-$500 for a two day tourney depending on where it is.

"You start off your skydiving career with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience up before your bag of luck runs out."

[pchapman 261]

Another issue isn't where the money comes from, but where it goes. (This is more of a general answer, not necessarily specific to ryan_d's situation.)

There can be inflated expectations in the sport -- "keeping up with the Jones' ". There are always going to be other jumpers who are more active in the sport -- buying cool new gear, downsizing regularly, going on skydiving vacations, making hundreds of jumps per year. There is perhaps more of a tendency these days for jumpers to be looked down on if they aren't super-active in the sport, because of the inflated expectations about what a "real skydiver" is supposed to be able to achieve.

There are some things one needs to invest in, and some one doesn't. There's plenty of computer gadgetry that is entirely optional. And one can still be a skydiver without flying around the continent to attend tunnel camps and canopy control courses.

In other areas, trying to save money is false economy, and you do need to spend the money up front. (E.g., if someone is tall & thin and trying to do RW, they may need to buy a dedicated RW jumpsuit and weight belt, rather than waste a lot of jumps where they are just too floaty.)

One guy on the DZ I jump at just made his 500th after maybe 2 1/2 years in the sport. In contrast I took 10 years to get to 500, and had the same used set of gear for that whole time. Not always being a regular at the DZ did make it slightly tougher to make friends there. But overall, even if it wasn't ideal for currency and skills acquisition, I still had a lot of fun. I could still head out to a DZ any time I wanted to get into the air.

[Fast 0]

I lived at my parents for a long time because it cut down on costs and let me jump. I also had a full time job and could have afforded to move out if I stopped jumping. So I basically choose priorities. Now all my jumps are paid for working at the DZ. I have surplus money to pay packers so they get to jump too. I earn money shooting video, pass some of that on to the packers, and jump all the rest of it. I live in an apartment now and if I wasn't shooting video I wouldn't be skydiving.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[davelepka 4]

I didn't read the whole thread, but the short answer is that alot of people can't afford to jump, so they don't.

Many jumpers get out of it due to the cost. A new spouse or child can make jumping too expensive to continue.

Alot of tandems and dtudetns would love to keep jumping, but don't have the cash, so we lose them.

Sometimes these folks come back when their situation makes a change for the better.

It's a combination of the right person, at the right time in their life, in the right situation that makes a skydiver. If thats not you now, it sucks.

Some have the idea that if you cannot jump X number of jumps per year, you're not current enough to be safe, Thats bullshit.

You can make one jump a year, and be safe. It needs to be a supervised jump, with a refresher course on the ground and coach in the air, but you can do it. Just remember to respect your jump numbers and currency when you make decisions about what jumps to make or not make.

[nikejumper 0]

Ramen Noodles and Koolaid!!

hahaha I remember those days in college

on a more serious note- I feel very lucky that I have a job that give me the mean to skydive

where there is a will there is a way! is the best way I can put it man, I'm still new to the sport, but I love it and I just make some priorities and skydiving is pretty high up there.

Is it saturday yet?

[chrismgtis 0]

I am single and make $13.50/hour (highly underpaid for a network administrator). I'm not complaining because when your a network admin and are the only I.T staff in a 250,000 square foot building with a massive network connected to a massive worldwide WAN, you're getting a lot of amazing experience - which I'll be able to use when this job is over to make what I deserve ($50-90k).

At the moment I am living at home with my parents because the job I currently hold is moving to other locations and closing down, so I don't have a lot of bills to pay. When this job closes down I'll hopefully be able to get the job paying what I deserve and get moved back out.

So, basically I am single and live with my parents and make very good money for that scenario.

I've done the college deal eating ramen noodles all of the time and somehow surviving by making half of what your bills are costing you. It sucks.

Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033
Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

[mhcook 0]

Hi all, without getting into specifics, I have a second, part time job that pays for my jumps. still relatively new at the sport but so far it works for me. I work my second job 2 nights per week and every other weekend. when I work on Sunday, I'm scheduled 5-9pm, jump in the morning to afternoon then drive back for work. The hard part is working after my jumps. hard to focus, but the drive back allows for decompress time.

Matthew

[TheGirlWonder 0]

Definitley get through college so you can get a good paying job that will help support your habit. Besides that, its up to you to determine how you allocate your funds. I make a great living for my age, but since getting into this sport, I live paycheck to paycheck. I cut cost wherever I can, put equipment on my credit card, and juggle bills to pay for jumps.. Trust me, Im not recommending this. I wish I was more responsible with my money. Maybe I will regret this later in life, but right now, nothing makes me happier than jumping and being at the dz... so thats what I do...