#35 - Your First Competition Budget
Hey, hey ladies. Happy Wednesday. I don't know if you're listening to this on a Wednesday. You guys, I am getting over COVID. It's been terrible. I think I'm on like day eight right now and I'm feeling better. I know I'm on the upward swing, but man did it knock me down for a few days. It really reminded me that it's so important to be compassionate with ourselves and as athletes and go get hers and that a type personality that just chases things hard sometimes, we can be hard on ourselves. I shouldn't say that sometimes. All of the time we are hard on ourselves. So I had to remind myself a few times over the last few days that it was okay. That I was not getting things done and it was okay that I was curled up on the couch with my puppy and my blanket reading a book, and that I could take a nap. And the world wouldn't fall apart. Right. It's crazy how much pressure we put on ourselves and the reminder that it doesn't have to all get done today was big for me. So if you're out there, you're out there struggling with some stuff right now. Just a reminder, be nice to yourself. It doesn't all have to get done today. It's fine. Okay.
You guys today, we are going to talk about your first competition budget. We're gonna talk about money you all. Competition is not cheap. But I wanted to kind of break it down for you guys, what to expect and kind of how to plan for this. So if you're thinking competition is in your future and you're kind of starting to prep for it. I want to give you kind of an idea of what that's going to look like. And I want to start by just reading you the first line in chapter nine, if so you want to compete. Chapter nine is called budgeting. So the first line is budgeting for your burst competition can be like budgeting for your wedding. If you are not strict with yourself, you can go over budget really quickly. This is so true. You guys, there are a lot of little details when it comes to your competition prep, and if you're not strategic about it, if you're not planned out, it can become excessive really quickly. So I usually tell my athlete plan for about five to $10,000 for their first competition. And I know you guys might, your heads might be exploding a little bit right now, but I just want to prepare you. Can it be cheaper? Absolutely, will your second show be cheaper? 100%. Right. The first show is going to be your most expensive show. Unless you decide otherwise, unless you decide to go crazy overboard with the suit down the road or extra training or what not, but your first show usually requires the most coaching. That first suit purchase and all of the other first time expenses, right? I want to go through like a full 16 week prep here of what you can expect. So let's start with food and nutrition. If you're already living a sculpted lifestyle, if you're already working out of jail, already have a gym membership and you're already buying good quality groceries and nutrition supplements, etc. Your food bill and supplement bill shouldn't change that much. If anything, it might actually get cheaper because you're going to become pretty restricted. And I know when I'm getting ready to compete. I love grocery shopping cause I only have to buy 10 items. Every week I buy the same 10 items. It's really simple. So you don't have to worry too much in that category. I budget about 400 to $600 a month for nutrition and supplements.
Training as nutrition coaching. Now, this can be different depending on the level of coach you have, depending on where you're living, all of the things. So I've seen coaches range from 300 to a thousand dollars a month plus. Uh, for competition training with me right now. You have to have a Lady Sculpt Membership, which is $250 a month. And then competition prep on top of that is 350, if you're a first-time athlete, 250, if you're a return athlete. So it's five to $600 a month. And that's everything included, that is training, that's nutrition, a little bit of life coaching stuff in there too. That's your team jacket, it's your show day, it's your dial-in, it's your coach support, it's your posing, it's everything, it's very all-inclusive. I really try to make sure that cost includes everything for them. But you do want to check because not all coaches are all inclusive like that. You may require a personal training coach, and then you might also require a stage presentation coach. And then you might also require a nutrition coach. So depending on how you're going about your training. Coaching could range very dramatically in price. So you want to make sure that you kind of have those numbers ahead of time and you're prepared for those costs, whatever those costs might be. All right.
So the next cost you're going to kind of come into contact with is about two months out. You're going to start thinking about registering for your show. So there's going to be, um, an organization. or a federation membership costs. Most federations have this. They usually range from about 75 to $250 annually. So if you're competing multiple times a year with the same federation, you only need to do a membership fee once a year. But if you're competing with different federations. At the same year, you may need to pay multiple membership fees. This is where competing with one federation can be a little bit strategic as well.
So on top of the federation membership fee, you also need to pay your competition registration fees. So this can range from a hundred to $400 per category. So depending on how many categories you're doing and depending what federation you're in, will determine your costs there. Now at the time that you registered, they're probably going to ask you about hair and makeup on show day. As well as photos, we're going to come back to that in just a minute here.
Next up, I want to talk about your competition suit and shoes. So again, these are things that you're going to want to get. I'd say shoes at least eight weeks out, maybe 12 weeks out, and your competition suit should be starting to get fitted around eight weeks out. You should have it by about two week out bark. So a competition suit. This can be a big range of price, like I was talking about last episode, you can buy a used competition suit for 202, 200 plus let's say. A new competition suit you can have made usually for about 300, 400 plus. And then competition suits. I mean, the sky's the limit. I've seen beautiful competition suits for 1500 plus. So however much money you want to spend there is up to you. It's definitely some wiggle room area, but I would definitely budget. If you're having a custom made suit made in your first year, definitely budget, about $500 to do so. Shoes, like I mentioned in last week's call, 50 to a hundred dollars. usually an average pair of shoes is going to cost you about $60 US so depending on if you're buying them used or new and where you're getting them from. and I do recommend you buy two pairs, so just double that cost. So you're looking at about a hundred to $200 for shoes.
Okay. So now we talked about this, I don't remember what episode we talked about this in, but traveling costs. If you have to travel to your first show, this can like double the price of your competition expenses. So that's something to keep in mind too. Are you competing locally or are you needing to budget for flights, hotel, car rental, travel expenses, etc. So if you are traveling to your first show, that is something you want to research and plan how to have time, make sure that you have a budget for yourself and keep an eye on seed sales and you know, ways to squeeze your budget just a little bit there. You can also reach out to other athletes who might be competing at the same shows, maybe you can share hotel rooms or share rides. All right. Leading into the show, you're going to want to do a little bit of pre-prepping. This might look like I'm Annie petty. You might want to get some waxing done or some hair removal done. So you want to make sure that you budget for those costs. Maybe those costs are things you do every month anyway, and they're not going to be out of expenses for you. But if they are, you want to make sure that you budget them in there again. Neither of these things is necessary. If you want to paint your own nails and shave your legs, that's totally fine. You don't have to spend the extra money there if you don't want to. Hairstyle, this is something that you want to kind of think about. Do you need to have your hair done before you go in terms of like roots or coloring or a new haircut? And if you want to work with a hairstylist on a style ahead of time, that's something you want to budget for as well. Um, some girls go a bit more extravagant and have hair extensions done, and this can cost, you know, hundreds of dollars to have a nice pair of hair extensions permanently put in, or even a set that is removable. So make sure that you budget for that as well.
Okay, let's get today's show. Are you ready for this? I'm going to list it off. You've got your tanning, your hair, your makeup, your stage photos, your backstage. Put those possibly a stage video. Am I missing anything? I think that's it. So let's go through so tanning, back when I wrote, so you want to compete, I have 75 to $150. I have not seen tanning for lower than $150 recently. So this book is getting a little outdated inflation, my friends. So for a professional stage tan, I would budget at least $150. You can tan on yourself, this is a place you can save a little bit of money. If you want to do the work yourself as a coach, I really suggest to my athletes that they just go with the pros. The reason for that is it's way less stressful. They make sure that your tan looks amazing. They make sure that you're the right color. It just takes so much pressure off. If you are doing your own 10, this is something I do. When I'm traveling for a show, I usually do my own tan. You want to make sure that you do a practice run. You want to make sure you know what you're doing. You want to make sure you give yourself a ton of time. And it's not a huge price difference for a really good quality self-tanner for competition, you can't just use it like a regular self-tanner. You need to get a competition self-tanner and for the primary plus top coat plus the kit, you're looking at about 75 to a hundred dollars usually. The thing with the kids is they can last two or three shows. So you're going to get a little bit more bang for your buck there, but from my personal experience the professional state channels always do a better job than what I can do on myself. So I recommend that you go with the tanning company that is made available to you at the show.
Hair and makeup. So, this is such a personal choice. The makeup artists at shows are amazing and do such a fantastic job. I personally do my own makeup because I enjoy doing it the morning of the show, it actually relaxes me a little bit. It gives me something to focus on. It gives me a little bit of artwork to do first thing in the morning. And, um, over the last few years, I've kind of collected all the bits although I'm learning that makeup expires. The bits probably need to be thrown away. I think for my next show, I'll actually. Uh, splurge and have the makeup artists do my makeup because recently the shows I've been to the athletes have just, their makeup has been getting better and better. And it's just so professional looking. So hair and makeup are usually about a hundred to a hundred fillers per service. So if you just want to go with a straightened down hair look or a curled down hair look, and you're really comfortable doing your own hair. This may be an area where you can save a little bit of money and you can just do it yourself. Right. Uh, if you're not comfortable doing your own hair or you want to look that's a little bit outside your box. You may want to splurge and budget for professional hair styling, the morning of the show.
Stage and backstage photos. This is something I'm really adamant with my athletes about you guys. If you're putting this much work into competing. Don't skimp out on the photos. Get the photos that's going to be not just your memories of, hey, I did this, but it's also such a fantastic recollection of where you started. If you continue to compete. Year after year for the next few years, you want to have the comparables you want to have. Something to show the progress that you've made. Also being able to look back at your stage photos or a stage video is such good feedback for you as an athlete, you may feel like you just killed it on stage, and then the judges might've placed you at fourth. And you're like, I don't get it. These judges are messed up. What were they thinking? And then you might look at your photos and be like, oh, I did not look the way I thought I looked and that's going to give you some fantastic feedback for how you can improve and what you can do better going into your next show. All right. So, I have staged photos from a hundred to $400, a hundred is not something I've seen recently. Uh, WNBF has fantastic, fantastic photographers. Shout out to the guys at, some below. Ron and Matt, they're incredible guys. They offer stage and backstage photos for $150, and then you can do a higher price package, that's an influencer package that includes a private shoot for 350 it's by far the best deal. I think I'm out there. Show video. This isn't something that I've seen in a little while. A lot of the shows are live streams now, so the video is readily available, but back when I was competing in the earlier days, you could buy it, video of your show for 50 to a hundred dollars. And I always did that because again, the feedback, being able to watch myself, critique myself, figure out what I wanted to do differently, what I really liked, and then being able to watch the other categories as well, was such good, valuable feedback for me. All right.
And then the final thing I have here that you may want to consider budgeting for is if you don't go with a full photo shoot, the day of the show. You may want to consider a date after the show photo shoot, or just something to really reward yourself for a job well done. Maybe that's not a photo shoot for you. Maybe that's a day at the spa. Totally up to you but you want to make sure that you do budget a little bit of money there to reward yourself. Maybe I won't go shopping. You guys don't buy a new wardrobe when you're in competition prep, you will not be that size all year round. It's not worth it, but, I recommend doing like an in gym photoshoot or a, in nature, photo shoot, or weekend with your spouse to thank them for being so supportive, like anything like that is going to be something that you remember, and that.You'll think your past self for planning when you get to it. Okay. So when you add up all that stuff, you guys were looking at around $5,000. If you're adding in travel, that's going to become more expensive quite quickly, depending on how far you're going. If there's flights involved, etc. So you do want to just be mindful of these costs and I want to touch on this before I let you guys go today.
If you're hearing this and you're thinking. I don't know if I can afford to compete. I want to encourage you to focus on your training. And consider slowly building up to competing. If your budget is tight, there is no rush. It is not recommended that you break the bank to compete. We suggest instead that each year that you're training and focusing on this goal ahead of you and making your body better and better. Add something to your arsenal. Maybe one year you buy shoes and you get a trainer to help you with your foundation physique. And then maybe next year. You get a posing coach. And a little bit more help with nutrition and then maybe the next year you splurge on Um, a used suit. And then maybe the year after that you finally compete and you pay for the membership dues and all of the things, I'd much rather see an athlete move slowly into it, in an affordable phase than go through the entire process from a place of scarcity where they are constantly feeling like , they can't afford the process. That really puts a shadow over the enjoyment of the experience. Remember you guys, we are competing for ourselves. We're not doing this for attention or for prosperity or for popularity, right. This process is about you becoming the best version of you possible. So you want to make sure you're giving yourself the best chance at enjoying the process.
All right my friends. That is what I have for you today in episode 35. I will see you next week. Bye for now.
Ladies quick before I leave, I forgot to mention that registration is now open for the May 16 Week Transformation Program. If you are someone who is looking to lose 20 to 40 pounds, you want help with nutrition. You want to process it in a way that is sustainable and long term forever results. Get over to my website lylasleona.com. Click on transform. And check out the 16 Week Transformation Program. We start Monday, May 16th. I'll see you there.
