Wrestling is as expensive or as inexpensive as you want it to be. In our club, we charge our wrestlers the $30 for the card and a $20 club fee. We supply our wrestlers with singlets, we recycle our shoes so that younger wrestlers can get by without that expense, and so the only real equipment expense is the headgear. We encourage our parents to only wrestle the tournaments that they feel they can handle. If that is only 2 tourneys a season, then that is what they wrestle. Those of us that have kids that have wrestled for a number of years put more money into the sport. We do it because we love wrestling and our kids love wrestling. If I had to force my child to wrestle, we would not be doing it. You and your child have to choose what they want to be involved in. There is no way we could do soccer, football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, volleyball, or everything that is out there for them to do. Choose your battles, so to speak, and then budget your money and your time so that it can work for you.