Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. Knowledge is power. Guess what I need to do is "bite the bullet", set up a dancing budget and stick with it, no matter what. Since I live in Silicon Valley, probably a lot of the teachers in the area figure that students here have an enormous income and can afford to pay high fees for dancing costs. Unfortunately, I'm not in that category so budgeting is essential. All things considered, there are too many "middlemen" involved in ballroom dancing, whether we are talking studios or competitions. If they could eliminate most of these people, and instead get a couple of people who have good organizational skills, that too would be a factor in reducing the cost.

My overall concern is that eventually the cost of ballroom dancing will increase to such a point that there will be few competitors left who can afford to partake in it. Unless one has an amateur partner (which has been suggested to me by several of you), its rare to find an amateur still competing after five years. The costs start to add up. I'll check with my teacher and see if he would ever be willing to partake in a strictly pro/am competition.

Thanks again to everyone.
Janice