Sweet i made it my life for a while too and it was some of my best years
just focus on keeping it a sustainable Hobby and you'll stay happy.
you need to get your finances back to Zero before each rally (or much better yet a plus)
I have several years of experience of doing it Right
and i have several years of experience doing it Wrong.
When i did things right, i would pay for each rally Entry with money from my bank account, navigator covered hotel and crew booze. the rest of the costs i would pay for on my credit card. and then i would pay off the credit card, repair the car, BEFORE entering the next rally.
Life was good, i often raced 4 weekends a month (Stage Rally, Rally cross, auto cross) in that order of preference.
I had one rally where i drove the car there, camped at a KOA camp ground won my class for Day 1, car was parc firme and i had to get a local to give me a ride back to my camp site where my navigator had his car.. LoL the local was a waitress at the bar , we had to wait until they closed.. LoL
won the 2nd day, had to drive navi back to pick up his car from parc firme. then back to after party at hotels, then back to our camp site.
it was probably my 2nd most epic rally experience to date. it was cheap and it was really fun. (car was FWD at the time with 110 hp)
then i reached for more than my wallet could support. bought a set of coilovers on a credit card, entered a rally before paying a single cent of that off. then i got the bright idea to introduce the GF to rally and pay her way .. Credit card debt rose even more.
then i tried to treat my friends and i paied for their gas while letting them drive seperate cars (more of the GFs idea) Bought some go fast parts (1 of which is still not installed 4 years later) again on the CC.
then the CC got declined, it was at its limit. oooh shit.
then i had to stop fixing damage to the car and just entering with it broken. (broken front lsd for example)
then the motor blew up, and i was out of money , except for that negative money stuff.
Life was bad
The key is to really know what you can afford and stick to it tightly.
My car is faster now, and sets much better stage times. I'm not sure if its really anymore fun, might be slightly less fun actually.
before i was flat on the gas nearly everywhere, always always praying the car would some how go faster, feeling i had a great performace while finishing maybe 7th or 10th out of 50.
Now i'm not flat on the gas as much, often find myself hoping to hear a low note (L3?) while i'm doing 100 mph, finishing 5th out of 50 and feeling that i could have done better, should have done better.
all for an increase price tag in up keep too! the car isn't at drift able as it was before due to the setup / power level, so more of the fun has to come from out performing others, . my tires wear faster than they did before, so do the brakes. crashing or having offs at just 10 mph faster seems to make a big difference in how much i have to spend to fix stuff.
also how far off the road you end up, and how easily you get back on.
I had a 4 minute lead on the last running of north nevada rally on day 2 and went so far off the road i had to wait for swept and i was time barred.
Arg
now i'm going to rebuild the car to be more Fun , the right diffs so i can throttle over steer and make line corrections with out losing my drift. also a transmission with better gearing.
whether my stage times are better or worse, if i can up the fun in each corner by being silly sideways i won't care as much where i am on the results, which would make events more fun.
its possible to take things to seariously and ruin your fun. I clenched a championship one year at prescott but had almost no fun cause i was taking things too seriously , really pissed off my crew (friends) and stuff. was really just shitty of me. but i learned my lesson.
you should also learn from my mistakes.
3 years after blowing up my motor i'm just now starting to rebuild my rally car
and i have a good income (also have a bunch of kids now.. lol)
Hope you make it out on the stages and have a blast.