Wicked Gym Deal

My gym just had this weird (but wonderful) sale: Pre-pay 12 months, get 12 months free, along with 5 free hours of personal training. Since I usually buy training anyway, and my current membership expires in November, my ears perked up.

My monthly fee is $29.99. If I pre-pay 12 months and include all the taxes, that's about $392. Five hours of training costs anywhere from $47/hour to $70/hour. Let's say it's $47. That's about a $260 value, including tax. I would've bought the hours anyway -- it's my big monthly luxury expense -- so it's really a pure discount on my dues.

$392 - $260 is $132. That's $132 for 2 years of gym membership, or about $5.50 per month. For the last couple of years, at a minimum, I've been going twice a week or 8 times per month. (There were a rocky couple of months in there, but I always ended up back on track.)

If I maintain a twice per week schedule, each gym visit will cost $0.69 until November 2010.

I run the risk of having the gym close down, which is possible; it's happened before. But for that price I am willing to risk it.

I always hear people say you should give up your monthly gym membership to cut costs, but damn. $5-6 per month to workout? At a decent place downtown with subsidized parking? And TVs and DVD players on the cardio machines? I'm sold.