Ok so hear me out.

I joined a gym not too long ago (Sept. 2011) close to my work and it's only $20 a month! YUP! Such a great price so then I got a personal trainer cause I figure wow, $20 a month I can pay for a trainer put the money in now and get into shape. I pay $150 for him a month.

So I pay $170 a month for my fitness

Ok....now here's the catch.

When I first started working out in June I was doing Turbo Jam home videos. I'm not getting anything out of these home videos anymore nor am I liking working out at home anymore! I so LOVE the gym! I go out it's me time and I don't have screaming kids at me! LOL (I'm a single mom)

So my gym is 45mins drive away (close to my office) BUT I'm not in the office everyday (3 days a week)

Tuesday's and Thursday's I work from home and have been doing workouts my trainer gave me in my garage. I was working out in the living room but with the cold weather hitting it's TOO HOT in my house and the garage is TOO COLD!

I'm getting frustrated, I want to work out, I MISS the gym!

So the YMCA is close to my home at $54 a month.

That means I'd be spending $225 a month on my fitness. I can afford it but isn't that a bit extreme?

Granted I'm done paying for the trainer this time next year then my gyms will only cost me $74 a month

Do I suck it up for the year and just do it? Is it insane to dish out this money for the year? Ahhhhh I don't know! I just want to make it easier to workout cause the rest of my days are working, or attending to the kids! Lunch is my only break and now with the cold weather working out at home sucks I'm not liking it

Yes, you're crazy!

All jokes aside, I think it's a little extreme, but then again, I utilize my trainer friends instead of paying someone because I can be frugal. As a single mom, I completely understand the need for "alone time." Can you get some under armour or something else that can keep your body warm while working out in the garage on your days at home?

If I were in your position, I'd wonder about keeping the personal trainer. Are you under some kind of contract that you can't get out of?

I used to belong to the Y, and I liked it alot. Plus, you can get training sessions there if you need them, beyond the initial orientation training.

But I belong to a gym now where I pay $10.70 per month. I pretty much know how to work out now, so I don't have any trainer costs. I've had a couple of different trainers in my time, and I can't say I thought their services were worth the price.

I guess another question to ask would be, if the YMCA isn't close to your work, would you find it harder to get there?

I wouldn't join 2 gyms. It just costs too much, and I'd probably just not go to one of them after awhile.

The best gym to join is the one you'll go to regularly.

Good luck deciding.

Jay

If you can afford it and will use it, I say go for it! It's not crazy to love your gym time. I love mine as well.

If you find your not going to one as much as the other, then drop the one your not using.

are you locked into a contract with the personal trainer at the gym near work? The Y has personal trainers too, and money wise since it's near your house, you can go there coming home, and go there when you're at home. I agree, $20 is fantastic.

Really, those kinds of decisions depend more on your budget. But with the money you save you could buy more clothes! hair makeup shoes jewelry ha

I could be wrong, but can't you use any Y location if you sign up? I was able to use more than one when I was a member. Is there one near work as well?

Other gyms have this option- planet fitness, etc. You can use their other locations for free or for a slight upcharge.

If that doesn't work or if what you're proposing is just the best option, I say do it. As long as you can afford it and will get use of both gyms, I think it's a worthwhile investment. I spend double the amount I was planning on spending on my gym membership, but it's a gorgeous gym and I don't have to drive far to get there. Spending less money on a gym that isn't as good or is hard to get to 50% of the time, to me is just not worth it. When I was interviewing for a job with a 65 mile commute I instantly started looking up local gyms with no intention on dropping my current one. Expensive yes, but I see it more as an investment than, say, a pair of shoes (which I also often want to buy, but I digress).

Do what's going to make you keep going! If you hate working out at home, you're more likely to skip it, obviously. So do what motivates you and keeps you working towards your goal. If it's a little extreme (for as long as you have the trainer, anyway), it's only temporary, and so be it!

See I can't work out on my way home from work cause the kids have sports after my work days, I rush home feed them and off to hockey, gymnastics etc. Seriously lunch is my ONLY time. I have to get up at 5 am 3 days a week to head into the office and the days I work from home I have to get up to get the kids ready for school. I have a live in nanny but I have to watch how much OT I pay her. Like last night I went out for a run at 6pm and I had to pay her overtime. I am in a contract with the personal trainer but I LOVE working out with him, he totally pushes me and shows me how to exceed beyond what I'm doing. I need a gym cause of the weights. I do mostly resistence training and cardio in between. He trains athletes so I'm totally getting my money's worth from him. I think I'm getting addicted to exercise. It's such an adrenaline rush I could easily work out every day but I force myself to rest on the weekends, well unless I don't have the kids I do workout on Saturday as well. I actually found a cheaper gym GoodLife Fitness by my house for $30 a month! So that's $50 a month for 2 gyms??? Oh gosh, I think I'm crazy, I really really love this whole fitness thing, maybe I'm getting too obsessive over it??? Thanks for the input ladies....

Mmmm keeping the garage warm in the winter......I could do that totally. I think I like the gym environment I LOVE IT...ok that's it I have fallen off the wagon and jumped into the insane assalym truck!

$50 a month for a gym is perfectly reasonable. I wouldn't worry about it. And it means you will be getting more bang for your buck with your personal trainer.

Lots of people are members of more than one gym for the same reasons you're considering.

Be careful of exercise addiction. A moderate amount of exercise is good for us. Too much exercise is not.

How much is too much? Hard to say but you need to "listen" to your body.

Yup this... I overworked myself a couple weeks ago and got SICK. I had to scale it back a bit. I totally understand needing the rush, though. I need to get in there every day or I feel like I'm losing it.

If you can afford it and you'll use them both, go for it!

It's really up to you. But I think it's a bit much, I feel like one gym is enough. But true, if you can afford it, go for it!

Gym memberships and other weight loss "costs" are very personal decisions. Only you can determine whether it fits into your budget and whether the total cost (whether it's for membership to one gym or five) is worth it.

And that's more important than whether anyone (even you) thinks it's "crazy" or not. If crazy works for you, then be crazy.

Personally, I've discovered that paying month-to-month has worked better for me, because when I pay a year in advance or if it's taken out of my check automatically, I forget about it. Sure, I feel guilty once in a while, but ultimately I end up using the gym a lot less often than I planned on.

However, by paying month-to-month, I feel like I have to "earn the right" to buy another month. In fact, I made a deal with my husband that we had to go at least 6 times in a month to "earn" the next month.

We're only on our fourth month, but so far it's working great. And our average attendence is 3 times a week (this month has been a bit slower, because the weather changes have been affecting our pain and mobility issues).

A lot of people would find month-to-month demotivating. And that paying for a year in advance makes them more accountable (feeling that they have to get their money's worth), so it all depends on your own personality and motivations.

This is definitely one of the best lines I've read on this forum. I would love to use it as my tag line. If we would all just internalize this advice, we would be much better off IMHO.

So use it! I think we're taught to "think" we're crazy when it comes to weight loss, but we're taught to be all sorts of crazy.

After all, most of us didn't invent the post-slip-up binge We've done it because we've seen and heard many people before us say "I blew it, so I ate all weekend."

We know it's crazy, but yet we also know it's "normal." And the "normal" crazy of the group always seems to trump the unusual crazy of the individual.

I say it's time to make our own crazy work for us, rather than accept the group crazy that has been shoved down our throats for years.