How can I save money on a gym / fitness membership? New Year's Resolution is to get in shape - but on the cheap!
Shop around for Gym January is a great time to look because that's when most people join and the gyms are competing for your business.  Also, look beyond the monthly dues.  Many gyms will give free personal training sessions when you sign up - a necessity if you are serious about getting in shape! My gym offered a one time fee for 3 years.  It cost around $600 which comes out to under $17 a month. Not bad for a new modern state of the art gym. If you're determined to save money, find ways to integrate exercise into your daily routine and don't join a gym at all. This makes it more likely you'll keep it up if it is a natural part of your day. You could set aside half the money you would spend on the gym towards some of the options below. I know it's not always practical, especially in the winter, but here are a few things you could do.  One of the other answers makes a good point. Gym membership can be cost effective if you go regularly, but don't kid yourself that you'll suddenly go 5 times a week every week if you've not done much regular exercise.  If you are determined to join a gym, here are a few other things to consider. Try a gym for a month before you sign up on any contracts.  This will also give you time to figure out if you are the type who can stick with a schedule to workout on regular basis.  Community centres are cost effective and offer pretty good facilities.  They have monthly plans as well so no long term committments. Find a physical activity or programme that interests you.  Memberships only have real value if you use them.  Consider learning a martial art like karate, aikido, kung fu, tai kwan do, judo, tai chi chuan. :-)   Even yoga is a good form of exercise. Many of these are offered at local community centres if you just want to try it out without worrying about the cost initially.  Use this to gauge your interest before considering more advanced clubs.  One advantage later on if you stay with it long enough - some places will compensate you for being a junior or even associate instructor. Regardless of whether this is your interest or if the gym membership is more to your liking real value is achieved if you have a good routine and interest in your physical fitness activity.  It also helps to have a workout buddy or partner.  They will help motivate you to try even when you don't feel like working out. The gym I used to use was around £35-40 a month, its quite a big whack but if you think about it; its pretty good value for money. That includes gym use, swimming pool use, and most classes Paying for a gym session is around £6 a go, so if you do that 3 times a week, then make use of the other facilities like swimming at the weekends, maybe a few classes on the nights your not at the gym it does work out ok As for deals, my one used to do family membership deals, and I think things like referring a friend gives you money off etc. They will probably also put on some deals in January since lots of people want to give it a go being new year and all Look for discounts from a health insurance provider, price club, professional memberships or credit cards. That goes for a lot of things besides health memberships.  My wife is in a professional woman's association for networking at work.  A side benefit is an affiliate network they offer for discounts of lots of things, including gym memberships. I came across an article posted at Squawkfox last week.  It's particularly relevant to answering this question.  See 10 Ways to Cut Your Fitness Membership Costs.  Here's an excerpt: [...]   If you’re in the market for a   shiny new gym membership, it may be   wise to read the fine print and know   your rights before agreeing to a   fitness club contract. No one wants to   be stuck paying for a membership they   can no longer use, for whatever   reason.   But if you’re revved and ready to burn   a few calories, here are ten ways to   get fitter while saving some cash on a   fitness club or gym membership. Yay,   fitness tips!    [...] Check it out!
"As others have said, congratulations on saving up 75K in cash while seemingly not neglecting other areas of personal finance.  Considering that only 15% of Americans have more than 10K saved this is quite a feat.  source If you sell your old house, and buy the new one you will still be in really good financial shape.  No need to comment further. Renting your current home and buying a new home introduces a great amount of risk into your life.  The risk in this case is mitigated by cash.  As others have pointed out, you will need to save a lot more to remove an acceptable amount of risk. Here is what I see: So without paying off your existing house I would see a minimum savings account balance of about double of what you have now.  Once you purchase the new house, the amount would be reduced by the down payment, so you will only have about 50K sitting around. The rental emergency fund may be a little light depending on how friendly your state is to landlords.  Water heaters break, renters don't pay, and properties can sit vacant.  Also anytime you move into a new business there will be mistakes made that are solved by writing checks.  Do you have experience running rentals?   You might be better off to sell your existing home, and move into a more expensive home than what you are suggesting. You can continue to win at money without introducing a new factor into your life. Alternatively, if you are ""bitten by the real estate bug"" you could mitigate a lot risk by buying a property that is of similar value to your current home or even less expensive.  You can then choose which home to live in that makes the most financial sense.  For example some choose to live in the more dilapidated home so they can do repairs as time permits. To me upgrading the home you live in, and renting an expensivish home for a rental is too much to do in such a short time frame.  It is assuming far too much risk far to quickly for a person with your discipline.  You will get there." "There are several tactics you might employ to help the situation.  You have two options, one is to increase your income, the other is to reduce your expenditure.  Paying off debt will also help but that may not apply to you. Most people find it easier to reduce expenditure, so I will explain that first of all. Then make sure you track your actual expenditure agains the budget, check it daily and make sure it is accurate, if you spend some money you didn't budget for then mark that down and make sure you budget for it going forward. Most people are surprised at how much they are actually spending, especially on trivial things like coffee, lunch at work etc.  You will then find you can start to reduce this expenditure, maybe by bringing lunch to work, skipping coffee every other day etc. By doing a budget you can reduce your expenditure and hopefully have some money left over to save - put a line in your budget marked savings (ideally on the day you get paid so you don't spend it)! If you ned to save $x by Y date then work out how much that works out in a month and put that into your budget, if you haven't got enough spare to do that then onto stage 2 With regards to increasing income, the obvious way is to do some overtime at work - can you do that? Alternatively you can get a part-time job, maybe a hobby that pays money?  I personally enjoy building web-sites as a hobby and I get about $20 a month from advertising on those, it's not much but it adds up over time. Finally how to actually save, what methods are there? Lots of options here, personally I buy shares with my savings, making sure I pick stocks that are currently cheap - this is quite risky and may not suit you but it works for me as I don't sell the shares until I actually need the money. Other options are regular savings accounts that pay a bonus after you've had the money in for (usually) 12 months etc.  They tend to pay a bonus at the end so you are incentivised to not touch your cash but you can get it out if you really need it. You can also work out how much ""spare"" cash you have monthly and then give yourself an ""allowance"" each month that you can spend on impulse items, but make sure you stick to that. Good luck!" Sure - I honestly don't mind membership sites, and there are a bunch of sites that I do maintain active memberships to like the New Yorker, it's all about quality. I just have to keep an eye on my subscription credit card so I can make sure I'm not getting billed for a service that I've long since forgotten about. Yes but the trendy new term is plant-based diet, and I think the attraction for a vegan fast food would be to get a quick, healthy meal that is reminiscent of typical fast food.  The way meat protein is consumed in the US and elsewhere is typically in conjunction with other processed ingredients.  If someone figures out a good menu with relatively healthy vegan food, I definitely think they could be successful.    Something like Jamba Juice where they have many locations inside or next to gyms seems like it could work.  Smoothies don't always cut it and a quick, cheap, healthy snack would be fantastic after or before a work out.  Honestly I never go to restaurants that serve meats and order something that is strictly vegan/vegetarian.  If there was a place I could go to quickly that specializes in vegan food I would love to give it a try. You can fairly simply make a spreadsheet in your favorite spreadsheet application (or in Google Docs if you want portability). I like to make an overview page that shows how much I take in per month and what fixed bills come out of that, then break the remaining total into four to get a weekly budget. Then, I make one page per month with four columns (one per week), with each row being a category. Sum the categories at the bottom, and subtract from your weekly total: voila, a quick reference of how much you can spend that week without going over budget. I then make a page for each month that lists what I bought and how much I spent on it, so I can trace where my money's gone; the category total is just a summation of the items from that page that belong in that category.  Once you have a system, stop checking your bank balance except to ensure your paycheck is going in alright. Use the spreadsheet to determine how much you can spend at any time. Then make sure you pay off everything on the card before the end of the month so you don't incur interest. We all buy stuff from time to time that only satisfies us for a short time. I was able to locate a few expenses that fall under that category. I see a lot answers that focus on not getting these things. I'm going to tell you how to at least attempt to have your cake and eat it too. If you can get these things without paying for them, or by paying pennies on the dollar for them, you'll no longer want to buy them at full price. Begin by making a list of the items you can't stop thinking about.  Go to your local library and look for relevant items that are on your list. If they are not yet available, request that the library purchase them, and reserve them for when the items come in.  Yes, libraries are usually tax-supported, but to give back, if you can't afford to contribute to the Library immediately, you can still promote their fund-raising or book/media-drive efforts. If you don't mind buying things that may be second hand, thrift stores and garage or yard sales can have anything. The ones near you may have one or two items on your list of things you were looking for - for pennies on the dollar.  Other items might be things you can share with friends. Borrow or swap things until you get bored of them. If you don't have a network of friends with shared interests, there may be a local freecycle or relevant meetup group you can join.  The key here is to try to contribute more than you take (and you probably have things you don't need that you can start with trading), and don't keep careful score. The upshot is you'll not only save money but make friends while doing it. You can sometimes have your cake and eat it too. These recommendations can get you the short-term happiness you were looking for, without spending the money. And when the happiness is gone, you won't feel like you need to hang on to the item indefinitely - you can pass it on for others to enjoy. We have a ton of student loan debt (mostly mine) and right now, I'm on a strict 'replace' only budget.  I have some shirts I put elbow holes in that I'm only keeping around as a reminder to replace them.  I wait until there is a deal of some sort (50% off or BOGO Free) unless I really need it - a white dress shirt for job interviews for instance. Outside of that, make it a line item in your budget and decide when you will spend it. For example, budget $60/mo for it, but only spend it when it reaches $180 or $300 or either of those amounts AND a sale (memorial day is the next big shopping sale after Easter).  It is totally up to you. Waiting to replace two shirts (gray and green) and a pair of black dress pants. There are a lot of great suggestions here on how to get and keep your finances in shape. But I have to say, I disagree with some on the starting point. The first step to living frugal is to convince yourself that it is worth it. That it is the way to go and the way you want to manage your finances. As @DrFredEdison and @fennec stated, the reason we frugal people don't spend wildly is because of what we believe. So I would suggest buying a book or video/audio series from someone like Dave Ramsey who will encourage and motivate you to spend wisely and show you practical ways to get started. With that said I do agree with a lot of the practical suggestions that have been given here.