Update. I joined a gym tonight. My old gym was asking for $88 a month, plus a sign-on fee. I asked them to waive the sign-on fee, and they offered to cut it in half, but I said their competitor didn't have a sign-on fee and it was just as easy to get off the 2 train and go to their competitor's gym on my way home as it was to get off the 2 train a few stops later and go theirs.
But they weren't buying it. So I said I'd have to think about it (secretly, I wanted my old gym, for nostalgic reasons I would never admit in a negotiation). And the guy tried to pressure me, saying this deal was just for me and wouldn't last long and I said, "I'll take my chances." (It felt so bad ass to say that!)
Then at work I was talking to a guy and we started looking on line at a gym he'd heard of in our part of Brooklyn that is new and supposedly very very cheap, and on the way home I checked out two of their facilities, and picked one.
It's huge, bright, nice safe friendly vibe, has the kind of stationary weight machines I'm used to, everything I need.
And check this out, it's only $99 a year, only $8.25 a month, as opposed to ten times that for the gym in my more immediate neighborhood.
I can't believe it's so much cheaper. Okay, it doesn't have a steam room or sauna or hip hop DJ on thursday nights or pole dancing classes or yoga or personal trainers—but I don't even care about those things.
And I can get there and work out and still be home by 7:30 or so. It's really convenient.
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