Thursday, April 24, 2008

Monthly Bills - To Spend or Not To Spend

runnerToday, I decided to upgrade my gym membership. I have access to all 24 Hour Fitness Sports. These are generally the highest level club for the chain. However they have a few limited Super Sports which are a little bit bigger and nicer. In particular the regular sports around me don't have full basketball courts but the Super Sport does, so I joined.

Now, it wasn't an easy choice for me. One thing I'm pretty adamant against is having too many financial obligations that you have month to month. It is almost a sure way to spend more money without knowing about it. It's important that most of your costs are variable, not fixed. That way, when you have to scale back, such as when you quit your job, it is much easier to do.

In the end, I decided to do it because I would use the gym a lot less if I didn't. I haven't been going to the gym as much as I would normally and it is important to me to be in good physical health. Since I love basketball as much as I do, it is really important that I have this option available. It will cost me an additional $32 a month to go, since I'm paying for me and my girlfriend's membership. That comes out to almost $400 more a year. I also had to pay $160 in total initiation fees, that kind of sucked. But it is a month to month membership, so if I decide to cancel, sometime in the future it shouldn't be a big deal.

That's the key. If you are going to take on another financial obligation, make sure you can get out of it easily. That's one reason I'm hesitant to sign up for DirecTV service even though thy probably have the best HD service around. They force you into a two year commitment.

2 comments:

  1. Maybe you should have joined a league. Sure you have some dues to pay but you'd get more physical activity for your money and time. Also having a team has always motivated me to show for games and practice.

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  2. I used to be part of a league out in California, and have considered trying to get back into it, but just haven't yet.

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