Gym memberships

[John C Calhoun]

I used to belong to golds gym, but stopped going there about 5 years ago since I have a fair amount of free weights at home and there is a small workout room at work that I use daily. Well the wife wants to join a club (guess who gets to pay for it) so we looked at golds and a few others. To my surprise every one of the nicer outfits wants you to sign a contract and have you pay by billing your credit card on a monthly basis or directly deducting $$$ from your checking account. I can see the convenience for some people of doing this but I prefered to pay the whole 1 yr membership upfront and not have them bill my cc or bank account. Remarkably they don't want to do this. Instead it looks like you have to sign a contract with automatic renewals unless you jump through a bunch of hoops to cancel the friggin thing. I had heard this is how ballys does business but now it seems everyone is on the bandwagon is this common practice at all gyms/clubs now???

 

[DiamondCutCows]

One more reason I just go to the Y now.

You can either do the bank acct/cc thing or pay cash for three months, six months, a year. Whatever you want basically. I have a lifetime, with deduction from my acct. I CAN cancel whenever I want

I know bros who go HIT style and pay $5 bux once a week.

 

[HardHat87]

When I signed my Bally contract a few years ago they first had to deduct payment from a credit card or checking account, but after a month you can change it to where you are able to pay cash and not have it deducted. When you sign a year or two contract there it is at 15% interest, but you can pay it in full which would save you the interest. Luckily I found a little hardcore gym by me that doesnt have contracts and the owner is there all the time. It is much better than a big corporation, which will not work with you if you are short on cash or whatever. I really hated training at Ballys!