Renewing the Gym Membership

I am currently looking at changing my gym membership from the Goodlife Fitness club to the City of Ottawa fitness membership.

In all things in life, one must be true to thyself.  And if thyself is me, you should realize that you haven’t gone to the gym all summer long because you’ve been cycling or doing other activities outdoors.  Case in point, find a membership which offers you something less than a year ‘locked in’.

The City of Ottawa seems to be a prime candidate on that front…they offer daily, monthly, 3 month, 6 month, 1 year memberships!  Beauty!  That’s what I’m talking about.

I’m going to chew over the numbers first, but I think the best approach is to get a six month Class B membership (which allows you to go to the gym vs. the gym and everything else in the complex such as a pool and squash courts) and pay the extra daily fee if I so ever choose to go swimming/play squash.  I think I would save money in this manner in the following ways:

• Six month membership would be ideal.  No worries about wasting money in the summertime.  Let’s take a Class B membership at 121.50 for six months.  If I wanted to extend that to another 3 months, that would be an additional 65.50…total of 187 which is still underneath the 220.50 for an entire year.  Judging from previous Palmer patterns, I wouldn’t even set foot inside the gym from June-August so it looks like this option might be the way to go.
• The difference between a six month Class A and Class B membership is 65.75.  I can’t seem to find a listing of how much it would cost to go use the pool or play squash for a day…it looks like a daily usage fee is $7.50.  So that would mean that in six months, if I chose the Class B option, I could go eight times in the six months before it’s worth it to spend the money on a Class A membership.  This is a tough call.  Eight times in six months doesn’t seem like a whole lot.  That’s once a month with two spares.  If I ended up liking squash, I would probably want to play a lot.  I think the best route in this case is to try out Class B and if I approach the eight times in six months, I’ll see if I can upgrade to a Class A.  Will I lose money?  Maybe.  But I’ve lost a lot more on a lot less over my lifetime.  This is peanuts.  But, it’s something to think about.
• I also may be able to get the student membership considering I am a student of University of Ottawa.  I’ll have to call and see what the scoop on that front is.

All in all, the City of Ottawa looks like the way to go.  I know in Orleans specifically, there are two rec centers with pools and one with a squash court.  Much better than driving across town to Pinecrest to play a game of squash!  Not that I minded that one time Maren gave us amazing lessons in playing it, but I wouldn’t want to make it a habit a few times a week of driving 40+kms to play squash.  Maybe if I cycled there though…