Recently I was reading about this fitness type of club here where the fee to enroll into the program can literally cost thousands of dollars a year. Interestingly enough, most of the participants are kids where parents enroll them into a program to hopefully get more exercise I suppose. At the same time, I was reading how that business uses high pressure sales tactics to get people to sign contracts to tie them down.
General fitness is one of those things where I have always just did on my own as I never saw the value in having to pay for say a gym membership and spending say $1000. In many ways it kind of reminds me of renting where in this case for $1000 I can probably make my own gym that would be adequate for my needs.
Fitness too is one of those things that are pretty easy to do even with a busy lifestyle which even furthers my thought on how in this category you should try to save as much money as possible. Need some exercise? Walk instead of using a vehicle when possible. Think you need expensive weights for more intense workouts? There are a lot of exercises that you can do which require you to use/lift your own body weight that can be just as good.
A good thing too with this route is that more than likely you need to find a way to adapt it into your lifestyle making it a more permanent solution. Therefore, this will also prevent the quick fix mentality which is usually why a lot of people simply spend a lot of money on fitness items I’d say. Example, you need to get in shape and so buying a membership is suppose to be a sign that you are doing something.
So if you really need to save money and this is a huge chunk of your expenses, I would personally start looking at ways to cut back expense wise by incorporating different routines in your daily life.