Yesterday I joined a 24 Hour Fitness in midtown. This is my very first ever real gym membership! (Excluding the college gym and using my sister’s never-used pass at LA Fitness back in Cali.) It is RIDICULOUS how expensive gym membership is in New York. For some reason, the fine print always says “specials not valid NY and NJ.”  Back when we first moved here, when I had no job and we were barely making it paycheck by paycheck, I dreamt about having a gym membership. “I’d go 3-4 times a week!” I swore to myself.

I finally got a job and we moved to a cheaper apartment, which allowed us to have some money for only one of us to have membership. Sadly, the husband cannot join with me — we only had enough for me! He says he’ll try to do more P90x.  (He has already lost about 10 lbs with that alone!)

What are the gym memberships like in NYC? During my Poor Days, I had to go around to each gym, using their free passes. Here’s all my research:

24 Hour Fitness: Best value in my opinion at $64.99 per month, with a $30 initiation fee. Pay 1 month and last month upfront. There’s almost no wiggle room here unless you get the $30 initiation fee waived like I did for Black Friday.   24’s have been popping up everywhere and they’re all HUGE, clean, very well staffed and it’s just nice to work out on brand new equipment.  (They even have ipod adapters on all their machines!) Plus, it’s nice that they’re open 24 hours!
Tip: 7 day passes are available. If you know someone that has a membership, they can get you a 24 day pass!
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