Last month, I recommended that those seeking to accomplish a resolution in 2025 should look into canceling some of their subscriptions. In that post, I admitted that one big expense I was looking to cut but hadn’t yet had the courage to was my YMCA membership. Well, friends, I can now say that I’ve managed to check this task off of my list — although I still feel sad about it.
Given the way I’m writing about this, you might assume that my wife and I were members for several years. In actuality, we only joined in 2023. At the time, we were living near the facility, and my wife was particularly excited to swim there so that she could regain confidence in her abilities before we went snorkeling with manatees that December. However, she instead found that she enjoyed attending the yoga classes offered as part of our membership, while I liked the upstairs jogging track (especially on less-than-ideal weather days).
So what happened? Well, to our surprise, we ended up buying a house and moving from that nearby apartment only a few months later. And although it’s still only a few miles away, as you can guess, we just stopped going.
Truth be told, I really should have canceled much earlier, but I dreaded canceling mostly because I felt bad. In fact, part of me hoped that I’d just be able to “quiet quit” when my Bilt card was compromised (again), leading them to issue me a new card — and breaking my YMCA payments in the process. Alas, this incident instead resulted in me paying even more as there was a fee for the “returned payment.” I really should have pulled the plug then.
The final straw came a couple of months ago when our house payments went up. This was just another reminder to rid ourselves of this near $70 a month expense.
Earlier this week, we set off to the Y and informed the nice gentlemen at the counter that we, regretfully, needed to cancel. To their credit, the process was quite simple and only required us to fill out a short form. Plus, since we canceled by the first of the month, our last payment has already been made. Success!
In his book The More of Less, Joshua Becker discusses one aspect of decluttering that he calls “the death of a dream.” This refers to that feeling you get when trying to rid yourself of items but can’t because doing so would indicate that something you’d long hoped to become or accomplish was no longer possible (or at least seemed that way). That’s essentially what I felt when canceling our YMCA membership. It’s not that I thought I was going to get super strong or even lose weight by attending the space — but I thought we’d better ourselves while supporting our community. Instead, we said “goodbye” to that and admitted that we just weren’t in a place to do either of those things.
Ultimately, I know I made the right choice. Even as I thought about scenarios of how we could have forced ourselves to make use of the membership, the truth is that the cost still doesn’t really make sense for us at this time. Actually, saying “at this time” implies we might rejoin in the future — which part of me would like to do while another part of me knows better.
I wanted to share this because I imagine that many people may find themselves with similar struggles. If that’s you, then take this as a sign that it’s time to do what you know is best, even if it makes you a bit sad in the process. Good luck.