Summer Plans

Now that school is winding down, I am beginning to think about summer plans.  Courtney has one week of preschool left and Megan has two weeks of school left.

My plan all winter was to join Prarie Life Fitness again.  I joined there last summer and we LIVED at their pool! It was great! We didn't do much else because when you pay a lot of money for a membership, you want to be there everyday! Just for reference, I paid $130 a month last year for the gym and this included a free session of swimming lessons.

I quit the gym in January and it was a great decision! This really enabled me to focus on homeschooling and get involved in some groups around town.

This spring, I continued to tell the girls that we would join Prarie Life again for the upcoming summer.  They offer gymnastics there and I told them over and over that they could take gymnastics.

This was our plan until yesterday.

We are not going to join Prarie Life for the summer. Why?? Because it costs too much!

I called yesterday and talked to a membership representative. They had two different deals for me.
 
1.  Myself plus 3 children on a month-to-month basis, cost was $181.80 per month!! (don't forget $49 initiation fee plus $70 for both girls to take gymnastics).  I had only planned on joining for 3 months, so this grand total was $664.40!!!! WOW!!!!!

2.  The other plan was for myself and 3 children on a summer membership.  This would be good for three months and then we would be done.  This was $567! (no initiation fee, but still $70 for gymnastics).  This grand total was $637!!!

My jaw dropped.  They had definitely raised their rates from last summer!

In comparison, I could get a membership to the city of Omaha pools for the summer at the price of $175 and then $40 per session per kid for swimming lessons. 

I also called around to other places for gymnastics and they were about $40 per month for 4 one hour sessions.

So in the end, I don't think we are going to join anything! We are going to do our own thing.  Christian naps every afternoon from about 1-4, so we can't go sit at the pool all afternoon like we did last year. We might be visiting a lot of parks or spray parks in the morning this summer!  If I want to take the kids swimming, it might be in late afternoon and I probably will just pay the entrance fee.  The library also has great programming all summer that we can attend.  By not joining anything, I don't have to feel guilty that we only need to go there because we are paying for it! I am kind of looking forward to it!