Let’s rip the band-aid off: I spent $6,900 on a lifetime gym membership.

That is an amount worthy of pause. Was it a good deal? Have I made a terrible mistake? That’s what I needed to find out.

Did I mention this was for a rock climbing gym? Yeah, I love climbing. I started bouldering back in 2018, & now I go regularly three times a week to Urban Climb for lead. Urban Climb’s pricing varies per membership plan, ranging between $31-$37 weekly, but, fortunately, I joined during ”Member September” & locked in a $27.85/week plan. Yeah, climbing gyms tend to be a bit pricier than a traditional gym.

So, quick math: $6,900 / $27.85 = 247.76 weeks or 4 years & 40 weeks, rounding up. I need to visit Urban Climb at least once per week for that long to get the value of the lifetime membership. Let’s show the live progress for that:

Girl/boy math provides another lens upon which to view this expense: cost-per-visit (CPV). Where the cost of the membership is divided by the number of visits I make. Climbing three times per weeks makes this perspective attractive. The CPV would dramatically fal to begin with &, thus, making me feel better about my purchase. I’d still need the ~248 visits to reach a CPV less than my previous membership cost but, at the rate I visit, that would take just under 1 year & 30 weeks.

Huh, why stop at number of gym visits? Why not per climb? I typically climb about 4 routes on-lead per visit.

But, why stop there?

If I optimised for per climb, I should switch back to bouldering; shorter climbs after all. But surely a longer climb, that of top-rope or lead, has greater “value” than that of a short boulder climb? Yes, yes! The unit of measurement is not the climb, but the holds! The number of holds a climb contains! What is the lifetime membership’s cost per hold?

What a comfortable way at to look at this. When I’m out there, gassed, fumbling the clip, looking down desperately at my belay partner, I’ll stop & think to myself, ”… just one more move… and my expensive lifetime membership’s cost-per-hold will be fractionally lower!”