We do like our monthly charges, don’t we?

I was talking with my wife last night about getting a smartphone — yes, again — because, as I told my newsletter subscribers today, I may have found a reason that actually makes having a smartphone worth the money.

As we were discussing the costs of said smartphones, our Y membership came up. We weren't using it nearly as much after our move, and with gas in the mid- to high-$3 range, it was costing us $3 to $4 per trip just to get there. If we were to use it as much as we probably should be using it, the gas alone is as much as our monthly membership fee.  So, we decided to cancel our Y membership to make a little more room in our spending to handle the smartphone charges.

But it's so hard to say goodbye!

This was just last night that we decided this.  When she went out that way today, and gave me a call to say that she was going to cancel it, I hesitated.  But we just decided to do this, I was thinking to myself.  Why am I holding on?  We don't use it.  Why is it so hard to cancel?  Our Y isn't like some health clubs that require a multi-year contract.  It's month to month!  No cancellation fee, nothing.  It's still unsettling to stop the membership.  Why?

There are at least a few reasons:

• Guilt. Unused gym memberships are great for self-induced guilt trips.  The guilt trips are especially intense when standing on the scale. 🙂  “I need to go to the gym” and “I've really got to use this membership” gnaw at the back of my brain.  Canceling the membership seems like the easy way out of what apparently were nothing more than good intentions.
• Loss of choice. The activities at the Y are no longer as accessible to us if we're no longer members.  We'll need to choose from fewer options.  Even though we weren't taking advantage of our options when we had the membership, now that it's gone, we suddenly miss it a little bit.  Odd, isn't it?
• Loss of membership. Membership is cool.  It's the difference between being an insider and an outsider.  Moving from being an outsider to being an insider on something exciting is a good feeling.  Moving the other way isn't.

I seemed to get over this brief uneasy feeling fairly quickly after chatting with my wife, but it caught me off guard how quickly I was second-guessing what should be a wise financial move.

What do you think?  Are there other reasons why it's hard to say goodbye to monthly memberships?