Hellobee Boards

I was just looking into swimming lessons and found a few pools nearby - one charges $1500 for the summer!! Another I just looked up is $850. And this is in New England where the summer is relatively short.

Xander has a YMCA membership that has indoor and outdoor pools. It's $15.95/month. Lessons are an additional cost. I'm not a member, but if I want to go swimming with him, it's $5 for a guest pass. Since I work full-time, we only ever go on the weekends, so just having him have the membership is definitely more affordable.

Local pools here cost btwn 600-700 and run June, July, August- not very long!

If I didn't work FT I might do it but trying to get in enough times on a Saturday/sunday to make it worth it sounds like a pain so we pass!

We have a low usage membership that cost like $60 for a year? We can only go at certain times and we have to pay an additional fee each time we go but it's like $5.

We don't have a town pool (we have a town beach but I wouldn't swim there), and outside of the YMCA, the cost to join a private pool in the area is upward of $25k a year and you need to be recommended by a current member.

There was one pool club (private) that was much more affordable but it was destroyed in Hurricane Sandy and it was not rebuilt. We belonged there as a family since I was 3 years old. If I had to guess, the cost there ranged from $3000-10,000 depending on the type of cabana you had.

Membership at our town pool for a family of 3 (dd2 would be free)+ caregiver pass (for our nanny) is $500. It's expensive, but last year was our first summer joining, and we loved it!! It's walking distance from our house, also had a playground and snack bar, lots of activities for the kids (lessons, kiddie pool, float days, dance parties, arts and crafts, diving board, slide, etc.). It's certainly not cheap, but well worth it for us!! It's how the towns around us all work, and plus, I only work part time, so I am able to go 3-4 weekdays per week, and I LOVE pools

@oliviaoblivia: what! another canadian perk!

My parents live in a townhouse complex with a pool so it's "free" for us

We'll be paying a nominal fee to use the many spray parks around!

@oliviaoblivia: hahaha, the biggest perk of all!

I read something the other day about how google searches for "how to move to Canada" spiked like 350% lol!

Oh my gosh! That is insanely expensive! A set of swimming lessons is about $75 for 10 weeks here. We often go to the public swim with the kids which I think is like $3!

We just joined our neighborhood pool, we had to buy a bond as you described and also pay an application fee ($50), maintenance fee ($50) and membership ($475). The pool is open Memorial day-Labor day. The bond is usually $500 but we bought ours from a neighbor who is moving and they gave us a discounted price because there is a waiting list at the club to sell. So you could see if a private bond sale is possible.

Where I grew up (one hour away from where I live now) summer pool memberships are much more expensive, $2000+ for the bond and $1-3000 for the summer, so I feel like what we are paying is a good deal!

Our local community pool is $200 a season for family, but the closest one to us closes at 6 except for family swim night, which is $10 for a family. We usually skip the membership and just pay the $10 when we go.

I'm in the Philly area, and our pools work the same as yours! My DD is 18 months and I know she would LOVE to go swimming this summer. If I was a SAHM, I'd definitely bite the bullet and do it, but since we can only really go on weekends, we'll probably wait and do it when she's a little older.

A summer pool pass in my city is $70 for a family of three. That gives you access to the four city pools and an aquatics center. None of the pools are anywhere close to me, so we just go to the sprayground at the park.

@ValentineMommy: Well, the way I look at it is that was our family "vacation" for the summer. When I was a kid, we didn't really travel, but we belonged to the pool club that was open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. We spent the majority of the days there, I had friends, etc. When you break it down by cost per day, it was really reasonable.

Now, we have our own pool and the cost for it (chemicals, equipment, propane for the heater) is about $1500 per year.

ours was expensive to join the first year (about $1500). $500 annual membership dues thereafter. it's really $$$, but all the pools around here cost that much, the wait lists are so long, and it's a big social network for the kids in our small city, that we sucked it up and joined when we got off the wait list. i don't regret it. i have memories of going to the pool almost every day growing up during the summers, which is a nice thing to have in these hot, muggy midatlantic summers.

i agree, though, that the prices are outrageous!

The one that I know of in the area is $365 for a family of four if you're township residents, and $500 if you're not. They offer a 5% discount if you purchase before a certain date. We looked into it a few years ago but ultimately decided not to go with it. And then we moved, my mom moved, and now her apartment has a pool we use for free ;).

We also decided to get season passes to a kid amusement/water park (I'm in PA...you can probably guess which one *coughElmocough*). So that's kind of our pool pass lol.

We have a pool in our community. It is free, as long as you live in the community and have an ID card. For anyone else, there is a small fee.