At my current job, I have what we call a Wellness Benefit, which is a $1,000 bonus that can be used for anything I can justify as being fitness-related. To use it, I run my prospective purchase by HR, they give the okay, I purchase whatever it is and give HR the receipt, and they cut a check to reimburse me.
The definition of “fitness-related” seems to be about as broad as it sounds. A quick poll of my coworkers revealed that it has been successfully used for: golf clubs, gym memberships, martial arts lessons, weight machines, workout tapes, dance lessons, bicycles, and a treadmill. The only requests I heard got denied were a pool table and a $500 pair of running shoes (personally, I’d have argued for the shoes if it’d been me, but it wasn’t, and I don’t want running shoes anyway).
With that in mind, I need to figure out what I’m going to do with it. Any schmoe can buy a bike or a Soloflex (though I’m not opposed to those), but I enjoy most forms of physical activity to some extent, and I like to keep an open mind…so, I thought I’d see if you fine folks could give me some more interesting ideas. If you were me, what would you do with the money? Keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be spent all at once, so feel free to recommend smaller purchases in addition to the big-ticket stuff. Fire away!
A trip to Wyoming, or Eastern Montana on a 7 day pack-in. The cardio alone is worth it
If it can’t be a trip - then some climbing gear…an entire outfit. You’ll probably have to spend more on rope and other gear but a grand will make a big dent in it.
If you’re really going to spend a grand, I recommend a membership at a really nice gym. $1000 should easily get you a year or two if it’s up front. That will give you more options than a home exercise machine, especially if the gym offers classes and/or personal trainers, though it’s obviously not as convenient.
A Frisbee and a boomerang are all you need. I used to spend hours with those especially the boomerang. Kites are good too. You have to move around a lot with those. Any type of rowboat including a canoe would be cool. A bike might be great but you have to actually ride it for it to do any good but that is true for all of these especially the boomerang.
The most important point is to pick something you love and make it almost effortless to make using it sustainable. It could be a Bowflex machine or one of those cheap 4 foot deep swimming pools. The only exercise I enjoy doing enough to do religiously is long distant walking or hiking. However, that doesn’t doesn’t cost much unless you want to buy lots of footwear in advance and a hiking GPS unit.
I do indeed plan to spend the full amount, or at least close to it. It’s a “use it or lose it” deal, and I’m hardly going to sneeze at an extra thousand bucks. My plan is to make a list of the suggestions I like, run them up the HR flagpole, and see which ones they salute.*
Phlosphr: I don’t know if they’ll go in for subsidizing a trip, but that’s an excellent idea. A hiking/climbing trip sounds like a lot of fun. Can’t hurt to ask, at any rate. As for your other idea, there are actually a lot of good beginner climbs around here, and I haven’t done any of that since I was 10 or so…something else to look into. Thanks!
friedo and stpauler, I actually have both of those already! (Well, the gym isn’t top-of-the-line by any stretch, but it’s free and I don’t need two.)
Shags, of course I can have plenty of fun with naught but a field and a stick, but that doesn’t help me blow a free $1k, now does it?
*I, too, want to punch me for using that expression, but it seemed somehow appropriate when discussing HR.
Get a decent treadmill or eliptical machine. Or you could probably get a treadmill and a stationary bike for right around that. Do you have room for that kind of equipment? Is that what you’re looking for? We can come up with all sorts of suggestions, but it’d be better if we had an idea about how much space you have, how much you currently exercise and what types of exercise you do.
A set of Powerblocks along with a stand and a small foldaway bench are always a nice investment.
They can be stored easy enough if you don’t plan on using them anytime soon, hold their resale value well, and make for the best dumbell workout.
Something like the Sport 9.0 set with bench and stand would put you around $1000.
I 2nd the personal trainer. They can be something like $50 an hour easy for just a run of the mill trainer, so that’ll use up $1,000 in 20 hours. Sounds like a good way to keep yourself motivated. For a while, at least.
It’s per-year. I work for a nonprofit with a total of about 30 employees. The benefits are rather nice; full health and dental, plus fun stuff like this. We do happen to be looking for someone with sysadmin cred. Got MCSE?
Breadth of suggestions is what I’m going for; nothing’s too large or outlandish. I purposefully tried to avoid narrowing it by my current interests, because who knows what interesting things I haven’t thought of yet!
Well you see right there you said the magic words… non-profit. I do a fair bit of consulting with nonprofits and one of the neatest things I have seen in terms of employee benefits was a subsidized pack-in hiking trip at Wind River Range in Wyoming. They spared no expense in Wyoming the only caveat was 1 plane ticket was provided…so if you went with someone they would have to pay the airfare… But otherwise, these trips were intense. Beautiful wildlife, amazing for someone with a camera. The benefit the company got out of it was free marketing in the form of how well they treat their employees…as most of the gear they used had the their logo on it. Most of the green nonprofits I’m involved with tend to think outside the box a little, and are willing to take a risk here and there.
I suggest getting a good pair of running shoes, a good pair of walking shoes and a good pair of hiking boots. Go to the nearest “we specialize in sports footwear and nothing else” store and get properly fitted.
Those 3 will cost like $300-400 total or something, but then you have very important tools for whatever activity you decide to take on!
I’ve got the dial-a-weight dumbells w/ stand similar to what Hampshire linked to. My were $200 at Academy. They’re great and don’t take up too much room. Choose some with a simple design though as some of the original and/or fancier models have had issues.
Also, and I love this, is a handled medicine ball like this. Again, at Academy for around $65. It’s fantastic for working on your flexibility as the range of stretches you can do with it are virtually unlimited.
I do a fair bit of consulting with nonprofits and one of the neatest things I have seen in terms of employee benefits was a subsidized pack-in hiking trip at