I’m a cheapskate. Tightwad. Frugal. Cheap. Penny Pincher. Yup.

And I am also trying to get in shape.

Working out can be its own motivation. You feel great afterwards with a rush of endorphins, you know you are making progress towards your fitness goals, and you know you are one step closer to that bikini. Seeing my progress by watching my body change and noticing how much faster or farther I can run also motivates me.

But those are mostly motivators that kick in while I am at the gym or afterwards. What about the motivation to go to the gym after a long day of work? To get out of bed on Saturday morning or off the couch on Sundays?

Financial motivation. Ah yes, let’s tap into that cheapskate who will be damned if she has to shell out any cash as a penalty for not working out. Yes, technically that’s what you are doing if you are paying for a gym membership and not using it often, but I digress.

That’s where Gym Pact comes in. Gym Pact is a free app that works with your iPhone and Android phone that pays you for going to the gym and makes you pay when you skip workouts. Seriously! It pays you for working out!

Here’s how it works:

1. Join Gym Pact for free. It’s easy and you can link through your Facebook account and set it up to link to your Paypal account.

2. Set up your pact. Say how many times you will work out and set the amount you will be penalized if you miss a workout. Don’t worry, you can change your pact anytime and it goes into effect the following week.
For example, my pact is to work out three times a week and I bet $15 each workout.

3. Go work out!! The app uses GPS to check you into your gym so check in when you arrive and check out when you leave. If you leave the location it will check you out automatically. Alternatively, the Gym Pact app also works with Run Keeper (an awesome running app) that tracks your outdoor runs by GPS and then automatically logs them with Gym Pact. Make sure your workout is at least 30 minutes long so that it counts toward your pact. And you can only log one workout a day.

4) If you haven’t met your pact by midnight on Sunday, then you get penalized however much you bet times how many workouts you missed. So there’s your motivation!


4) Reap your rewards! At the end of each week, Gym Pact will send you an email with your earnings if you met your pact that week. You earn a cut of what other Gym Pact users had to pay that week in penalties. Usually I earn $1 and some change. Not much but you know, it’s something and it adds up!

I have made $20 already! And I have lost three pounds! Hooray! I will tell you what, I am really motivated to hit my pact of three workouts each week. Often, I try to make more workouts each week but as long as I hit those three workouts then I know I’m doing something right!

Try it out!

Update: Gym Pact changed its name to Pact in December 2013