Train tickets

What do you mean by "expensive" and what days are you talking about, specifically?

And, where are you travelling FROM? Belgian internal tickets are fixed price, no discount for advance purchase.

And where are you looking for these prices? I would start with the Belgian railways site: http://www.belgianrail.be/en/

Taking the Intercity from Amsterdam, you have a fixed price of EUR 54. The high-speed Thalys service can be as cheap as EUR 36 when you buy your tickets well in advance.

Added:
Within Belgium the train is not very cheap, but also not ridiculously expensive. The 1-hr trip from Brussels to Brugge is around EUR 15 single. And they have special offers, such as the weekend discount for a return trip at 50% of the normal price.

Thanks for the reply’s so quick.
I just thought I was using the wrong web sites is all. I was never taking in to consideration of the return trip I guess, in all our other travels we would start in Amsterdam and make it a loop, hitting all of the city’s then returning to Amsterdam for our trip back. We are staying in Haarlem this year and an over night trip is just over €200 for the trip to Bruges. Anyone have any experience on renting a car for that trip? If so do you recommend it?

Driving along the motorway from Haarlem via Rotterdam and Antwerpen isn't scenic (mostly build-up) or pleasant (heavy traffic), but the route via the islands is interesting. You can have a short coffee and/or lunch stop in historical places such as Brielle, Goedereede, Zierikzee, Veere (all on the islands) and Sluis (again on firm ground).

in Haarlem this year and an over night trip is just over €200 for the trip to Bruges.

What!!, according to the Belgian Railways international site ( https://www.b-europe.com/EN ), Haarlem to Brugge takes between 3 and 4 hours, and costs from €51.20 per person 2nd class.
No way is this an overnight train. Neither the Netherlands no Belgium have overnight trains, they are not big enough.

Within the Netherlands, distances are short and you may have enjoyed some pretty cheap roundtrip discounts. It's one of the cheapest countries in which to travel by train (not scientifically proven). But the faster, longer-distance international trains like Thalys are more expensive and have discounts with advance-purchase but generally not with roundtrip travel.

What website are you using?

I used deutsch bann, Thalys and the Netherlands apps on my phone. All is good now, my math in my head just wasn’t adding up to what we had paid in past years. Going back over it, it’s coming out ok. Two people, round trip Haarlem to Bruges and back again €200.
In my head I was just thinking on way trip price, that was the confusion.
Two years ago we did Amsterdam-Paris-London-Amsterdam, so there was never a return trip to add to the price.
Thanks for all the help!