The Frugal Girl’s Guide To Building A Home Gym

In 2016, I’ve been working on taking better care of myself.

Why?

Because while I’m happier than I’ve ever been, I’m also busier than I’ve ever been, and I’ve been noticing the scale slowly creeping up, my energy levels dwindling, and I’ve been less able to manage my stress levels.

I’m not unhappy with myself, I can just see some room for improvement, which is why earlier this year we saved a ton of money on our gym membership because it has childcare, giving me uninterrupted time to exercise, as well as access to classes and instructors that I don’t have at home.

And it’s going really well!

I feel better, I’m sleeping better, and am noticing more energy.

But I’m also noticing that I’m still struggling with actually having enough time to get to the gym.  It’s really very close to our home, but with traffic it takes 15 minutes to get there, a few minutes to get Jessica into childcare, the full hour for the class, and then back home again.

By the time it’s all said and done, I’m look at almost a 2-hour commitment, and I just don’t have that kind of time more than 3 days a week.

So the hubs and I talked about, and are working on building a small but functional home gym in our basement.  So far it’s going well, we’ve spent very little money, and I’m really excited to share all of the tips and tricks we’ve learned buying cheap home gym equipment with you.

First, Determine Your Priorities

via GIPHY

Are you a yogi?

Does weight lifting speak to your soul?

Or, are you all about the cardio?

Building a home gym is great, but you cannot create a gym with every single amenity a gym offers and still keep it on a budget.

That’s the hard truth.

So take a moment, and write down three workouts that you’re actually excited to do.  Personally, I love lifting weights, but I also try to incorporate Pilates twice a week, and at least a bit of cardio, so for myself I need small equipment that performs several functions.

My husband, on the other hand, is big into cycling and also likes lifting weights, so the equipment he needs is very different from mine.  And in fact, he needs much less equipment.

Now, Check Out Everything You Can Get For Free

Craigslist and Freecycle are great places to find all sort of stuff for free – including exercise equipment, weights, and more.  All you have to to is scope it out.

Set a Craigslist alert to go to your email every time someone posts anything with the words “weights” “elliptical” “treadmill” “dumbells” or other items that are on your must-have list.  Or, browse the “Free” section, searching for exercise equipment that people just want gone.

Freecycle doesn’t make alerts quite as easy, but if you search once a day for those keywords you set up in Craigslist, that should suffice.

As always, with online buying/selling sites, make sure to practice safe meetup practices.  Often local police station, gas station, and church parking lots have offered up their property as “safe spaces” for online exchanges to keep everything above board and safe.  Use these!

The other thing I wanted to mention about searching for freebies is that while you definitely have standards for the equipment you put into your gym, you have to lower your standards just a bit when getting stuff for free.

For example, we got our elliptical for free.  It’s a bit dated, and isn’t nearly as quiet as the ones a our gym, but if works perfectly.

Our solution?

When I do a cardio workout on it, I Bluetooth my headphones to the TV so I can block out the noise of the elliptical, still hear the TV/music/audio book, and get a great workout in – on my free elliptical!

Then, Check Out This Site…

Next, think about smaller items that you’ll need for your best at-home workout.

Personally, I need a yoga mat, stability ball, kettlebells, medicine balls, resistance bands, water bottles, yoga towels, yoga blocks, and other assorted items.  Now, I don’t NEED all of these, but they do make my home more gym-like, so they’re on my “want” list.

For all of these smaller items that are better purchased new, I use Snagshout.

If you’re not familiar with it, Snagshout is a site that allows you to purchase Amazon items from various seller, in various categories at a huge discount.  In exchange for the discount, you agree to write an honest review.

You are not obligated to provide positive feedback, just your honest opinion.

I’ve been able to purchase quite a few things for our home gym from Snagshout, and although the deals vary day by day, here are a few available at  the time of writing:

So, how does it work?

• Sign up here.  You’re required to have Amazon Prime, and you’ll have to verify that you do.
• After a day or two of processing, you’ll be given one “Snag” at a time (this means you can purchase one item at a time.  You’ll have to review it before purchasing another.)
• Once you make your first purchase and review it + do a couple other small things like verify your phone number and connect your facebook account, you’ll be given access to as many as 3 snags at time.
• The whole site is very simple to use, and their support is around to help if you have any questions.

Make sure to check back frequently, as deals change daily.

{Want to know more about Snagshout + How much I’ve saved?  Check this out.}

Craigslist/Facebook Groups

When you’re ready to start buying used & discounted gear because you’ve exhausted all your options for free stuff, then Aanother great place to look for larger items are facebook group and the selling side of Craigslist.

Things like weights, treadmills, ellipticals, and even more hard-core items like weight benches, olympic bars, lifting cages, and more.

There will probalby be lots of items listed, espeically on Craigslist, so read posting thoroughly, negotiate, and if you do decide to purchase something, make sure to inspect it fully, and meet in a safe place to exchange good and money.

Finding the equipment your home gym needs is fairly simple on Craigslist, but on Facebook it gets a bit more difficult.

Generally, you can search “You City + Buy Sell” and this will yield several groups in your area where people can post items locally for sale.  If you do find something you like, use the safety tips I gave about Craigslist and apply them to Facebook deals as well.

Look for Items That Multitask

Let’s use weights as an example.

You could purchase an entire set of dumbells + rack through Amazon or at your local store (from 5 – 25 lbs, a relatively small set, especially if you lift a lot of weight), which would run you about $225.

By contrast, you could purchase Powerblocks  from 2.5 lbs  – 50 lbs (in 2.5 lb increments) for $299.00.  These take up WAY less space, have more weight options, and go up higher.  Also, if you need more weight, they have expansion packs that take them all the way up to 90 lbs each, which is all I’ll ever need.

In the same way, you can purchase resistance bands or kettlebells that you can use for tons of different things, not jus tone specific exercise – and stretch your budget while conserving space all at the same time.

Skip The Personal Trainer

If you’re attached to your personal trainer, I commend you have being able to shell out that much money just for fitness, but really there are lots of affordable options that can keep you in trainers form home – without the large price tag.

Beachbody on Demand is a really good option if you’re into classes, like boot camps, or want videos that give you one one one attention from national trainers.  However, it does run about $30 a month.  Still less than a trainer.

Try 30 days free here.

Another option, similar to Beachbody on Demand, but cheaper, is DailyBurn.  You’ve probably seen it advertised on TV or Hulu Plus, but you can try 30 days free.  After that, Daily Burn will run you

{Get 10% off your first 3 months of Daily Burn + 30 Days Free Here}

If you don’t want to shell out for exercise instructions, check out these options:

• YouTube Fitness Channels
• Bodyrock.TV
• Neftlix
• Hulu
• Amazon Instant Video 30-Day Free Trial
• SparkPeople

I can’t tell you much having a home gym has helped me.

No, not because it’s easier to work out – in fact, I find it’s actually harder to distance myself from everything that needs to be done and focus on my workout.

But, having the gym in my home has saved me quite a bit of time.  On average, it saves me 45 minutes each time I work out, and if I work at out home 3 times per week and make $46/hour between my day job, blogging, and passive income streams, that adds up to $103.50 saved per week.

Per year, that’s $5,382 saved

So if you’re thinking that it will be too much work or too much money to set up a gym in your home, try some of these strategies out!

You might just be surprised by how easy it can be to find cheap home gym equpiment!

This post may contain affiliate links.  See my disclosures for more information.

You May Also Like:

How I Started Working From Home Don’t Let Your Dream Get Your Down: 18 Ways To Save Money Building Your Dream Home I Used To Dream About Working From Home – Now I Am! 8 Things You Should Never Buy Used My Top 10 FREE Online Workout Sites 21 Things Frugal People DON’T Do! How To Have a Frugal Easter – Plus Suggestions for Next Year. 9 Things The Gilmore Girls Taught Us About Money 27 Frugal Uses For Lemon 7 Tips For Planning A Frugal Disney Vacation