• Home
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Policy
  • Guest Post
  • Archive

One Cent At A Time

A Personal finance blog to get rich

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Beautiful Life
  • Becoming Rich
  • Beginners Guide
  • Extra Income
  • Productivity
  • Saving Money

How to Build Garage Sports Gym on a Budget

September 18, 2017 1 Comment

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email

Forking out a lot of cash every month to work out? Would you rather train at home? If so, then I’d say we’re pretty similar!
The cost of owning quality training equipment might turn you away from this initiative; indeed, the costs might be high and even out of reach, but you don’t have to drop your pursuit! You can build a garage sports gym on a budget.

How to Build Garage Sports Gym on a Budget

Let me tell you how I’ve built my garage and sports gym without breaking my budget.

First of all, a custom-built gym doesn’t require nearly half of the equipment found in a conventional gym. If you happen to have some equipment in your power, the cost will be far smaller.

With that said, let’s discuss two approaches you can take:

  1. Buying equipment packages.
  2. Buying individual pieces of equipment.

The first isn’t necessarily cheaper, at all in fact. You’d be saving in bulk shipping, but that’s about it. You should only consider buying a package if it includes everything that you want while not having anything you don’t want. In other words, if a package has something you don’t want, then it’s generally a bad choice for you.

Being honest with you, packages will often include a bunch of accessories that are nice to have, but far away from being necessary elements of a functional start-up gym.

If you’re looking to put together a fully-functional, quality gym, you should consider having the following pieces:

  • Bumper plates.
  • Olympic Bar Collars (not entirely necessary).
  • Squat Stand (or power rack).
  • Flat Bench.
  • Pull-up bar.

With this combo, you’ll be able of training almost every muscle while doing a huge variety of “core” exercises. At this point, you can quit a gym already. If you want to keep doing cardio, jogging in a park is an even better alternative to riding a treadmill.

All in all, depending on what pieces of gear you have as well as what kind of deals you can get, you could build your gym with just $500! But I can assure you that it won’t be more than a single grand.

Let’s get started with each item:

Barbells

While surprising, the right barbell can cost as much as a power rack, however, with some thorough search, it’s quite possible to find an affordable bar of respectable quality.

If you’re looking for the cheapest “quality” bar, Rogue’s barbells are of decent quality, and about as cheap as quality goes. Relatively strong and reliable, you will find these bars around $165.

If you’d rather go for something cheaper, CAP’s bars are amongst the cheapest, and while not as good as Rogue’s bars, they can get you out in a pinch. I personally went for the Rogue one, but make your choice based on your needs!

If you don’t mind shelling some dough for a product that will carry on through your weightlifting progress, Vulcan’s bars are of superior quality (and I emphasize, superior) and they wouldn’t really need to be replaced, which means you’re actually saving money in the long run!

Bumper Plates

Or weights. If you’re going straight for powerlifting, any kind of weights will get you through. If that’s the case I’d recommend you go for some used steel plates, you can find them for about 50 cents! I guess we should thank everyone that impulse buys weight sets.

On the other hand, if you want to do some CrossFit or Olympic Lifting, you will need bumper plates. Finding these used is harder but still possible. Like before, avoid box-store brands!

Rogue’s Echo Black bumpers are affordable and quality, and while they don’t bring a lot of plates, they’re perfect for beginners, for reference, they’re around $220 and $245 for the 160-pound set.

Vulcan’s bumpers are -unsurprisingly more expensive, however, they’re far more durable than arguably the rest of the brands. These resilient bumper plates are around $250 and $270 for the 160-pound set.

Squat Stand

There are some strong and inexpensive stands out there, and while you will probably want to replace them down the road, they can get you started.

CFF Gen 2 Squat Stand is one of such deals. With 11-gauge steel and a higher load rating, this squat stand provides a reliable and strong choice that is also inexpensive, and all this for a price range of $150 to $200.

If you’re saving pennies left and right to make a sizeable investment in a single piece, getting a Rogue squat stand would be a smart move. For about $390-440 you’d be getting a quality squat stand that you probably won’t be replacing!

Flat Bench

While there are some expensive, quality benches out there, do you really need to shell out a lot of cash for it?

Adidas flat utility bench is the supreme economy bench, with its 600-pound capacity, this bench can serve its purpose for a very long time, and while it’s a bit short, it serves its purpose well for a mere ~$80 price range.

Pull-Up Bar

This is the part where it gets tricky. If you went for the Rogue squat stand (like the S-2) you can pretty much use the pull-up bar in the rack instead of getting another one. However, if you didn’t, you’d have to get either a wall or ceiling mounted bar.

Just bear in mind, if you indeed intend to get a cheaper squat stand along a dedicate pull-up bar, then make sure you do the math first if the resulting cost ends up being around (or even a bit less) than the Rogue squat stand, just get the stand!

Pull Up Bar

The nice, worthwhile dedicated pull-up bars are usually around ~$100 and trust me, it is in your best interest to avoid the cheap ones, you don’t want to injure yourself due to a faulty bar, do you?

You’re free to look for what works for you, just use your judgment properly! If I may chime in with a recommendation, Rogue’s products are very good and serviceable!

In any case, you can always neglect the bar and use a DIY solution, from exposed rafters to a large tree, just make sure it’s safe!

As a conclusion:

You wouldn’t believe all the things we can do in our garages if we set our minds to it, me? I don’t only have my gym, but I also have a little table tennis joint there, and I thoroughly enjoy playing ping pong there with my son and his friends!

I hope this guide helped you get started with your garage gym! You can always add more stuff a few paychecks later, so just focus on working out once it’s ready.

There are many guides for this kind of initiative out there, but I felt most were just trying to sell me stuff rather than give me good advice, so I decided to do this!

I was normal gym attendant before, but the difficulty of the travel, as well as the amount of money I was spending, made it difficult for me to do so, and that’s when I decided to pimp my garage to be a gym too!

About the author: My name is Roman, I am 40! I am an automotive guru, my hobby is to repair old cars. But occasionally my son was involved in ping pong. I had to clean some space in my garage for his table tennis table. Later I organized a small gym there and started a small Ping Pong blog for him.

LIKE THIS POST?
I agree to have my personal information transfered to MailChimp ( more information )
Join our community of 8000+ subscribers to increase your net worth and build wealth
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
The tool that changed the way I manage my personal finance - Personal Capital, The Best Free Personal Finance Tool

Want to start a WordPress blog now? The onecentatatime.com blog is hosted by Siteground Web Hosting. For only $3.95 a month, Siteground can help you set up and host your website/blog quickly and easily.

About the Blogger Hi I am SB, a personal finance enthusiast with a career in software development. I am an immigrant to the USA since 2005, after being born and brought up in India. This 40 something technocrat lives and breathes personal finance whenever he gets time from the day job, job as a husband and a dad

Some links on this page may be affiliate links, if you make a purchase following the links, I may earn a commission. Read affiliate disclosure here
« 6 Financial Mistakes College Student Make
Must Read Personal Finance Books for a Better 2018 »

Comments

  1. Brad - MaximizeYourMoney.com says

    September 19, 2017 at 9:09 AM

    Nice gym! #jealous! We just work out in our loft with a bench, a few dumbells, and yoga mats. I love to have your setup!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Create your own blog in 20 minutes and $20

Personal Capital, a free tool to change your financial health today

I use and suggest Upstart, for your personal loan need

CreditKarma, a free tool to check your credit scorey

I use Coinbase, for my crypto investments

101 Cents at a Time

101 Ways to Earn Extra Money on the Side
201 Frugal and Perfect Birthday Gifts
101 Ways to Save Money Everyday
101 Ways to be Better and Successful at Work
101 Ways to Save Environment and Energy
101 Frugal and Romantic Anniversary Ideas
101 Low-Cost Men's Fashion Ideas
101 Personal Finance Tips
101 Ways to Reuse Household Stuff
101 Things to Do, When Nothing to Do
101 College Graduation Gift Ideas
100 Tips for Ecommerce Startup
101 Ways to Enjoy Indoor During Winter
101 Ways to Beat Procrastination

Popular Posts

Quick Cash - How to make $100 legally, in a day
Living well on less than $15,000 a Year
Top survey sites for side income
What to do when auto repair goes wrong
Where should I invest my money now?
20 Ways to be productive and happy at work
51 Ways to get out of debt
Be a better person in 15 days, 15 ways
Income ideas for retirees and senior citizens
51 side jobs for college students
Urgently need a large amount of money?
Should I buy or should I rent?
Best Personal loan providers
25 Ways to save environment
25 DIY car repairs to save money
How to decorate office cubicle
How to show your wife you care
50 Financial Rules for Success
51 Frugal weekend family activity ideas
Become Rich By Saving 1 Hour Of Daily Wage
How much do I need to save for retirement?
How to negotiate your salary

Follow us on FaceBook

About Author

SB

Blogger by choice and IT manager by profession. Finance is my passion and gardening is my greatest satisfaction. Born in India, settled in US, Husband and a father. I created this blog in 2011 with a vision to help others. Thanks for your patronage. More info on my "about" page.

View all posts


Subscribe

Join our community of 5000+ subscribers to increase net worth and build wealth

Advertisements

Personal Stories

How I got a new HP computer replaced
Was COVID circulating in USA in fall of 2019?
How my credit score went up 800+
Why I didn’t invest in Bitcoins
How I controlled impulses to buy things
Why this blog is named One Cent at a Time

Subscribe via Email

Site Disclaimer

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in this web site are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Read full Affiliate disclosure


One Cent at a Time is published by SB. The opinions expressed herein by him are his own and not those of his employer or anyone else. All content on One Cent at a Time is for entertainment purposes only. By reading this blog, you agree that SB and/or One Cent at a Time is not responsible for any actions taken after reading this blog. For the full disclaimer, click here .

Major Media Mention

One Cent at a Time Media Appearances

Copyright © 2023 One Cent At A Time · Designed by Nuts and Bolts Media