Investing in a home gym was one of the best decisions I've ever made.
It has saved me no money whatsoever, but it has saved me a ton of time and helped me stay on track with my training. It gives me the flexibility to move my training around whenever it needs to be so I can squeeze in my workouts on busy days. And, I never have to wait for equipment!
At this point, I have more equipment than anyone truly needs. A lot of my stuff are "luxuries" and I'll continue to add to those luxuries as I go. What I write about in this article mostly pertains to what I started with, and how it's benefitted me immensely.
Here are the first purchases I made:
Half Rack - Fitness Reality - Amazon - Roughly $200 at time of purchase
Bar and collars - Rogue Bar - $265, clips off Amazon - $15
Weights - I found a really lucky deal through a friend, so I started with about 625 pounds for ~$700
Weight tree - Walmart - $60
Bench - Titan Fitness - $100
Platform - Built it myself - ~$150 all in
Fractional plates - Microgainz - $40
Plus some hefty shipping costs on some of these items. In total, it was about $1750 upfront.
After some other upgrades I've made, and some very generous Christmas gifts from family, I have a gym that carries a value of ~$3000.
I have owned my gym for about 3 years now. So if I use $3000 as my total cost
$3000/36 months = $83.33/month
This is a slightly higher cost than my previous monthly gym membership, so in that sense, I've spent more money, and lost access to some equipment.
Only using dollars in my bank account as my method for accounting is an incomplete measure in this instance. We've examined the costs, but not the benefits.
The benefits of a home gym are many, but chief among them is the time I save. I save somewhere between 40 minutes and an hour each day by not having a commute to the gym. My hourly dollar value more than makes up any gap between home gym cost and gym membership cost. I save on gas, traffic time, and frustration.
As an added benefit, I no longer have to train in the wee hours of the morning. This means I'm getting 1-2 extra hours of sleep each training day. I don't know the dollar value on that, but the long term health benefits are probably enormous in their dollar value. It is certainly important to my quality of life.
I save time while training, too. There are no lines for equipment in my home gym!
Having a newborn at home can make it very challenging to stick to a gym schedule. Having a home gym allows it to happen. Again, pricing this can be tough, but being able to maintain my training schedule instead of losing the mental and physical benefits of training is of enormous value.
As a bonus, you can decide how to decorate the gym and what music gets played - which adds another element of fun.
Plus, it's always nice being the strongest guy in the gym!
I'd highly recommend owning a home gym to anyone who is thinking about it. You won't miss the money you spent when you realize how nice it is to have your training available at home.
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