Advanced options
GBP 500 well spent: adjustable dumbbells (GBP 150-250), a bench (GBP 80-120), a kettlebell, bands and a mat: that covers 90% of what most people do at the gym. The commute is the killer feature: a 45-minute gym session costs 90 minutes door-to-door: home training deletes the half that isn't training. The gym keeps its wins: heavy racks, machines, classes, the pool, and leaving the house.
What The Home Gym Calculator Works Out
- Pays for itself in: the kit budget divided by the monthly membership it replaces, multiplied by the people who would use it. GBP 500 of kit against a GBP 30 membership pays back in 17 months for one user and eight for a training couple; after that the marginal session is free.
- What GBP 500 buys: adjustable dumbbells (GBP 150 to GBP 250), a folding bench (GBP 80 to GBP 120), a kettlebell, bands and a mat cover around 90% of what most people do at a gym. GBP 150 of bands, bell and mat serves the bodyweight-plus crowd; a four-figure garage build with rack, barbell and plates wins on the same curve against years of membership.
- The honest asterisk: secondhand fitness kit is the most reliably supplied category in the classifieds because kit outlives enthusiasm. Buy the kit your last six months of behaviour justifies, and buy it used where pride permits: 40% to 60% off barely-used is the standing rate.
- Commute time saved (advanced): sessions per week x 52 x people x the round-trip travel time. A 45-minute session costs about 90 minutes door to door at any gym, so three sessions a week bank over two hours of returned life weekly. Put a value on your time and it is added to the gym's true cost.
- Gym over the period (advanced): membership for the chosen number of years plus any joining fees. Five years at GBP 30 a month is GBP 1,800 for one person.
- Home gym over the period (advanced): the kit cost plus yearly running costs (heating a garage, replacing bands and mats), less the resale value you could recover. Adjustable dumbbells and benches hold roughly half their price secondhand.
- Hybrid: budget gym plus kit (advanced): the resolution most households land on is a GBP 15 to GBP 25 budget membership for machines, classes and the pool, alongside a dumbbell corner for the days the commute loses. The card prices it against the full membership.
- Cost per home session (advanced): the home total divided by every session over the period, with the gym's per-session cost alongside. Convenience predicts continuation better than facilities do, which is the home option's strongest evidence; the gym keeps heavy racks, spotting culture, classes and the service of being somewhere else.