Great news: working from home has just become a possibility for you. As soon as the excitement begins to wear off (enjoy it, you’ve earned it) you’ll be faced with a pretty important question: how do I make this work?
It’s been well-established by now that having a dedicated home office is a major help when working from home, but what if you don’t have the budget to go all-in on setting up your new workspace?
The good news is that you don’t need to break the bank to make working from home a success. In fact, sometimes it’s easier to ease your way into things with a makeshift office setup until you figure out what elements are the most important to you.
Here are some tips to set up a home office on a budget.
Table of Contents
- Figure out what you actually need to work from home
- Use the furniture that you already have
- Consider second-hand stores and thrift shops
- Look for free or open-source software to get you started
- It’s possible to have an affordable home office
Figure out what you actually need to work from home
As tempting as it may be to immediately start planning out your favorite office decor, press pause on that concept for a minute. Take a step back and gauge what you truly need to get your job done, or at the very least what you need to work from home on day one.
Chances are you’re looking at a fairly basic list that includes:
- A chair
- A reliable computer or laptop
- Something to put your computer/laptop on
- A stable internet connection
If you don’t have something from this essential list, stop and figure that out first. As wonderful as it would be to have a shelf of succulents ready to set the ambiance in your new office, succulents do not (yet) give you the internet access needed to do your job.
A quick comment on chairs: While the other essentials are still workable if less than ideal, it’s particularly important to make sure that you’ve got a comfortable chair. There’s a high chance you’re going to be sitting in that chair for quite a few hours, and back pain certainly isn’t fun to deal with after (or during) a day of working.
Use the furniture that you already have
Before you spend a penny on office furniture, take a stroll through your living space to take note of furniture sitting around that could potentially be (even temporarily) repurposed to help you get your working space off the ground.
Whether you’re just setting up your office for the first time, or simply looking to save some money, repurposing existing furniture to suit your needs can help you get up and running.
There’s no better cost than free, so an assessment of what you already have should come before spending on anything further. Likewise, check in with family, friends, and relatives to see if they have anything they’re looking to get rid of that you could potentially repurpose. This not only helps you get set up faster and more affordably, but it also helps to prevent perfectly fine furniture from ending up in a landfill!
Once you’ve exhausted those options you should…
Consider second-hand stores and thrift shops
While many people associate thrift shops with funky clothing finds, many of them carry basic furniture too. It’s a bit more of a grab bag as to what you’ll find, and you can’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll find what you’re looking for on your first trip, but keeping an eye on inventory is a great way to jump on a deal when you see one.
Just to put things into perspective, and practice what I preach, here are the three desks I’ve had in the past near-decade of working from home:
- A hand-me-down desk from my mom that she was going to get rid of
- An amazing L-shaped desk I snagged at a second-hand shop for $40
- A Jarvis standing desk purchased for me by my boss at my previous gig as a housewarming gift
The great thing about desks in particular is that they tend to be pretty sturdy and don’t require replacing often as long as they’re taken care of. In my case, that first desk would have been just fine, but I couldn’t pass up a good deal for that $40 desk. Likewise, I wasn’t about to turn down a standing desk when it was offered.
If you keep an eye on second-hand store inventory for office supplies, there’s a good chance you’ll spy some other office essentials too; the one near me had a pretty steady supply of desk chairs, bookshelves, filing cabinets, and even some office decor, all for very reasonable prices.
While a standing desk is nice, and so is a desk with all the bells and whistles you’ll grow to appreciate the longer you work from home, you don’t need any of these things to get started.
Bonus tip: If you feel you do need a standing desk, check around Amazon for standing desk converters. These are typically stands that sit on stationary desks that can be adjusted to change the height of your monitor. These tend to be much cheaper than a full standing desk while still allowing you to reap the benefits of one.
A word of caution on cheaper new home office furniture
As somebody who struggles to pass on a good deal, I’d caution the vast majority of remote workers to do their due diligence on office furniture purchases. While you’ll certainly see deals from big-box stores on some of the supplies you need, keep in mind that there’s often a reason some of these fantastic-looking pieces are as reasonably priced as they are.
Your desk, for instance. You may be able to find a great deal on a desk through a larger retailer… at the cost of it being mostly made of particleboard and cheap materials. Considering your desk is tasked with holding up the most expensive elements of your home office – your computer, monitors, and/or laptop – a structural failure in your desk can end up costing you more than you saved by going the cheaper desk route.
The same can be said for office chairs in particular. In my experience, you get what you pay for when it comes to new office chairs. I’ve had cheap office chairs that gradually flattened, lost wheels, ended up with broken lifting mechanisms, splintered armrests – the list goes on and on.
When I was first starting out working from home, I ended up spending money to replace a cheap office chair I bought just a year or so ago. If I’d have just bought a better model the first time, I’d probably have saved money in the long run.
All of this to say: in my experience, it’s better to find a good-quality option for desks or chairs somewhere like second-hand stores or yard sales than buying the cheapest version you can find and replacing it much sooner.
Look for free or open-source software to get you started
While typically more important for people starting their own business at home without the perks of employer-paid enterprise licenses for the software they use, software can get very expensive very quickly.
An easy way to be budget-conscious in a situation like this is to turn to free or open-source software to fit your needs. While these may sometimes not be quite as extensive as their more professional counterparts, you’ll typically find that they’re just as capable of doing the same things – you may just need to do a bit more reading to figure out how.
Here are a few free or open-source software options I’ve used in the past while working from home:
Google Analytics & Google Search Console: These are two free website analytics tools offered by Google to help give you more information about your website. Both are incredibly easy to set up, and just as easy to navigate to find the information you need.
Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets: Capable of replacing Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and Excel respectively, these three free tools not only offer almost identical functionality to their paid counterparts, but they’re easy to use and collaborate with too.
GIMP – GNU Image Manipulation Program: GIMP serves as a free and open-source substitute for Photoshop. Documentation is easily available on wikis and YouTube, and you’ll find that it can do many of the same tasks Photoshop is capable of.
Canva: Canva is a web-based tool for creating images, infographics, brochures, and more. While many specific templates and features are locked behind a paywall, the free tier is incredibly generous, and still offers more than enough functionality to help get the job done.
Notepad++: Notepad++ may be a bit more niche for people not dealing with code, but for those that are, it can be an amazing tool to keep in your work from home software arsenal. For those that aren’t working on code, it also makes for an easy text editor capable of opening extremely large text files that other software may struggle with.
Discord: If you’re working with a small team of collaborators and don’t want to pay for Slack or Microsoft Teams, Discord servers can step in to help provide much of the same functionality for free. Like many other software offerings, Discord does have a paid tier you can subscribe to, but you’ll find yourself entirely capable of most collaboration asks using the free tier.
While some of these offerings may not have the exact same functionality as their paid counterparts, they’re certainly more than capable of helping you get by on a budget when you need to. In some cases – as is my case with Google Docs/Slides/Sheets – you may even prefer these versions to their premium counterparts!
It’s possible to have an affordable home office
Just to recap what’s already been said, the number one most important thing when it comes to setting up an affordable home office is focusing on what you need to initially get started.
The ideal situation is certainly one where you’ve got your office set up in its best state on day one, but many people simply don’t have the opportunity to do that. With that being said, it’s also important to keep in mind that like many things, your home office setup is only as permanent as you allow it to be; maybe it makes sense to start in a situation with furniture that gets the job done, but isn’t necessarily your favorite, just until you’re able to find something you like more.
The wonderful thing about working from home is that as long as you’ve got somewhere to put your computer, a stable internet connection, your computer or laptop, and somewhere to sit, the rest can follow in time.
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