I got a bench and all the weights and bars I could ever need for a couple hundred bucks on Craigslist after looking for deals for about a week. They even came with little bars so I can use the smaller plates as dumbbells. Obviously it’d be harder for someone in a more rural area, but exercise equipment is usually pretty easy to find relatively cheap second-hand. Way better than a gym membership so long as you’ve got a bit of space in your home for a bench. Paired with basic body-weight maneuvers and some running shoes, you can get all the exercise you need without all the fancy stuff at a gym.

Huh? I bought my first house in 2020. It was $200,000 for a run-down house in a bad part of Minneapolis. It was my first home, so I could use the first-time home buyer benefit to only need $10,000 for the down payment, which I had built up over a few years of saving. While in the house, fixing my garage door when it broke was $250, and repairing my AC and Furnace each time they broke was $300-500. Stuff that was bigger than that was covered by insurance. I fixed everything else myself, however poorly. The money I got for selling the house in 2023 for $230,000 was enough to afford the down payment on the next place after paying back my first mortgage and the realtor fees.

If your first house is anything like mine was, it’ll be a lot of “What’s that sound!? God dammit…” followed by either a day’s worth of work fixing something, or a bill for several hundred dollars. It took a few major problems before my wife and I started getting confident that we knew what we were doing. You get used to it, and eventually problems that arise are no longer a “will we get through this?” and instead become an “ugh, I can’t wait until we’re through this.” After a few years I was able to sell it to someone else as their starter home, and use the equity I built to buy a much nicer house with far fewer problems, though you’ll never be totally free from the occasional sudden panic of a major issue.