Like many college students, I don't have much money. However, I do have plenty of geeky toys. I learned very early on to make do with what I had, but that didn't mean that I had to suffer and do without. Here's how I achieved my current geek setup without going over budget.

Arguably, one of the most important components to any geek setup is a good desk. However, you do not need to save money by buying a little hutch. All you need is a little ingenuity. I bought two $30 desks from Wal-Mart and placed them together to achieve a $60 L-shaped desk.

As you can see, I have three computers so I needed the space that an L-shaped desk provides. How did I afford three computers on a low budget? First off, the laptop on the left is a loaner. The MSI Wind netbook in the center was only around $250. I bought my Dell Inspiron on the right when I got my first student loans. Even so, I only paid around $600 for it. The big monitor that it's running on is actually Polaroid 19" HDTV. Since it has all sorts of hookups on the back including VGA, I've saved money by not buying a television AND a monitor. I both work and entertain myself at my desk. You can get a similar HDTV for around $250 these days. One thing that is not shown in the picture is my iPod Touch. 8GB models are now $199. I cannot afford cell phone service so I text with Google Voice on my iPod Touch whever I can find a Wi-Fi hotspot.

So with a bit of time and ingenuity I've achieved a great geek setup.

Are you a geek on a budget? If so, how did you achieve your current setup?

Tags: budget, cheap, geeky, how, money, save, shoestring, to

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Comment by Simon on April 4, 2010 at 12:59pm: For european students Ikea (Swedish Furniture store) is a live saver. The make all kinds of great flat-pack furniture that you can pick and mix. For around 40 euros you'll get a desk surface and then the legs, which you pick from a selection, are another 10. There are loads of hacks out there too, like some chap used a press as a rack for a 24 core render farm. They have a table that fits 19" sound gear underneath perfectly. Deffo one to check out.

Comment by Bernice Imei Hsu on April 3, 2010 at 11:14am: Very creative. I know it's hard to do on a budget, but it is possible to get what you need. Another thing I tell students to do is start an account with SmartyPig.com. It lets you tell yourself and your fam and friends what you are saving up for, so when gift time comes, they can choose to contribute towards these things and get you there a little faster. Cheers ~ Imei

Comment by David on April 3, 2010 at 11:01am: My current desk ("current" for the past couple of decades) is four 6'X1'X1" boards, joined into one surface by screwing onto scrap plywood and edged with 1"X2" pieces, simply glued and screwed to the edge. This desktop sits on four legs make of 8" or greater in diameter fallen limbs from sycamores in our yard (ice storm--provided me with loads of building material), braced with smaller limbs, all screwed together (as is surface_ to provide a 6'X4' extremely sturdy surface that can nevertheless be moved by simply unscrewing and moving the components. Even the disassembled parts are moderately heavy, though.

A chainsaw was useful in cutting the limbs to length. :-)

For computers, over the last 20 years or so I have usually simply bhought base units just slightly off the bleeding edge curve, looking for sale items, closeouts, etc., and then bringing them up to snuff with added components as my budget allows and as I find "fell-off-the-truck" prices on the net.

Thrift stores, bargain stores (again, looking for fell-off-the-truck" prices :-)), yard sales and government/school auctions (and even dumpsters!) have yielded some amazingly cheap, useful components. Example: old tech fax/phone/answering machine/remote handset, etc., from a neighbor's trash pile seven years ago is still in useful service. All it took was some electrical component cleaner and new NiCad batteries (bought for $1 at a fell-off-the-truck" price store :-)). Priced the same model at Sam's at the time for over $200. Mine? almost nothing for the component cleaner (been using the same can for over 10 years now) and $1 for batteries. Eventually I had to replace the printing film. Big deal.

I love trash piles and dumpsters. 55' of epoxy-coated metal shelving (from a school dumpster where the IT department was replacing them with specially-manufacured network component shelving), complete with all hardware. All the old IBM Pentiums I had room to store from the same dumpster: 10 100mbit NICs and 10GB hard drives (couple of the NICs and all the hard drives went into an old server case with P233 and 256 MB RAM--some from the old IBMs--for a temporary media server; others went into another old server case for an 8-port Linux-based standalone firewall/router). You get the idea.

External hard drives (and I use a lot of 'em)? I recycle old drives by putting them in inexpensive external cases, sometimes purchase new drives and do the same, resulting in external drives with same capacity at roughly half the cost of pre-built external hard drives.

For software, wherever possible--and it's becoming more and more possible--I replace commercial software on our computers with FOSS. If the quality and capabilities are similar, free beats commercial hands down. Unfortunately, that's not always possible, so, since someone in the family is always a student *heh* whenever a commercial piece of software's essential, we hunt down student discounts.

Comment by Phoobar on April 3, 2010 at 9:15am: I buy stuff at thrift stores. For instance...got a copy of XP Media Center 2005 for $2 at a thrift store. (They had no idea what it was...but someone had donated it.) Just need to use 1 of my XP licenses. They also have the same or better furniture in the photo...if you can look.

As for the TV...I have 2 $30 USB ATSC TV tuners I got off of New Egg. Since my monitor went out last week...been using a 15" loaner till I can mow about 10 or so yards to get a 22-25" 16X9 to replace my 19" 16X10. My antenna run me less than $5...since I built it out of coat hangers/1X3/$1 75 ohm transformer. I get about 75% signal strength...since it's hung out my window. With my TV tuners...not paying the extra $100 for the integrated tuner. I all ready have the tuners...so why waste the money on something I don't need.

For non-geek stuff...picked up a $60 Forman grill for $7. Didn't have the scrapper or drip pan...but a pie plate works just fine. Also picked up some Corningware cookware for about $2 for 2 bowls & a lid.

My work clothes...I pay around $4-6 for each piece at the thrift store. Some of the clothes still have the original labels/stickers on the garment.

Comment by YOGESH PAWAR on April 3, 2010 at 5:06am: that is really cool man

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