With the Coronavirus pandemic situation closing more and more public places daily, offices have either closed down or encouraged their staff to work from home. This might be a novel and unusual concept to adjust yourself, but it will be the best route to take in the interest of your health and the health of people around you.

So before you go buy all the home office workstation gadgets from Walmart or Amazon, you might want to read this little guide we put together for you.

Why a ‘Cheap’ Home Office Workstation?

At this point of time, the main threat of Coronavirus AKA COVID-19 is its uncertainty. Nobody can predict when it is going to end, go away, stop the spread or even when a cure will be developed. However, one thing is for sure and that it, it is not going to last forever. So you will not benefit from setting up an expensive and state-of-the-art home office workstation.

Instead, you should be targeting a minimalist and cheap workstation that will get you through this ‘work from home’ period and will be useful in the future to do your office homework.

With this in mind, we will jump to the ‘must-have’s for a home office setup.

Note: these are all ideas for a home office setup. You necessarily do not have to buy all these fresh. If you have what you require already, it is just a matter of putting them up together.

Cheap Work From Home Office Setup

(1) Desktop PC or Laptop

Hopefully, you will not have to buy a desktop PC or laptop to begin your home office workstation setup. This part is most likely going to cost you the most. But if you had to purchase a computer, depending on the work you have to perform, you have a few options.

Low-end Computer/laptop

A low-end computer or laptop will get you through most of the day-to-day office work requirements. Eg: Typing documents, doing calculations on Excel, creating a presentation and checking your email.

The following desktop PC setup (accessories included) only has a price tag of $229, and after your quarantine this will be your personal computer for home use.

A similar performance laptop is slightly expensive than a desktop PC, but comes with the obvious benefit of mobility.

High-end Desktop Computer/Laptop

If you are more into resource-intensive computer usage, the above might not be sufficient. A high-end computer or a laptop is going to break your bank above $500. So it is ideal if you can request for your office rig to be brought home.

If you have to buy a new machine, we recommend the following; usually a 16GB RAM with i7 processing power and 1TB of storage and some graphics power.

Pro tip: If you don’t mind going for a refurbished machine (these work perfectly fine as well), add the term ‘renewed’ or ‘refurbished’ to your search phrase.

However, buying a desktop PC or laptop PC solely depends on the requirements of your job, which we cannot predict here.

(2) Compuer Accessories

You might need to get yourself a mouse, mouse pad, keyboard, speakers or a laptop cooler, depending on whether these are included in your purchase above.

Amazon Basics has some of the cheapest office equipment on the internet. The below keyboard and mouse should get through your basic computing needs just fine.

Get yourself a mouse pad that has the wrist-support padding. Trust me, it will help you a lot.

Chances are your office work does not require you to listen to audio. However, just in case, if you like to listen to some tunes while you work, a basic speaker would suffice.

(3) Computer Table

A computer table will be a basic requirement which can also be replaced with almost any table you have at home. You might even chose to work on your bed with your laptop, but it is not recommended for a good posture. So, in case, if you can’t find a table top a below would be a good and cheap option.

Desktop PC Table

Simplistic Laptop Table

(4) Headphones

Chances are you might have to engage in a Skype call or a conference call with your office colleagues. If so, speakers would not do the trick. In such case you would require some earphones or headphones.

Even basic earbuds would also do the trick. But you would preferably need headphones that cover your ear for noise cancellation.

Below headphones can be purchased for $13.99 on Amazon.

(5) Workstation Chair

Again, a standard chair with back support would suffice for this purpose. However, a new computer chair can be purchased for a relatively cheaper price.

(6) Printer/Scanner/Copier

Working from home, you might need to get some documents printed or scanned to share with your colleagues. The best option is to go for an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier machine which is compact and also cheap.

The HP machine below goes at a very decent price tag of $50 at the time of writing this article, and is wireless as well. So even if your computer table does not have enough space for the printer, you will be alright.

Now that we are through with the essentials for a home office setup, we will look at some good-to-have items to ease your work from home experience.

(7) Table Lamp/Light

If you have to put some late hours into your work a small table lamp would be the best option rather than keeping your room light on. The one below is a great value product for the features it packs.

• USB chargeable
• Clip-on to any part of the desk
• Energy saving
• 3 levels of brightness
• No-flicker eye protection

(8) Table Fan

If your home office is in a bit of hot temperature, a table fan might be the cheapest solution. There are very compact scale fans that run on USB charge, which does not consume a lot of energy.

(9) Coffee Maker

A nice warm coffee will keep you refreshed and energized. Working from home can be a boring activity and a coffee can change that. You could buy yourself a new coffee machine.

Or if you already have a coffee maker at home, get yourself a heating pad to keep your coffee warm.

(10) Hand Wash/Sanitizer

This may be an unconventional addition to a home office setup, but a mandatory requirement during these times of Coronavirus lock down. Scientists recommend a hand sanitizer with more than 60% alcohol base to kill the Coronavirus.

Below hand wash contains a 62.5% alcohol base.

Other items you might require near your workstation are; a pen and a notepad, a glass of water, a power adapter cord, a trash can, some tissue papers, a USB hub, a USB drive, and maybe a foot rest.

So there you go–everything you need to start your work from home routine.

Most importantly, stay indoors and stay safe during these troubled times.