The good thing about having your own equipment is getting used to the way it works and getting your bouyancy right each time,after working on it. Which makes your dives betters. With renting you have to get used to the equipment each time, as there is some variation. You don't always have the same exact equipment as well.
You can purchase good equipment on Ebay. My boyfriend and I have. We purchase from a seller who has an Ebay store and is actually a dive instructor. Very nice guy. His prices aren't bad either. There is also a website we have purchased from. Through this site, if you are an insured diving instructor they offer 15% discount and free shipping.
We each have a wetsuit, two tanks, a hood, gloves, fins, regulator, weights, and a mask. We've spent about $1500 on all this per person. In the long run it's better than renting. Renting would cost us about $70.00 for three days or sometimes more. When we did rent we'd get equipment that wasn't top of the line. It was just as standard as it came. Fins were stiff as hell, for example.
Wetsuits can run anywhere from a few hundred dollars to the thousand dollar range. Depends on what you want. A few months ago you could get a tank at Costco for a bit over $50. Tanks can run anywhere from less than $100 to upwards in the $100's. We purchased our tanks at a garage sale for $20/each. They did want $40.00 but we talked them down by telling them they were selling us tanks that could be defective for all we knew, needed to be VIP'd, filled, etc. Regulators can be costly. Ours cost $800. I've seen good ones on Ebay for less than $500. Fins can be anywhere from $20-$100+. Again depends on what you want. Masks are the same. PSI 5000 for your mask isn't that costly. It can be less than $20. You may want to check out local dive shops when they have sales. Also, find out if there are any local diving organizations that you can join. Usually they have an annual membership fee that can be high but they offer discounts on equipment at select dive shops in your area. A lot of times, you also get discounts when you go to the select shops to fill yoru tanks. If you join you always have the oppurtunity to meet others to dive with when your dive buddies aren't able to dive with you.
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