Yeah, there are more reasons to use dumbbells more extensively than cost. I don't drive at all and live in a city that is only kind of "medium good" for public transit. The extra forty-five mintues for commuting makes it much less likely that I'll go anywhere. My partner and I have agreed that when the dumbbells really aren't enough for me, we'll join a gym and he'll drive me. :) He doesn't care enough to do it for himself, though I'm sure he could lift much more than he currently is. I was amazed that he'd never done free weights before!

The problems are the squats and deadlifts -- I'm not sure many other exercises that really need lots of weight and can't really be substituted (for example: bench presses can be replaced with pushup progressions) and I've got quite a bit of room left in the deadlifts. Squats are more of a problem, since I'm trying to hold the weight up rather than just replicating the deadlift movement. What I've been doing is goblet squats + working range of motion on squat days, and not worrying so much about ROM with the deadlifts (though I am careful to keep good form in the range I can manage). I have really sucky flexibility, so this seems to work ok.

Ok, I suppose technically you can substitute pistols for squats and deadlifts, but see above: re sucky flexibility. :)