This home coffee setup will get you brewing like a pro for less than $120

Coffee fiends get really into their gear. You could spend hundreds of dollars on a ceramic grinder that'll outlast your grandkids, or drop thousands on an espresso machine that'll make your coffee competition-ready.

Or if you're like me, you just want a good cup of joe with the satisfaction of knowing you roasted, ground, and brewed it all on your own. In that case, you'll be happy to hear that you can spend less than $120 on a setup that'll make you drip coffee that's as good as the brew from your local cafe.

Here are the best affordable coffee products to buy to create a full at-home setup. Once you've got this down, you'll swear off that daily $4 coffee forever.

First, order your beans.

Here are the reasons to consider buying unroasted beans:

1. Green beans are cheaper on average than pre-roasted coffee.

2. You can order single-origin beans, which lets you pick the environmental factors that affect the taste of your coffee.

3. They're easy to buy online.

4. They'll usually come from retailers that have a direct relationship with the farmers.

5. Conveniently, they'll stay fresh for up to a year, as opposed to the week or two weeks roasted coffee have before they go stale. If you're a sporadic coffee drinker like me and drink a cup, say, every other day, you can make a $40-$45 supply of coffee last a year.

Find beans that you like, and buy them in bulk.

Once you try a coffee that you like, note the roast, country, and town or farm where the beans came from.

For example, I like Kickapoo Coffee Roasters' medium roasted beans from the Idido co-op in Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia. So I searched for "Yirgacheffe Idido green coffee" on Google and found these beans for $8 or less a pound from a wholesaler.

Bean prices range from $4 to $8 per pound depending on the quality — I usually opt for the $6-7 beans. I suggest buying three to five bags at a time so that you'll have more if you end up liking the ones you buy. And if not, you can always give your roasts away as presents. 

Some of the bean suppliers I recommend are Sweet Maria's, Happy Mug, Crop to Cup. 

Total cost: $40+, depending on how many pounds buy in bulk

Once you have your beans, it's time to roast them. You can do this using a popcorn popper.

You might think you need an expensive piece of equipment to properly roast coffee beans, but really, you just need something that can 1) apply oven-level temperatures to the beans and 2) distribute the heat evenly.

You can actually use popcorn poppers to roast them — but not just any popper! You'll need a hot-air popcorn popper, or something like a Whirley-Pop stovetop popper.

According to coffee supplier Sweet Maria's, hot-air poppers work well because they blast the beans with a constant flow of hot air. As long as you put in less than 4 ounces of beans, that air will be strong enough to whip them around, evenly distributing the heat. (For that reason, you'll want to look for a popper with side vents.)

When roasting, monitor the beans for audible cracks that occur when they expand from the heat. A second crack means it's a medium roast, and about two minutes after that it'll become a dark roast. This roasting process usually takes five to eight minutes per batch. You'll need a bowl nearby to catch the chaff the popper spits out.

Hot-air poppers can be found for as little as $5 in thrift shops (that was the price at Goodwill the last time I checked), but Amazon also sells them for around $22. The only downside is the low volume: You'll need to roast four or more batches of beans to make 12 ounces of coffee.

Total cost: $5 to $22.