Your best bet would be to start purchasing routers and switches if you plan on advancing your certs and career. You can always build on them. I would start with a 1710 (get one on ebay for about $130) as you can max the mem and do advanced items with it such as intra-confederation eBGP and VRF-lite. I would also recommend a 2950 so that you can do dot1q in your labs. These items can be used for your home internet connection in addition you your labs. I feel that you will get more benefit out of something like this, as it is not limited like a simulator is. Plus, it can last you a lot longer when you are trying to do labs that there is not a simulator for.
Hope this helps.
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