Before commercial bio-material was available there was alot of other stuff we used. Crushed lava rock was the most widely used but affected pH to the acid side. I used those green plastic toy army men that you could buy in 100 packs for a buck. Also used the barrel-o-monkeys. These, and LEGOs, have low available surface area. Your best bet for an inexpensive alternative to bio-balls is the plastic pot scrubbers, like rallysman suggests, or the plastic white or blue floor-buffer stripping pads/disks cut into pizza slice wedges.
The toys will provide less than 50sq/ft of surface area per gallon. The scrubber/stripper pads will offer ~370sq/ft of surface area per gallon. BTW, 1.5" bio-balls provide about 160sq/ft of surface area per gallon.