Hey Yogi cat!
Welcome to the forums.
I also am on a very tight budget, and while 16, I started the hobby at 13, so I know how it goes.
I started out scratchbuilding, and made a lot of mistakes that really made my intro to the hobby really slow.
What is your budget?
I have a lot of budget minded scratchbuilt designs and RTF packages I can point you towards if you like.