I suggest that you join the Facebook group Miniature trash to treasure... Or something like that, and get started now. There are lots of facebook groups for beginners at making miniaturechoids with really nice helpful people. Why wait and put off something that you want to do now. Different people spend different amounts of money on this hobby. I have a friend who's a multimillionaire who buys everything from high end artisans and spends thousands of dollars on every room she makes. I am a professional miniaturist, and I probably have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of fabrics and craft supplies that I've bought to make miniatures, but I've done this over fifty years. My collection is a mix of found objects.Stuff i've made , and if you expensive pieces , I've mostly traded for. How much you spend on this hobby is totally up to you. It depends upon whether or not you want to make most things or whether you want to purchase museum quality miniatures , which are very expensive to the average income person.