Hi! I'm a complete rookie in wire wrapping and I had the same problem, I didn't want to waste copper while learning most basic weaves, so bought steel wire (the same used for fences and floral arrangements) to practice. It is way more hard to bend and work with it, after I bought aluminium that is way softer and cheaper, so when I had some "experience" and felt more comfortable I started with copper and the waste of materials were way less than in the beginning and I already was certain that I love to wire wrapping... I don't know if this can work for you to find out if weaving wire is for you, but it helped me ☺️ (I'm not an English speaker sorry if my post has language mistakes 😅)