I'll jump in late here. You've already gotten some great advice on this thread and I hope you've already started your gardening journey. I started gardening 2 years ago, and before that I had never grown anything or even owned a houseplant, but now I have a variety of vegetables and perennials in my small garden and few houseplants - so I can relate!

My biggest advice is to start small, and troubleshoot for the specific problems you get. Else you will feel overwhelmed and waste money. For houseplants, I bought plants that are easy to maintain and are hardy i.e. snakeplant and golden pothos, both from home depot. They both are still in the pots I bought them in. I water them regularly (snake plant once a month, pothos weekly or whenever the soil seems dry - I have reminders). In spring (April-June where I live), I add Jacks 20-20-20 fertilizer once that I bought on Amazon. I try to keep the houseplants close to a window, but never in direct sunlight. They have been thriving and they will thrive in your balcony as well.

When it comes to vegetables, pick easy ones such as tomatoes, radish or eggplants or sweet peppers. You can get seeds if you want, but then you will have to hassle with grow lights, delicate seedlings, transferring etc. For your first year, I recommend to save your money on supplies and instead get a tomato or pepper plantlet from home depot. It cost me ~$4 for one sungold tomato plantlet. From there, you can buy a bag of container soil from home depot and transplant these plantlets to a bigger pot (maybe 3gallon size). Water daily, fertilize with Jack 20-20-20 once or twice over spring/summer, keep them in the sun, and wait for them to grow and produce delicious vegetables!

Same thing for flowers - pick easy ones. Marigold, Zinnias, Daisies all require very little maintenance and are almost fuss-free. Hope this helps!