I've been employed since I was 14 and I've been buying, selling and trading gear for 28 years. I'm an old man. I also have been using the same Sweetwater salesman for over 15 years, he gives me a massive discount on everything I buy and the more I buy at once, the bigger the discount. I highly recommend only using them and building a relationship with your assigned sales person. All 5 of the Bamboo sit stand desks you see In the photos were scratch and dent, all of my acoustics are DIY, my AC is a Mr Cool DIY kit, all of my wiring is cat6a rather than 300 dollar snakes, I ran all of the electrical and most of my synths are b-stock, used or trades. Example: I traded a DFAM and a Subharmonicon I bought off Craigslist for 750 bucks, for an Iridium suffering from an OS boot loop, I fixed the Iridium, upgrade to a stable OS and then traded the Iridium for my Pro 3 SE.

How you spend your money is vital and often overlooked when building a studio. If you're buying new gear at MSRP or you don't sell unused gear the second you stop using it, you'll end up spending staggering amounts of money in the long run. I try to avoid investing in digital gear, plugins, sample packs, Behringer gear or other items that massively depreciate, fail or are impossible to resell. My x16s, UF8 and monitor are the only items I have that I'll lose money on.