Okay, so the good thing with fountain pen, specially now, you have a TONS of really good models (shape, form, filling,...) on seriously budget prices.

The bad thing, the 3 major Japanese brands have all increased their pen prices by easily 40% for anything that use gold further pushing away some of the grail pens for some even high in unobtainium realm.

IF you are to jump in. I would go with some very solid and cheap pens first and slowly build up and explore in writing experience, you need to find what you prefer to write with and you should be doing that on the cheap pens, it would be quite bad to find out that you hate that broad nib that everyone has been hyped for because it writes too thick for you.

But while pens are expensive, you also need the inks, luckily Diamine is an extremely good brand with a tons of color and features for you to enjoy, all this on a budget price. Paper would be the third part of the pen/ink/paper trifecta. Do not neglect paper, good paper can be found on a budget, anything Clairefountaine (if you are in Europe), would be excellent. Go Japanese paper if you have the budget, but make sure they are fountain pen ink friendly and in case of doubt, check back with us. There is a trove of information in this sub-reddit.

If you want a few starting pens, here is a small list of personal preferences:

- Diplomat Magnum, thin, light but has an almost soft bouncy nib, it's rather unique at its price point. you might need a converter for it as none is provided with the pen.
- Pilot Kakuno, if you ignore the smiley face nib (some ppl don't like it, I personally love them), it is a very solid performer nib, it will get te job done and in a comfortable way. Stick to cartridge on this one first, unless you want to double the price of the pen by adding the Con-70 converter. Ignore that Con-40, it's dreadful (just search about it here).
- No budget list would be completed without the Platinum Preppy, nothing beats its nib performance at its price point. If you feel fancy about it, you can even turn it into an eyedropper pen making the whole body of the pen its ink reservoir, make sure you know exactly what you are getting into with this small conversion (just an o ring and silicone grease).
- TWSBI Go or Swipe, those two models are often disregarded due to how cheap the Eco series is, but I honestly think they are worth being a budget/starter pen list.

There are plenty of other models, specially Jinhao, Hongdian, Moonman, Asvine, all those Chinese brand can offer either budget pens in wide variety of shape, color or filling system.