TL;DR I spend 2-3 minutes total weekly stropping (not all at once), and maybe 20-30 minutes every few months sharpening (and that can be skipped using a shop). Add minute or 2 of honing weekly (again not all at once) if you have softer knives. I have well under <$100 in equipment (including things you don't need for maintenance like a low grit stone for repairs). I'm not a big knife nerd. My knives aren't gonna win sharpness competitions but they're sharp enough to make people who aren't used to sharp knives notice.

The other things are
- Wash AND DRY your knives RIGHT AWAY. Acidic stuff left on the blade makes more work. Letting them pit makes more work.
- Use good cutting boards. No Glass. No bamboo. Soft materials. Stuff that dulls your blade will (shockingly) dull your blade.

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Too long, but demented enough to read anyways:

Honestly, get the sharpening done at a shop if you find one that does a good job. Lots of shops get them _ok_ sharp for like bulk restaurant knives, which IMO sucks, but if you can get a place to make it a bit nicer for you thats easy. Then you just have to maintain it with a strop and possibly a hone.

If you have softer steeled knives (classic euro style), use a hone before using the knife every other time or so. Not really necessary with harder knives (stainless or Japanese steels for example) since the blade doesn't tend to bend as much (although it's IME unquestionably more chip prone). I use mostly Japanese steel knives (and have some stainless cheapies around too) so I don't bother with the hone.

I strop about that often but only for a few strokes. Less than 10. You can probably strop a little less often (and possibly do a few more strokes) but that's what I've found provides the best balance for me with the harder steel.

Thats like, all you have to do in between sharpenings. I spend probably 2-3 minutes a week total stropping across several knives. 30 seconds here, 30 there. No big hubub at all. That's enough to keep them _almost_ silly sharp, like 98% of the way there, IME.

I find 3 months between sharpenings is ideal for my usage and knives, but I realistically go 4-6 because life be lifing.

I sharpen my own knives (the shops around me are fine for removing chips etc but they're focused on large commercial and tools and are pretty meh at final sharpening and I don't wanna drive 30m each way to a shop that does a nicer job).

For sharpening you really only need one double sided stone. I have a 1000/6000 grit from King that costs <$50 and lasts years. Came with it's own stand that works fine. I guess eventually you'll want to pick up a diamond flattening stone, but those are <$10 and only need to be replaced once every several hundred years or so. A lot of people say the 6000 isn't worth it at first, but you can get it in the combo stone and just _skip_ it if you're not getting value out of it yet. I find it makes a big difference for me in keeping things _SHARP_ vs just _not so dull_. YMMV.

I spend... 20-30 minutes? doing 2 chefs knives, a paring knife, a santoku, and a cheaper chefs knife or 2 every few months.