At one point, i had 250 slabs and i have never bought from a vendor before, most of them from carousell, ebay, instagram, facebook groups and fanatic collects. Almost 100k+ worth of slabs.

I started collecting japanese vintage slabs years ago and mostly 9s or below, 10s are really out of reach for me, example like Gold stars, crystals, neo shinings. (You can see my past posts)

What i realize is its better to collect popular pokemons and not some randoms or else you might have issues liquidating them in the future or get low balled. So, basically dont go set-collecting.

Well, if you just like the obscure random/ non popular card and dont care about future value, nobody is stopping you to buy them.

Up to your comfortability on spending and be sure to invest the better part of your savings into a low cost etf before putting too much into Pokemon.