[michael_michael]

I started a few months ago. Reddit's /r/homelab has lots of great resources, and you can get some good deals through /r/homelabsales, though the best deals usually go quickly.

Like with learning a programming language, having a specific goal helps a lot.

Reading other people's posts about their hardware, how they use it, and what problems they solved with their homelab can be a source of inspiration that sets you on the right path.

Like others on this thread have said, while it's tempting to immediately dive into racks, patch cables and network diagrams, you can achieve A LOT with something simple like a small NAS or a NUC. Even a spare laptop that you can repurpose might be more than sufficient.

Unless you're trying to simulate managing enterprise hardware (and I mean physically managing it), the greatest value lies in learning the software side of thing, IMHO.