Hey welcome to the addiction! I'm nowhere near as experienced as most of these guys, but I'll toss you some advice anyway. Look around your town or the next town over for stores that sell stuff from storages. I got my dremel plus two BIG toolsets for it for $24 at one of my local storage buyers shops. Also got c clamps from him for $.50 apiece, bench vise for $10, and a handheld Craftsman drill for $10. The dremel cut off wheels work great for rough cutting g10 at low rpm's, and I use my dremel for all my handle shaping.
I can tell you what you cant do without initially. Drill press. It'll save you way mucho trouble fitting pins through wonky holes in handle material. Hand held drill doesnt cut it.
Clamps. Home depot has some cheapy spring loaded plastic clamps that work handy dandy for holding handles to knofe during glue-up. $3 each.
4x36 belt sander. Had a 1x30, went through belts 3x faster than on a Craftsman 4x36 that I was given. 4" is a bit wide, but belt life for handle shaping saves you cash. Supergrits and Trugrit have a wide variety of belts for 4x36 at really decent prices. Supergrits average $2.80 per economy alum oxide belts. Home depot charges 10.96+ tax here in wenatchee for ONE zirconia belt!!!
Respirator and SEALED eye protection. If you use g10, you will eff yourself up fast using a dust mask and chemical goggles. Also some woods like ebony, many people are allergic to the oils and dust.
Bench vise. Using your c clamps as a vise gets old fast! Home depot has a bench mount 3" vise for $30. Got mine at the storage guys shop for cheap.
Home made sanding block. Mine is a file with the corners radiused. Invaluable for leveling out crappy grinds and filework, and the godawful amount of polishing a knife takes to get all your noob scratches out. Great for trueing up handles too.
Wooden dowels in various sized. Work great with sandpaper superglued to em to rough out or finish round spots.
Water. With wet/dry sandpaper, keeps dust from handle finishing down to a minimum.
Hacksaw. Self explanatory.
Handle material. Masecraft supply, Alpha Knife supply, have all sorts of Micarta and G10, for very reasonable prices. Avoid buying "scales" at knife supply websites. for the same money, you can get a 12"x5" sheet at Masecraft or Alpha.
Kydex foam. Knifekits has foam for about $10.
Lastly, on your budget, forget making knives from scratch right away. You won't have the money for just the shipping for all the stuff you have to order, let alone paying gor shipping to and the cost of, heat treating. Buy some quality blade blanks from Trugrit, or Jantz Supply. Avoid most of the "440 c" blanks on most of the knife supply websites. While they are a decent value, most are bent, unevenly ground, or have a spotty heat treat. Also many have odd shaped bolsters that will drive you nuts trying to fit handles to. Also the "440 c" blanks almost always are barely sharp, with an uneven edge bevel that can take two or more hours to even out by hand.
Jeff Mutz at Trugrit has the only 440 c blades that come as advertised. They are also very reasonable for cutting, grinding, and heat treating your design. Jantz has some really good 1095 blades that wont cost you hours of fixing like most "440 c blanks."
I started by making handles for blades for myself, found all this out the hard way, and actually make my expansion money by selling knives to friends and family. I've made 8 knives from scratch, and I wouldn't sell any of them. Craaaaaappy is one way to describe em. Once you can make handles even and pleasantly shaped, many people that you just show it to will buy it from you.
One last thing. If you are gonna make kydex sheaths, spend the extra money to get a eyelet/grommet press from the great Satan site that rhymes with freeway, and dies for pressing 1/4" and 3/16" eyelets. Spent $60 for the press and dies, other places want $100+ just for the press.
Just my $.02 based on experience so far.
