Philatelic equipment and tools can be expensive as in every other field of study and research, but as Kenneth Chapman once said:

If you picture in your mind a stamp collector's den with reference books lined up on the library shelves, usage of electrically lit magnifying glasses and quartz lamp to detect errors, oddities and freaks on the stamps, indeed that collector is fortunate.
But the stamp collector who works with an inexpensive storage album, a pair of tweezers, decent stamp hinges and transparent mounts, who writes up his own pages and works on a kitchen or living room table, like I did, is just as happy.

The first source of supply for stamps is your daily incoming mail and the stamps that your friends and colleagues will save for you from their working places and their own personal incoming mail.
You could also inherit a stamp collection or find a trunk in an attic but let say it is not something that happens every day.
You can start your collection with inexpensive "mixtures" which are bags or envelopes of stamps still on paper.
By sorting, soaking and cataloging the stamps yourself, you avoid dealer markup for these services.
You can also buy pre-made packets of all different stamps of the world, On-Paper, Off-Paper or in mint condition, meaning unused stamps, which are ready to be mounted into your stamp albums or stock books.
Just to give you an idea of prices, let say that a bag of approximately 800 different used Russian stamps can be obtained for around $20.
That is less than.
03c per stamp.
If you buy a package of 12,000 different used postage stamps from all countries of the world for about $100.
, well, it comes to less than a penny per stamp.
In between the above two examples, a multitude of other packages are available and to mention just a few: 50 different Butterflies stamps, 100 different Trains stamps, etc etc...
To the light of these facts, your main supply for stamps will be your local stamp store, so it is important that you know how to buy stamps, and we examine the different options inside the weekly video training lessons.
Take time to examine carefully all these newly acquired stamps and at one point, decide which ones you like best.
It could be a country, or a subject, or even a specific period in history and once your decision is taken, specialize in that area.
Congratulations, you are now on the path to become a successful topical stamp collector.