When Mono first came out in the early 60s I did use my mothers clothing iron, once!! Then I got caught! It worked and even shrunk the covering pretty well but it was nothing like the nice irons we have these days. I went back to silkspan and dope until I started building and flying RC, then I went to Mono. A good iron could lay down the covering then and by turning it up high you could shrink the covering too. If you use Ultra then you can still do it that way but you need to know how to cover so you don't have to remove a lot of wrinkles or sags.
If you would join a club and go to a couple of meetings and ask for help then there are probably people like myself with spares that they will sell, loan or give you.
People new to the hobby don't need to go out and buy everything to get started. I was loaned my first iron and the fellow just gave it to me when I was returning it to him.
This can also go for radio gear and engines. Everyone has a 4 or 5 channel radio and standard servos in a box. Engines under the bench never going to be used again is something else, I can't recall how many engines I have given away.
If you want to see a wad of melted covering give a paint stripper a try. On high heat they will start fires.