ORIGINAL: brocja01
Kevin,
I agree with gboulton, I have only been in the hobby for a couple months, and I had to make "sacrifices" in equipment to get my wife to agree to let me start the hobby. I purchases a Hobbico Superstar, Futaba 4 channel SkySport, OS .46 LA for my plane and as for field equipment, I picked up one of those Stanley portable 'double decker' tool boxes from Walmart that I absolutly love. It has more than enough room for everything you would want to take to the field. I have a flip stick for starting and you can buy Glow plugs now that run off of reqular C or D batteries for 10 Bucks, I use a hand crank for filling up the tank, it takes about 30 to 45 seconds to fill up your tank by cranking, no effert at all. After all said and done, with my plane, field gear, and membership fees, I think I have about $400 to $450 invested. But it is well spent, and as soon as my club gets their new field in order, I'll be flying as much as possible.
I totally understand about being on a budget, most of us are to some extent. Take this from me, take care of your family and don't deprive your family to buy for the hobby. I've seen this happen at our field more than once, and it's not good. I hate to say this if it bursts somebody's bubble, but I do need to say this, if you can't afford the hobby then you need to wait until you can.
Now with that said, there are definitely ways to make things more affordable. It would be nice to be able to afford the most expensive field gear, but it's not always needed. There are a lot of "shortcuts" that I use, and I use them not because I can't afford it but because I don't like spending money that I don't have to. Here are some of the things I use, or have seen used:
1. Chicken stick. Cut a piece off of an old broom stick handle, wrap some electrical tape around it. When the tape gets cut up, put more on. I've been using this for 9 years. On this subject, I rarely use my electric starter. I flip start 99% of my flights, so you can live without the electric starter.
2. Glow ignitor. Any 1.5v battery will light up a glow plug. A good C or D size battery will work. Use electrical tape to hold the wire to each end of the battery, and solder on alligator clips to each wire. Clip on wire to the top of the glow plug, clip the other to a cooling fin on the motor. Make sure the wires don't get caught in prop. This isn't pretty, but it will work.
3. Fuel pump. It has been my experience that electric fuel pumps quit working after about a season of use. My choice is a hand cranked fuel pump, and it's lasted my 4 years now. We have one pilot at our field that has an even less expensive fueler. He went to the pharmacy at wal-mart and bought a bulb used on a blood pressure cuff. These have a one way valve in them so you can use them to pump up pressure. He connects his fuel can to the fill tube on his plane, and connects the bulb to the fuel can. He pumps up pressure in the fuel can which forces fuel into the plane. When fuel starts coming out of the line connected to his muffler (pressure line) the tank is full. To defuel the plane he reverses this and pumps pressure into the plane's pressure line. This one works great!!!
4. Power Panel. You can definitely live without a power panel. If you must use an electric started, you can connect it directly to the battery. And if you don't use an electric fuel pump you don't need to hook it to a power panel
5. Flight box. My choice of flight box came from a bad back, but it saved money too. Lifting a flight box is hard on my back, so I choose a box that has wheels on it so I can roll it to the flight line. I found the box at Lowe's in the tool section, and it cost $29. It's big enough for me to have a 12v lawn-mower battery and two 1-gallon gas cans (keep my glow fuel in these) in the bottom of it.
There are more ways to save money, but these give you a good idea of where to start. If you look around and think about it you can come up with ways to save money.
Hope this helps
Ken