Hey Wyatt, I agree it's abit of a shocker when you come into this hobby and start seeing the price tags on stuff, but once u started looking at the amount of money I drop on my full size stuff this turns into a very affordable hobby. If you look at my avatar. I have almost a 100k tied up between the car and the truck. I only drive them in the summer. In a few years those 2 vehicles would only be worth a small fraction of what I spent on them.
The nice thing about this hobby is that this stuff doesn't really drop in value (as long as it doesn't get abused) so in 10 years it's still actually worth close to the purchase price or more depending on the item.
If your looking for some cheep stuff to mess around with, EBay does have stuff come up here and there. Another thing is. I bought a 1/10 R/C Bobcat skid steer the other day for $130. Stuff like that might satisfy you in this hobby or help lure you into the more high end stuff.
Hope this helps take care.