[Hanna Sniper]

Like Flames in 07 replied...
It's a different hobby then it once was, collecting sets pretty much doesn't happen and if you were to collect the sets that matter, you would be pretty much left broke... top cards can reach past 400 very easily. The thing I would do would decide what it is that you would like to get from the hobby and go that route and not be distracted by anything else... and always remember what the reasoning behind your collecting is.
E-bay will be your best route of collecting, once you get a strong idea of what market demand is for certain cards you're have a great understanding when deals present themselves. Before e-bay I was pretty much paying 90-110% of the value of the card… through Ebay I was able to cut that margin to 30-60%... plus you’ll always be able to find high demand cards that will never show up elsewhere… Another way to save money is to be selective in what you would like to collect and be ahead of the hype. It is a misconception that the Hobby has died off or is over-produced. Today they just go around it by lowering the number of cards to numbers out of 25.

But remember, have fun with it, be careful not to be caught in the hype… collecting is not a business and those that approach it as such only destroy it for the hobbyist.