Under $1000: an oscilloscope, 4 channel 100MHz for about 500 EUR. I've been wanting to learn more about electronics but I learn best by doing and getting a feedback loop. What didn't work was reading books, watching tutorials on Youtube etc. Seeing the actual voltage change on the screen helped me understand circuits much better than before. I've since debugged amplifiers, i2s protocols, IR transmitters. Every time I use it I have a lot of fun!
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This year I treated myself to a benchtop power supply for home use.
I've worked with electronics (mostly embedded hardware and lower-level software) for >3 decades professionally where bench supplies are everywhere. My hobby use saw me using various wall-warts, regulators, batteries, and hijacked/hacked-up desktop PSUs as I always thought owning a dedicated supply would be a waste. Purchasing other TE had higher priority.
Surprise!! Life is so much better, unbelievably, having my own benchtop power supply for idiot stuff that I would not have invested the time and effort to try previously. I was adding a fan to a project yesterday so I spent ~2 minutes testing candidates for audible noise when using 12V and 24V at various currents - not a necessary part of the selection process for the expected use but nice when it is low effort (turn on PSU, select output channel,dial in voltage, dial in current, done).
GW Instek GPP-4323
Oh and as this leaves me with ~ $500 of budget I'll include my active tip soldering iron (Aixun T3A T245, holy crap it's hot in 3 seconds), function generator (UNI-T UTG962E), a bunch of ESP32 dev boards and various PCBs I designed and ordered via JLCPCB.
Definitely something on my bucket list!
And I absolutely get the “theory doesn’t work” part, I’m the same, probably due to ADHD. Gotta give it a spin yourself at your own timing to understand how it works.