Well after all, I can say the same thing. I am still a student (combined studies) and I'm currently looking for a job, so the money is a issue for me too. I have:
- ERS 50 soldering iron. It's old but great tool made by one local company. I've got it from company where I had internship and they were upgrading their tools. I've made two solder irons, but i prefer this one so I sold them.
- Two supplies, I've build both. 0-15V 1,5A max and double 0-30V 3A with transformer from old power amplifier. I made first one when I was about your age, in the electronics club (which is great place to learn stuff and get some cheap parts)
- Three multimeters, one cheap Uni-T for about 40$, second is also cheap DM3900 (doesn't look that good but it's a good tool for the money) and third one is lab class old analog meter (also write-off), surprisingly it's the most precise one (I've even checked it with proper tools at school and it's in 0,1%) and it has all the protection to measure at mains.
- Tools for AVR and 8051, made them myself. The AVR one is USBasp based, I've got also several test boards of mine design.
- Tools for making PCBs, some chemistry (ferrite chloride, stuff for cold tinning). Now I mostly use old Iron and laser printer but I also have glass and UV lamp for photo-process.
- Proxxon drill, drill stand (cost me about 150$) and huge variety of drills, cutter and milling tools, some screw cutters. Bought those over years.
- Two scopes. The one I use is old analog (double chanel 150MHz double beam with delayed sweep), I got it on local variant of ebay for 100$. Even now, it's better than most of the cheap digital scopes. Second one is even older 60MHz analog that I've got from high school, I had to repair it. I also have scope card that I've build. It's just 8b 1MHz, not precise but OK for debugging digital stuff.
- RLCG meter from ebay. And cap/inductor meter that I've made.
- Low distortion sine gen. for audio, and function generator based on XR2206, again both mine. I'm currently building distortion meter for the first one.
- Complete range of resistors and caps (e12), transistors, chips, transformers, inductors, breadboards etc. Accumulated over years, from the ee club, some de-soldered, from radio-amateur flee markets, my last job at electronics shop (something like radio shack) and ofc some bought. Just tip - If you wanna buy SMDs, I would recommend to choose one size and keep with it (I have almost everything in 0805), you can also get huge number of cheap components at ebay, it just takes time to measure and sort them out.
- Many tools that I've made just because I needed them at the time, like f.e. LED tester (simple 0-100mA current source), continuity testers, digital probes, wire detector and so on