I was going to get into DIY and read a couple blogs that got me so confused, I just placed another order for ejuice. I'd love to figure out how to start without a ton of things to buy and the confusion of getting the taste with steeping. I'll get there one day. Today I cleaned and dry burnt my first coil for a PT mini2 and it works great. I was proud that it turned out like the video. Someday soon, I hope I'll get to DIY.
I don't know what blog you are reading but there isn't a ton of stuff to buy and it isn't confusing if you just go one step at a time.
Nicotine base. Plain PG and VG. Flavor. Syringes and needles. Bottles (I'll assume you will just recycle empty bottles for store bought juice). Protective equipment (you may have all you need of this but I'll include just gloves for the sake of demonstration of cost and ease).
This can be purchased for less than $20 at
Wizard Labs for the 7 basic items I just mentioned. Assuming your flavor can be just 10% of the finished mix (some are more, some are less) that will get you 80ml before you run out of flavor ONLY. You will still have a lot of leftovers of everything else.
I understand the desire to make sure people use safety and teach a person to make a good quality mix but, really some make it sound more complicated than it is. Normal humans can just use common sense to safely DIY.
If you want to listen to the tin foil hats you may want to get into DIY now because there is possible that the FDA will hinder DIY in the future.