Everyone is going to offer advice based on their own experiences so I'm sure you'll be overwhelmed. It seems like everyone born after 1980 is a "Millennial" so I have no idea whether you're 18 or in your 30s. I'm in my mid-30s and am self-taught in home repair and woodworking for the most part. For me, I don't have the space that most others here do so I have to do things differently. Space to work, space to store tools, space to store materials. It adds up fast. Try to keep things organized so you're not spending ages looking for tools and material or the enjoyment factor will go way down. I like drawers with labels on the front for storage, to begin with I grabbed dressers that the neighbours were throwing out. If you make your own storage later on, back to the curb they can go. Just be careful doing that nowadays because of bedbugs.
My #1 suggestion to a beginner would be not to get caught up in buying gimmicky tools, especially those '10 tools in 1' things that people love to buy for you instead of giving you gift cards to buy stuff that you actually need, not to buy fancy jigs that you can make yourself (more a woodworking thing) and not to spend a fortune on tools only to find out you'd rather be doing something else than working on the house all weekend and the tools are just gathering dust. You'll need some basic tools for house maintenance, start with those. I do buy good quality hand tools and be warned, a dull chisel or worn out screwdriver will injure you just as fast as a power tool, make no mistake. If you don't have someone to show you how, you're bound to injure yourself as you learn.
My #2 suggestion is that if you are a bit of a perfectionist like I am, don't be. Get it finished and put it to use, warts and all. You can spend a little time fixing blemishes which is a useful skill all on it's own, but don't obsess over them. If the flaws bother you enough, you can make a better one in the future (you won't) when you have time (you won't). For the very rare instances where you do, you'll still have benefited from making the first one because you'll have an idea what to do differently for the second one.
Speaking to my own experiences, the only corded portable tools I use on a semi-regular basis these days are the Sawzall and Rotary Hammer SDS drill for any concrete. I don't like the hammer function on the cordless drill unless it's a small hole in soft brick. Cordless for me for everything else including the circular saw. I have both Makita Li-Ion 14.4 volt (drill and impact driver, voltage now mostly obsolete) which I use in the house and workshop and they are my best tool purchases ever (still using the original batteries 8 or 9 years later and they have had a lot of use) and the old DeWalt 18 volt NiCad which I use outside, for grinding metal and under the car. I have quite a few DeWalt 18 volt tools that I rather like but the old Ni-Cad batteries ****. I was down to my last one so I recently bought some backwards-compatible Li-Ion batteries with a new charger on ebay. Does anyone still sell cordless tools that aren't Li-Ion? If so, stay far away from them!
I *love* the portable hangable fluorescent lights for both the Makita and DeWalt, they are invaluable to me. Either brand goes for hours and hours and hours. Wonderful under the car or when I have to shut the electrical panel off.
So yeah, I'm going to say go cordless. The other nice thing about them is that they stop as soon as you let off the trigger. Much safer, especially if you don't have someone to show you how to use the tool. Circular saw kickback will happen as you learn and it can be nasty and you won't forget the first time a drill "grabs" and smashes your fingers and/or tries to knock you right off a ladder. You still have to be careful with cordless since they're very powerful these days, but they are more forgiving in terms of injuries IMO.
I don't even use my (cheap but gets the job done) compound miter saw all that much unless I have a lot of pieces to cut, I use my cordless Dewalt circular saw and Speed Square much more often but I'm not framing whole buildings here. I think I use the miter saw to cut ABS pipe more than wood these days and I don't do that much plumbing. If I had the space to set up a dedicated cutting station for the miter saw? I'd use the space for more support to the left of the blade on the table saw. To cut plywood, I use the circ saw with a 4' level and a couple of clamps, set up on sawhorses and a sacrificial piece of OSB or ply. I love cutting outside and not having to deal with the dust. Check out Mattias Wandel's sawhorse video on Youtube:
He also has a simple workbench he makes. Your first workbench should be simple because you need one right away, and you'll need one to make a fancy workbench in the future, if you ever decide to.
Also agree with one of the other guys in this thread about keeping several smaller tape measures around. Keep one in the car too. Oh, and that's another thing I like about the cordless circ saw, I can cut lumber down in the parking lot if need be.
You can rent expensive, specialized tools that you'll only use once. Or buy them used and sell them for about what you paid for them.
Safety glasses. I hate getting s___ in my eyes and debris will fly past 5 other people to lodge in my eyes. I keep pairs of them all over the place. I use goggles over them when grinding metal. A respirator for dust and cartridges for nasty chemicals. A pain to wear but it beats coughing up black stuff.
