no worries, i didn't take your "how much" question as one regarding incomes. i just mean that to answer it is a little dicey. if i say $3500", does that make me sound pompous? is it just a factual tidbit? or even, to some "small time"
i'm saying money is a necessary evil.
re: "buyers". i don't think you understand what i am saying. that's my fault. and to an extent what a collector" is may be unclear.
"collecting" books does not require much money. putting together a world class collection that gets sold at sothebey's in fifty years for record prices also does not (necessarily) require much money.
and being a "buyer" instead of a collector doesn't require much cash.
here's the thing.
you can buy a thousand books for a dollar each and have an instant shelf full of old books. this is not a collection by definition (the book-world definition). it is a bunch of books. a library, maybe.
you can hit the lottery, and decide tomorrow to hire a dealer to purchase the finest example of every Steven King first edition for you. this may be a collection, but it doesn't make you a collector (except in the vanity-sense of the word).
or, you can buy the same Steven King Novels over the course of a period of time, maybe even a lifetime. you can do it for a dollar each even, by scouting them out and educating yourself about them, and finding them where dealers find them (dealers don't pay top dollar either). and THEN you'll have a collection and be a collector.
and it can be done on minimal cash. some of the best collections of children's literature and ephemera (say, still printed materials, just not books) were put together because the collectors had no money. they collected stuff that no one collected.
hell, peter pan? alice in wonderland? that stuff is for KIDS, right? ...that was the mindest of serious collectors at the time.
so, a woman who has no interest in books printed before 1500, or Joseph Conrad signed "Complete Works" editions, or early american colonial imprints, well, she decides to focus on kid's books. she discovers the stuff no one cares about (at the time): what variant binding colors there are, what mistakes the first impression had in it, what the illustrator did with his inscribed copy from the author, etc. etc
and that stuff is (was) cheap. because "serious" collectors weren't interested. fast forward fifty years, and there's an exhibition, and this woman's collection is so fantastic, and so complete, and documented and scholarly, that collectors and dealers take notice. and suddenly, "juvenile literature" is a thing, and it's taken seriously.
my buddy and i both collect very specific binders, both in operation in the US about a hundred years ago. esoteric stuff. but there is a large culture of collectors and dealers and "book people" for whom this stuff is interesting.
if i were to mention his binder or mine, it would be doxxing in a sense, because anything on the web connected to them would out one of us pretty much.
so... nother long winded post.
but, don't assume that not having cash is a reason to not collect. you are a collector the moment you have two books on the same shelf which have some relationship to each other, or some overriding connection.
stuff bought randomly at a book sale is great (it's how we all start out). but you realize it isn't THAT book you wanted. you just wanted A book.
stay within your budget. we all have a budget. but don't suspend your collecting because of it. heck, i would say i have maybe only fifty decent books. and of those only a dozen really good ones. and of those, maybe three that are great or "world class". but i have so much information, info that didn't exist and which was unknown, that it is a part of the collection. and it bolsters it and gives the collection value (sure, cash wise, but i mean w/r/t to book history, bibliography, etc.). so you can still collect that way, or be a collector.
the only difference between a book buyer/hoarder and a collector is their understanding of the subject.
the best way to NOT spend money is to educate yourself first about the area you like to collect. this will make you a literal expert. and you can