You can find money if you know how to look

"Finding money" is an incredibly different story than "finding the money for (and the connections to buy from) a meteorite as old as our planet, and a part of a creature that's been extinct for hundreds of thousands of years.

I like to consider myself an incredibly resourceful person, and I (in my thirties) would not be able to find where to procure these items, especially not without literally destroying my entire life savings.

These items aren't stuff that any random teen would be able to legally procure with just interest and tenacity. This would literally take connections and money.