I spend 1% of my income and 50% of my free time model building. I budget both the same way.
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That approach will slow down and impede your learning curve with model building. It is highly inefficient. Good interaction is also contributing on a forum.
Most of getting better at modeling is discovering information you didn’t know you needed. It’s highly unlikely you’ll ask or get answers to all of the relevant questions.
Much of that happens by reading, commenting, asking questions and discussion. Interaction on the forum beyond your own topics will accelerate the learning process.
This was my introduction to learning a better way to model. It’s pretty old but still an excellent starting point. Modeling Tanks and Military Vehicles by Sheperd Paine New copies are less than $20 and used copies are less than $10. The book provides an excellent framework to use thinking about how to build models.
Likewise, Night Shift and Plasmo both provide an incredible about of information to learn about quality model building. They will share information that’s valuable to modeling you may never think to ask about.
Ultimately the right answers can only be determined for you or anyone else by model building and seeing what works best for you.
Dedication of half hour a day to work on a model will help also. Not reading or researching but actually cutting parts free, cleaning the parts up and gluing together.
Many to Tamiya’s older armor kits are ideal for this as they are low part count and simple to build.
Also regarding being interested in a model project. My focus is good for about 100 hours total then I get bored and want to move on… 100 hours includes research, planning building everything. I know the clock is on when I pick up a project. Picking simple easy to build kits greatly helps me with getting projects started and finished within that 100 hours. That may be worth considering to if your time and motivation have limits.
Simple Tamiya armor models are my favorites 
Best of luck.
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This is great advice. The only way to learn is to interact with those who have been there and done that. Often you can learn from others mistakes, before you make the same mistake.
Buying old Tamiya is also excellent advice. For example their old 1970’a stug IV is very low parts count, fits perfect, and best of all can be had for like $15 so if you mess up, it’s not a $100 loss. I find kits like this are great for trying new techniques. I’m much braver on something I spent $15 and 20 hours on than something I spent $80 and 100 hours on
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I spend 90% of my money on women, whiskey, and motorcycles. The rest I just waste.
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Fixed that for you
@SdAufKla Thank you for your comment. I’m definitely not as long in the hobby as probably most of the people that are on this forums. But I’m doing this hobby since I was young. Can’t remember when exactly.
And I’m still learning a lot and there are a lot of things to discover. But I guess that is one of the things I like this hobby for. Also the challenges and difficulties. You have to think and being active on here, because I have literally no other medium to discuss and interact about scale modeling. Is great.
@BGT That is advice that I can apply to more things than just my scale modeling hobby. I can also use it as a reminder why I did stop and give up on computer gaming for some years I believe now. Thanks for providing this advice.
@steviecee I used to borrow a lot of books from my local and other libraries. Especially in my youth years I literally borrowed every book I could about the Ancient Egyptians. And I did know a lot about that topic. People came to me to ask questions. And I most of the time knew the answers to the questions. Same thing did go up for computers, but most of the books in the Library were already outdated. Also did study Ancient Greeks and Romans. Now I’m not a member anymore of the library, because they hadn’t the books I was interested in. Most of it they said was to specific and special, so they didn’t had the books in their collection. Also did fill in request forms to get the books in their collections, but most of the time no luck. Now I’m not depending on library anymore, I’m buying my own books and magazines. And I like that, because I now have my own personal collections. And the best thing is, I can buy whatever I want that I find interesting. Because it is my collection and my money. 
I’m considering to also sign up on maybe some kind of study book forum or something. Could also be lots of fun.
@SSGToms I’m also treating my time as some kind of currency. I’m seeing my time as valuable, but I’m finding it difficult to get the most out of it. That is why I’m at some point planning to purchase some books about time management. Just a topic that came up in me. And that looks interesting to me.
@Armor_Buff Thank you for the advice. I will be trying to be widening my fields of vision and to be more active on others their topics as well. And thanks for giving these sources of information, I’m loving it to read books. I’m not really that guy that sits hours in front of his computer only searching for one specific bit of information that could be leading to other sources of information. I rather get a book for that instead. Much easier.
Not sure what to add else to this reply, maybe I come later on something to add to this. In that case I just post a new reply to this reply.
@Mead93 I will look and see what I can do with this.
Thanks again everyone for replying, with your help I’m getting better everytime. 
Kinda reminds me of a line I use to hear when I lived in WV: “WV…where we raise fast women and pretty horses”… 
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