The need for stationary jointing and planing hardware seems to be the major obstacle to doing decent woodworking on a low budget. The cheaper machines have low maximum widths and low lifespans, produce fairly low-quality results and aren't even all that cheap. For a really solid and versatile planer/thicknesser (alias jointer/planer) it seems you'll have to spend a low-five-figure sum if you buy new from a respected manufacturer. And trying to plane well by hand instead is quite a serious adventure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojeul33vXL4
A cheaper option would be using a benchtop thickness planer (about $600 for a good one) and use a jack plane to flatten the other side. Ie. flatten one side by hand (doesn't have to be perfect finish, just mostly flat with no twist or cup), run it through the planer, then flip it around and plane to final thickness. It's a pretty sweet spot when it comes to tool costs, space requirements and time investment.
Jointing and planing is something I have an issue with being a primarily hand tool woodworker. I don't have a proper shop space so I can't be buying stationary equipment. I do visit some shops occasionally, and for my next project I intend to go to a shop with good machines and do all my jointing, planing and dimensioning. It's not very convenient (far away) or cheap (hourly billing), but it'll work.
For my previous project, I hand planed some of the work pieces all the way from rough lumber and it wasnt't that bad. But it did take a bit of time and my end result wasn't perfectly flat, square and parallel. But it worked out and the pieces were too small to go through a jointer and a planer anyway.
Buying pre-dimensioned lumber is also an option but a very expensive one. And wood doesn't like to stay flat when humidity and conditions change, so a minor touch up might be required.
Every decent woodworker eventually builds a woodworking bench. Having the top flat is critical, it becomes a reference surface. You put a warped board down on it and you instantly know that it is warped (obvious but I didn't get it until I had a flat bench).
I've had very decent results with a DW735 and Ridgid JP601, which all in you would have for $1,200 today. I was fortunate in that I got them both on clearance for about $200 each. It is frustrating being limited to 6" boards, but a sled would be an alternative for that. You don't need $10,000 to get good results.
+1. And you can look on craigslist, I've gotten some good stuff there pretty cheap (Stanley #8 for $10, fantastic instance of this tool, I wouldn't sell it for $500. Delta 8 inch jointer, the parallelogram one, for $900).
For table saws, the old craftsmen that look like this:
