Make sure your favorite Pokemon isnt Charizard, Eevee or gengar
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Eeveelutions I agree. For just Eevee though, you can fill a 360 pocket binder of Eevee in English and Japanese 90% of the way with all cards under $10. Probably 98% full for cards under $100.
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who stops at 90%
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Only losers do. Ha!
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Find a common Pokemon or an artist you like and collect that in a binder. Super rewarding and satisfying collection goal while also completely attainable for most. Iāve found that going through a collection goal like this tends to open my eyes to other artists, art styles, other Pokemon, or eras that I was never interested in before!
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Its a marathon, not a race. Collections donāt have to be built overnight
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Non 1st edition too
My initial reaction to this question was to make a joke, but there have already been some goods ones made, so I will write out a real response.
Come in knowing that we are at a peak hype cycle. Itās a very engaging time to collect, or even just observe whatās going on. Know that whatever pullback there is, it will not effect all cards equally. Some will go down, some will stay the same, some will go up.
Independent of prices, Iād recommend writing out what your goals are. That may be a 1st Edition Base Set collection in PSA 10. That may be a complete set of snap promos. It may also be a binder full of sets that are especially impactful to you for whatever reason.
I would then go through, and see if those goals are financially reasonable for you. Maybe they are, maybe they arenāt. You are coming in without price memory that is actually a hindrance to enjoying your collection that many here are faced with. You are at an advantage from that perspective!
If your goals are financially within your reach today, start plodding away. Most will recommend picking up the most expensive cards in a set first to get them out of the way. Get past that āstopperā card. I recommend a bit of a hybrid approach, especially when prices are relatively high, as they are now, and snagging some low to mid tier cards from your goal, and see how you feel. If it is indeed the goal for you, then Iād recommend picking up the biggies.
If your goals are not financially within your reach, then I recommend thinking about why feel those goals would be meaningful to you. Was it the history of the release of the cards? The nostalgia of that set? It looks cool and activates neurons? There are so, so, so many cards out there, and they come in all conditions. Itās very possible you can adjust that goal and still get a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment out of collecting.
Finally, please donāt spend too much time on social media. E4 is great, and is really the only social media I participate in, collecting or otherwise, but even that is good in doses. There are many great people here who you can share your collecting wins and loses with, which will likely improve the fulfillment you receive from collecting. I know that I plodded along and didnāt enjoy collecting nearly as much before I joined E4, and think that was because I didnāt have a community of like minded idiots people to share it with.
Best of luck new collector 
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People love to give unsolicited advice to strangers on the internet about what to collect, especially for the past 6 years where everyone is priced out of everything. If youāre priced out of all the things you actually want to collect and you need to get internet advice about what to enjoy now, then Iād recommend a heart-to-heart with yourself about partaking at all. If thatās no hindrance, more power to you
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In a similar vein, people will extol their side interests as if they were their main interests. Youāll hear about the life-altering wonders of $1 singles and all the ways in which they can be arranged, meanwhile their instagram and everyday conversations revolve around expensive cards graded 8-10, vintage sealed, uncut sheets, expensive binders, expensive errors and expensive non-tcg. Why? Because thatās what sustains them in the hahbee, the modern Water Energy variant binder is a side order. Itās easy to get lost in the sauce on both sides of the advice spectrum. Of course, the solution, like with everything else, is to make your own decisions
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Is terapeak different from the ebay research tab, that has 3 years of history? The research tab is open to everyone afaik
Minimize and focus what you collect.
- Donāt be a set completer. Complete the 1-2 sets you really like if you want, but each set you complete has a space, time and money cost. You have to buy a bunch of garbage just for completing the set, like modern reverses, ugly arts from an artist/species, 10 variants of the same card. As time goes on, the quality of available cards from past sets, even modern, gets increasingly worse, so you have to deal with getting wrongly conditioned cards from tcgplayer etc.
- Donāt accumulate binders. Realistically, you arenāt going to open and enjoy binders frequently, but YMMV.
- Donāt accumulate graded cards. Itās hard to display more than a couple dozen slabs at once. There are lots of holos/illustration rares/secret rares in each set. Prioritize what you like, it may be better to collect a subset in higher grade. Complete sets will sit in boxes/vaults.
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Looks like they rebranded terapeak and now itās open to all, nice catch
Damn, Iāve committed every cardinal sin in your post 
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some of yāall just using this to vent your frustrations and try to pass it off as advice
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Its legetimate though. āI got priced out of PSA 10 set, so donāt go for a PSA 10 set.ā
Its freakin awesome advice to someone starting in 2026 who doesnāt know that $3,000 card used to be $200 not too long ago. Otherwise they would think this is normal.
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This has always been the way!!!
Start in about 5 years when all the hype goes down and people stop giving a shit about pokemon. That way all the cards you actually care about will be a 10th of their price.
Imagine if you gave someone this advice in 2021.
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Did you just teleport in from the year 1999?