I started in exactly your position. Minimal funds to get into the hobby. I owned a DSLR and a few lenses. Started taking long exposure from a static tripod. (up to 20sec exposures).
I built a Barn door tracker and powered it with an arduino and stepper motor.
This produced some half decent results although my polar alignment was never great. (Pics of my first images with the barn door tracker attached.) I posted these pics on the forums and here is the link for details.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...d.php?t=157418
I've since upgraded to an HEQ5Pro mount and not looked back.
The hardest thing is to know how far you want to go with this hobby. If your only interested in widefield imaging then something like a Star adventurer mount for $400-$500 would be the way to go. (I'm still considering getting one for portability over the heq5).
If you are going to get more serious in the future then a HEQ5pro or better mount will probably be needed.
But I'd definately start at the barn door tracker. It's simple and costs about 20 bucks and a few hours to make.
This is a calculator to help you work out rotations per minute etc depending on threads per inch.
https://blarg.co.uk/astronomy/barn-d...ker-calculator.